John Russell, 2nd Earl Russell

“ Early in the following year, Lord John was raised to the peerage as Earl Russell of Kingston-Russell and Viscount Amberley and Ardsalla. ‘I cannot despatch,’ wrote Mr. Gladstone, ‘as I have just done, the Chiltern Hundreds for you, without expressing the strong feelings which even that formal act awakens. They are mixed, as well as strong; for I hope you will be repaid in repose, health, and the power of long-continuing service, for the heavy loss we suffer in the House of Commons. ”

“ He led the attack on the Tory Reform Bill of 1859. A reconciliation was then effected between the rival Whig leaders, and Lord John Russell consented to become foreign secretary in Lord Palmerston’s ministry (1860) and to accept an earldom (July 1861) . During the American War Earl Russell’s sympathies with the North restrained his country from taking sides in the contest, and he warmly sympathized with the efforts for the unification of Italy, but he was not equally successful in preventing the spoliation of Denmark. ”

“ Lady Blessington, who was at that time living abroad, states that Lord John came and dined with herself and the Earl, and the comments of so beautiful and accomplished a woman of fashion are at least worthy of passing record. ‘Lord John was in better health and spirits than when I remember him in England. He is exceedingly well read, and has a quiet dash of humour, that renders his observations very amusing. When the reserve peculiar to him is thawed, he can be very agreeable. ”

“ He accompanied that intimation, however, with another, pointedly contrasting with the "finality" declaration of Lord John Russell. The Earl disclaimed altogether the opinion that the Reform Act of 1831 "was a perfect system, incapable of improvement." "I do not, my lords, for a moment pretend to say that the system of representation introduced in 1831 was a perfect system, or incapable of improvement. I think that there may have arisen, and will arise in the course of time, abuses requiring change, and evils demanding a remedy ”

“ His conduct, nevertheless, afforded Lord John Russell an escape from an embarrassing situation. Becoming colonial secretary in 1846, he found himself everywhere confronted with arduous problems, which in the main he encountered with success. His administration formed an epoch. He was the first minister to proclaim that the colonies were to be governed for their own benefit and not for the mother-country’s; the first systematically to accord them self-government so far as then seemed possible; the first to introduce free trade into their relations with Great Britain and Ireland. ”

“ Ruskin, John, 165, 338.
Russell, Earl (Lord John) , his attitude in 1861, 98, 99, 105, 108, 117; in 1862, 110; in 1863, 144-154, 157; his opinion of Palmerston, 114; his political morality, 128, 129, 130, 131, 131, 132, 165; his attitude towards recognition, 131, 133, 134-143 ”

“ The rebellion in Canada was the first great incident in the new reign, and the Melbourne Cabinet met the crisis by proposals—which were moved by Lord John in the Commons, and adopted—for suspending the Canadian Constitution for the space of four years. The Earl of Durham, at the beginning of 1838, was appointed Governor-General with extraordinary powers, and he reluctantly accepted the diffi [111] cult post, trusting, as he himself said, to the confidence and support of the Government, and to the forbearance of those who differed from his political views. ”

“ Lord Grey had an opportunity at this crisis of infusing fresh vigour into his Ministry by raising to Cabinet rank men of progressive views who stood well with the country. Another course was, however, taken, for the Marquis of Conyngham became Postmaster-General, the Earl of Carlisle Privy Seal, whilst Lord Auckland went to the Admiralty, and Mr. Spring Rice became Colonial Secretary, and so the opportunity of a genuine reconstruction of the Government was lost. ”

“ Gladstone's first administration. His policy was the then accepted liberal policy. He withdrew the imperial troops from several foreign stations, especially in New Zealand and in Canada, leaving to the colonists themselves the task of providing for their own security, and his circular in reply to the proposal for a colonial conference in 1869 was discouraging to the colonies. Still, when Earl Russell moved for a commission on colonial policy (20 June 1870; see Hansard, Parl. Debates, ccii. 451) — a hostile motion — he defended himself successfully, and the motion was withdrawn. ”

“ Lord John Russell, who was spending the autumn in Scotland, was the first ‘responsible statesman’ to take decisive action, for whilst Peel, hampered by the vacillation and opposition of his colleagues, still hesitated, Russell took the world into his confidence in his historic ‘Edinburgh Letter,’ dated November 22, 1845, to his constituents in London. It was a bold and uncompromising declaration of policy, for the logic of events had at length convinced Lord John that any further delay was dangerous. ”

“ English policy alone has lent vitality to the war.
In the summer of 1861 Earl Russell publicly gave utterance to his celebrated sentence, that the North is fighting for empire, the South for independence. England now understands what the “independence” means. Mr. Forster, M.P. interpreted it well,—freedom of robbery, rape, murder, and lynch-law. The “empire” for which the Union fights, is simply its own country, vital to its national existence, not a distinct adjunct, such as to England is Canada, against which Earl Russell made war “for empire” in 1838. ”

“ The persons who now form the Congress of the United States were elected by the people or the States for the exact positions they hold. In any comparison between the two as to the direct derivation of their power from the people and the States, Congress has everything in its favor; Mr. Johnson, nothing. The immense power he enjoys, a power not merely greater than that of Queen Victoria, but greater than that of Earl Russell, the real British Executive, is the result not of design, but of accident. ”

“ But in early life he turned his attention to politics. He was a parliamentary reformer and a member of the Society of Friends of the People, to which Sheridan and Erskine, Rogers and Whitbread, Mackintosh and Grey belonged. Under the name of Lord John Russell he in 1788 entered the House of Commons as one of the members for Tavistock, in succession to Richard Rigby [q. v.] He sat for this constituency till 2 March 1802, when, on the death of his elder brother, Francis Russell, fifth duke [q. v.] ”

