Then there came a change in the Government. In May, 1812, Mr. Percival was murdered in the lobby of the House of Commons, and Lord Liverpool became Prime Minister. Under him there came a period of so great a glory for England that the weakness of his administration has been forgotten in the military annals of the country. But Lord Palmerston held his place as Secretary at War till 1827, and, on the death of Lord Liverpool, he came into the Cabinet. That such a man as Lord Liverpool should have been head of the Government for fifteen years is not more wonderful than that such another as Lord Palmerston should during the same long period have filled a subordinate office under him. And during this time Waterloo had taken place, and the occupation of Paris. But our concern is here with the subordinate, and not with the Prime Minister. He had at last been elected by the University of Cambridge in 1812, and was re-elected in 1818, 1820, and 1825. Very little is heard of him during the whole of this period as a public man, and yet it was by his mouth that the taxes were suggested by which the enormous war estimates and foreign subsidies of 1813, 1814, and 1815 were supplied. He seems to have submitted tamely to whatever Lord Liverpool proposed, and to have considered that, if he did his duty according to his own theory in his own office, he need not trouble his head with the political feelings of other members of the Government. He contested with Sir David Dundas and the Duke of York the question of the power and supremacy which was invested in them as Commanders-in-Chief, and in himself as Secretary of War, with a determination of purpose quite worthy of the future Foreign Secretary. On these occasions neither did the Commander-in-Chief nor the Secretary at War gain any victory, the Prime Minister of the day feeling himself to be too weak to decide against either disputant; but Palmerston seems to have held his own and to have well maintained the prestige and influence of his office.
When the name of “Cupid” was first given to him I am unable to learn, but it was probably during this period, and tells a tale only of the sort of life which he then led. He was the “enfant gâté” of society; but he was not “spoiled” as regarded his official and parliamentary duties. He was called “Cupid,” and enjoyed a peculiar popularity in all assemblies in which fashion held the sway. Men seemed to believe in him, and women too, as having a position peculiarly his own.