Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria

DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT

Piccadilly, 19th February 1858.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and is sorry to have to inform your Majesty that the Government were beat this evening on Mr Milner Gibson's Amendment by a majority of 19, the numbers being for his Amendment, 234, and against it 215.

Mr Milner Gibson began the Debate by moving his Amendment in a speech of considerable ability, but abounding in misrepresentation, which nevertheless produced a marked effect upon the House. Mr Baines followed, but only argued the Bill without replying to Mr Gibson's speech. This was remarked upon by Mr Walpole, who followed him, and who said that though he approved of the Bill he could not vote for reading it a second time until Count Walewski's despatch had been answered. Mr MacMahon supported the Amendment, as did Mr Byng. Sir George Grey, who followed Mr Walpole, defended the Bill and the course pursued by the Government in not having answered Count Walewski's despatch until after the House of Commons should have affirmed the Bill by a Second Reading. Mr Spooner remained steady to his purpose, and would vote against the Amendment, though in doing so he should differ from his friends. Lord Harry Vane opposed the Amendment, as interfering with the passing of the Bill, and Mr Bentinck took the same line, and replied to some of the arguments of Mr Milner Gibson. Mr Henley said he should vote for the Amendment. The Lord Advocate made a good speech against it. Mr Gladstone spoke with his usual talent in favour of the Amendment, and was answered by the Attorney-General in a speech which would have convinced men who had not taken a previous determination. He was followed by Mr Disraeli, who seemed confident of success, and he was replied to by Viscount Palmerston, and the House then divided.

It seems that Lord Derby had caught at an opportunity of putting the Government in a minority. He saw that there were ninety-nine Members who were chiefly of the Liberal Party, who had voted against the Bill when it was first proposed, and who were determined to oppose it in all its stages. He calculated that if his own followers were to join those ninety-nine, the Government might be run hard, or perhaps be beaten, and he desired all his friends to support Mr Milner Gibson; on the other hand, many of the supporters of the Government, relying upon the majority of 200, by which the leave to bring the Bill in had been carried, and upon the majority of 145 of last night, had gone out of town for a few days, not anticipating any danger to the Government from Mr Gibson's Motion, and thus an adverse division was obtained. Moreover, Count Walewski's despatch, the tone and tenor of which had been much misrepresented, had produced a very unfavourable effect on the mind of members in general, and there was a prevailing feeling very difficult to overcome, that the proposed Bill was somehow or other a concession to the demand of a Foreign Government. The Cabinet will have to consider at its meeting at three o'clock to-morrow what course the Government will have to pursue.

Mr Milner Gibson had found a seat at Ashton-under-Lyne.

The Conspiracy Bill aimed at making conspiracy to murder a felony, instead of, as it had previously been, a misdemeanour, and leave had been given by a large majority to introduce it; but when Count Walewski's despatch to Count de Persigny came to be published, the feeling gained ground that the Government had shown undue subservience in meeting the representations of the French Ambassador. The despatch had not actually been answered, although verbal communications had taken place. The opposition to the Bill was concerted by Lord John Russell and Sir James Graham; see Parker's Sir James Graham, vol. ii. p. 236, and the observation of the Prince, post, p. 268. The purport of the Amendment was to postpone any reform in the criminal law till the French despatch had been replied to.

Footnote 6: See Ashley's Life of Lord Palmerston, vol. ii. p. 146.