“ There, in old age, Lord Russell loved to wander with wife or child or friend, and there, through the loop-holes of retreat amid his books and flowers, he watched the great world, and occasionally sallied forth, so long as strength remained, to bear his part in its affairs. ”

“ Lord John Russell's career, during the last seven years, has ruined him in the public estimation. He has not attempted to govern by principle, but by expediency. He has never risen to the proud elevation of a British statesman—he has simply shown himself to be an unscrupulous party leader. Whether in office or out of it, his measures have uniformly been based upon considerations of Whig supremacy—not upon those [499] higher views of public policy which a Premier of Great Britain should entertain. ”

“ He declared that ‘there was no man in England whom he respected more in his public capacity, loved more in his private capacity, or from whom he had received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature than Lord John Russell.’ The compliment took Lord Russell by surprise ”

“ His easy nonchalance, sunny temper, and perfect familiarity with the ways of the world and the weaknesses of average humanity, gave him an advantage which Lord John, with his nervous temperament, indifferent health, fastidious tastes, shy and rather distant bearing, and uncompromising convictions, never possessed. Russell’s ethical fervour and practical energetic bent of mind divided him sharply from politicians who lived from hand to mouth, and were never consumed by a zeal for reform in one direction or another ”

“ From youth to age Lord John not merely possessed the pen of a ready writer, but employed it freely in history, biography, criticism, belles-lettres, and verse. His first book was published when George III. was King, and his last appeared when almost forty years of Queen Victoria’s reign had elapsed. The Liverpool Administration was in power when his biography of his famous ancestor, William, Lord Russell, appeared, and that of Mr. ”

“ He saw, beyond most of his contemporaries, the coming magnitude of the Empire, and he did his best to shape on broad lines and to far-reaching issues the policy of England towards her children beyond the seas. Lord John recognised in no churlish or half-hearted spirit the claims of the Colonies, nor did he stand dismayed by the vision of Empire. ‘There was a time when we might have stood alone,’ are his words. ‘That time has passed. We conquered and peopled Canada, we took possession of the whole of Australia, Van Dieman’s Land, and New Zealand. We have annexed India to the Crown. ”

“ For nearly four years after his retirement from office Lord John held an independent political position, and there is evidence enough that he enjoyed to the full [272] this respite from the cares of responsibility. He gave up his house in town, and the quidnuncs thought that they had seen the last of him as a Minister of the Crown, whilst the merchants and the stockbrokers of the City were supposed to scout his name, and to be ready to lift up their heel against him at the next election. ”

“ Peel, his most formidable rival on the floor of the Commons, hinted that Lord John Russell was small in small things, but, he added significantly that, when the issues grew great, he was great also. Everyone who looks at Lord John’s career in its length and breadth must admit the justice of such a criticism. ”

“ Good sense, a considerable power of discrimination, a highly cultivated mind, a great equality of temper, are the characteristics of Lord John Russell, and these peculiarly fit him for taking a distinguished part in public life.’ Lady Blessington adds that the only obstacle, in her opinion, to Lord John’s success lays in the natural reserve of his manners, which might lead people ‘to think him cold and proud.’ This is exactly what happened, and only those who knew Lord John intimately were aware of the delicate consideration for others which lurked beneath his somewhat frigid demeanour. ”

“ Lady Russell and her children received the Deputation. In the course of her reply to the address Lady Russell said that of all the ‘victories won by that great party to which in his later as in his earlier years Lord John had been inseparably attached,’ there was none dearer to his memory at that moment than that which they had called to remembrance. ‘It was a proud and a sad day,’ is the entry in Lady Russell’s journal. ”

“ Gladstone—The jubilee of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts—‘Punch’ on the ‘Golden Wedding’—Death—The Queen’s letter—Lord Shaftesbury’s estimate of Lord John’s career—His great qualities.
Peace with honour—a phrase which Lord John used long before Lord Beaconsfield made it famous—sums up the settled tranquillity and simple dignity of the life at Pembroke Lodge. No man was more entitled to rest on his laurels than Lord John Russell. ”

“ It will be clear that Lady John was never at any period of her life a leader of political society in the sense in which Lady Palmerston was. Lady John had neither the temperament, the inclination, nor the health required for such a rôle in the world of politics. Some are of opinion that Lord John Russell's position as a statesman suffered, that he allowed himself to be too much absorbed by his domestic affairs, and that the illnesses of his wife and the care of his young family weighed too heavily upon him. ”

“ Lord Russell replied, “he kept the honour of England very high; and I think that a great thing. [338] ”
‘The Imperialist sentiment was one of the deepest in his nature, and few things exasperated him more than the school which was advocating the surrender of India and the Colonies. “When I was young,” he once said to me, “it was thought the work of a wise statesman that he had turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age it seems to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a great empire into a small kingdom.” ”

“ Lord John Russell is deeply sensible of the embarrassment caused by the present state of public affairs. He will be ready, therefore, to do all in his power, as a member of parliament, to promote the settlement of that question which, in present circumstances, is the source of so much danger, especially to the welfare and peace of Ireland. Lord John Russell would have formed his ministry on the basis of a complete free trade in corn, to be established at once, without gradation or delay. ”

“ In the spring of 1864 Garibaldi lunched at Pembroke Lodge. It was a lovely sunny day, Richmond was en fête, the Park full of people, and the approach to Pembroke Lodge was lined by the school-children waving flags and cheering. Lady Russell recorded in her diary that they had much interesting conversation with him, and that there was simple dignity in every word he uttered.
On Palmerston's death in 1865 Earl Russell once again became Prime Minister. In June 1866 the Ministry were defeated, Russell resigned and was never again in office. The autumn and winter (1866-67) were spent in Italy. ”