Sir Robert means to go with Mr Gladstone into all these details.
[Pageheading: LORD PALMERSTON'S JUSTIFICATION]
_Viscount Palmerston to Viscount Melbourne._[41]
MY DEAR MELBOURNE,--I return you with many thanks George Anson's letter, which was enclosed in yours of the 23rd, which I received just as we were setting off for this place. Pray, when next you write to George Anson, say how gratefully I appreciate the kind consideration on the part of H.R.H. Prince Albert, which suggested George Anson's communication. But I can assure you that although John Russell, in his Audience of the Queen, may inadvertently have overstated the terms in which he had mentioned to me what Her Majesty had said to him about my return to the Foreign Office, yet in his conversations with me upon that subject he never said anything more than is contained in George Anson's letter to you; and I am sure you will think that under all the circumstances of the case he could hardly have avoided telling me thus much, and making me aware of the impression which seemed to exist upon the Queen's mind as to the way in which other persons might view my return to the Foreign Office.
With regard to Her Majesty's own sentiments, I have always been convinced that Her Majesty knows me too well to believe for an instant that I do not attach the greatest importance to the maintenance, not merely of peace with all foreign countries, but of the most friendly relations with those leading Powers and States of the world with which serious differences would be attended with the most inconvenience. As to Peace, I succeeded, as the organ of Lord Grey's Government and of yours, in preserving it unbroken during ten years[42] of great and extraordinary difficulty; and, if now and then it unavoidably happened during that period of time, that in pursuing the course of policy which seemed the best for British interests, we thwarted the views of this or that Foreign Power, and rendered them for the moment less friendly, I think I could prove that in every case the object which we were pursuing was of sufficient importance to make it worth our while to submit to such temporary inconvenience. There never was indeed, during those ten years, any real danger of war except on three occasions; and on each of those occasions the course pursued by the British Government prevented war. The first occasion was just after the accession of the King of the French, when Austria, Russia, and Prussia were disposed and preparing to attack France, and when the attitude assumed by the British Government prevented a rupture. The second was when England and France united by a Convention to wrest the Citadel of Antwerp from the Dutch, and to deliver it over to the King of the Belgians.[43] If England had not then joined with France, Antwerp would have remained with the Dutch, or the attempt to take it would have led to a war in Europe. The third occasion was when Mehemet Ali's army occupied Syria, and when he was constantly threatening to declare himself independent and to march on Constantinople; while Russia, on the one hand, asserted that if he did so she would occupy Constantinople, and on the other hand, France announced that if Russia did so, she, France, would force the Dardanelles. The Treaty of July 1840, proposed and brought about by the British Government, and the operations in execution of that Treaty, put an end to that danger; and, notwithstanding what has often been said to the contrary, the real danger of war arising out of the affairs of Syria was put an end to, and not created by the Treaty of 1840.