office had engendered, and the high esteem which I
felt for his personal character and statesmanlike habits,
would render me anxious to co–operate with him in a
public emergency, when it was of the utmost national
importance that a government should be formed. I
said, however, that I could give him no answer till I
had had an opportunity of communicating with friends
of mine; but that one thing I was prepared to say,
which was this, that in the present state of our foreign
relations I should be unwilling to belong to any
government in which the conduct of our foreign affairs
did not continue in the hands of the Earl of Clarendon,
who had shown great ability and success in the management
of the department confided to his care. The
communication as stated by Lord Derby was made a
little before two o'clock. I communicated as soon as I
could with my right honourable friends; I communicated
also with that noble friend of mine upon whose
judgment I place the most implicit reliance, and whose
opinion would guide me in every important transaction
of my life—I mean the Marquis of Lansdowne; and the
result was, that I wrote to the noble lord to say that I
did not think that by accepting the proposal he had
done me the honour to make me I could give to his
government that strength he was pleased to think my
acceptance of office would confer. It was remarked
as somewhat unexplained, that that intention of
mine was quoted by my right honourable friend the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his answer given at
a later hour to Lord Derby. The fact is, that that
opinion of mine was formed upon a full consideration,
and communicated to my right hon. friend before he
wrote in reply to the offer that was made to him also,
declining to join the administration. That endeavour
made, her Majesty was pleased to call upon my noble
friend the member for the city of London, and to charge
him with the task of forming an administration. My
noble friend did me the honour, immediately after that
command was given, to come to me and ask me to
accord him my assistance. My great personal regard
and esteem for my noble friend, the perfect similarity
of political opinions which existed between us, led me
at once, and without hesitation, to say that, feeling
impressed with the full importance of the crisis in which
we stood, any assistance it was in my power to give him
should, without any hesitation, be given. And if he
had succeeded in forming an administration, I should
have felt the greatest alacrity in giving him any
assistance it might be in my power to render. That
attempt did not succeed, and it was the pleasure of her
Majesty then to commission me to endeavour to form a
government, if I thought I could succeed in submitting
to her a list of administration likely to command the
confidence of parliament and adequately to carry on the
public service of the state. I received that command
about six o'clock on the Sunday evening, and I was
fortunate enough to be able, on the Tuesday afternoon,
to report to her Majesty that I had obtained the
assistance of such colleagues as I thought her Majesty
might fairly approve, as answering the description she
had besn pleased to give in the commands she gave me
to make the attempt. The government was then
formed, and I trust that it contains sufficient
administrative ability, sufficient political sagacity,
sufficient liberal principles, sufficient patriotism and
determination to omit no effort to fulfil the duties
which each member has undertaken, and to justify me in
appealing to this house, to parliament and to the country,
for such support as men may be considered entitled to
receive who, in a period of great difficulty and of national
emergency, have determined to undertake the responsibility
of endeavouring to carry on the business of the
country. Lord Palmerston then gave some account of the
Measures Contemplated by the Government. In undertaking
the task to which her Majesty had called him,
he stated that the first difficulty which stared him in
the face was Mr. Roebuck's committee, to which he had
the same objection now that he expressed in the course
of the debate, and he hoped the house would be induced
at least to suspend the appointment of that committee,
and if they did so, he would pledge the honour of the
government that they would themselves undertake the
inquiry. He proposed to amalgamate the office of
secretary of war with the office of secretary for the
war department, and to transfer the discipline of the
artillery under the control of the commander–in–chief,
and the civil department of the ordnance under the
secretary for the war department. The first lord of
the admiralty had established a board for the
superintendence of the transport service. The government
proposed to send out a commission of three civilians to
examine into the sanitary condition of the camp, the
hospitals, and the ships in the Crimea and the Black
Sea. Lord Raglan had been instructed to send to
Constantinople for a corps of labourers, whose sole duty
it would be to cleanse the camp from filth and offal.
Another commission, at the head of which was Sir John
Macneill, was going out to examine and report upon
the commissariat department, with full power to remedy
defects, and to reorganise the whole service. General
Simpson was about to go out as chief of the staff—an
office which had not before existed in the British army
—and would have full power over the adjutant–general
and quartermaster–general's departments. The hospital
at Smyrna was to be placed entirely under civilian
medical men, and civilian surgeons would be invited for
other places. But the secretary for war was going to
remodel entirely the medical department at home. His
noble friend was about to introduce a bill into the other
house enabling the Queen to enlist men of more advanced
years, and for shorter periods than were at present
allowed. A land transport service corresponding to the
old waggon train had already been organised, and would
at once be set to work. If the house would wait and
see the effect of these changes, he was satisfied that the
results would be known in a much shorter period than
the report of a committee. But while they were
making every effort for the vigorous prosecution of the
war, they felt it no less their duty to secure as soon as
possible an honourable peace; and with that view
the government had obtained the services of Lord John
Russell to proceed to the approaching congress at
Vienna as plenipotentiary, believing that his appointment
was the best pledge they could give both of their
earnest desire for peace and of their determination
that the peace should be a safe and an honourable one.
My noble friend, I believe, will proceed in the early
part of next week. Of course, he will pass through
Paris, to have a confidential communication with the
French government. He will also pass by Berlin, in
order to communicate with the government of Prussia;
and whatever delays these visits may interpose to his
arrival at Vienna, I think the time he spends in these
capitals will not be misplaced. Now, sir, if we should
succeed in obtaining peace upon terms which would
afford a security for the future against the recurrence of
those disturbances of the peace of Europe which have
led to the war in which we are engaged, we should think
that our first acts in undertaking the government will
be as satisfactory to the country as they will be satisfactory
to ourselves; but if we fail, why then I think that
the country will feel that there is no alternative but to
go on with the war; and I am convinced that this nation
will then with greater zeal, with greater alacrity, if possible,
than ever, give its support to a government which
having made every possible attempt to obtain peace,
should have failed in doing so, and is compelled to carry
on the war for the attainment of that peace—a war
which the sense and judgment of the country have
pronounced to be virtually indispensable and necessary.
We shall in that case throw ourselves upon the generous
spirit of parliament and the country; that generous
spirit I am confident we shall not ask for in vain. I am
sure that in that state of things all our minor differences
and mere party shades of distinction will vanish, that
men of all sides will feel that they are Englishmen, and
that they ought to support their country in its great
emergencies. I am confident we shall show the noble
and glorious spectacle that, as a free people and under a
constitutional government, there is a life, a spirit, an
energy, a power of endurance, and a vigour of action
which are vainly to be sought for under despotic rule or
under arbitrary sway. Lord Palmerston concluded by
moving that the Speaker do now leave the chair, and
resumed his seat amid loud cheers.—Mr. DISRAELI
reverted to the past ministerial interregnum for the