annexation by Austria he earnestly protested) were trifles compared with the general upheaval of the ‘year of revolutions.’ Palmerston was not taken by surprise; he had foreseen sweeping changes and reforms, though hardly so general a movement as actually took place. In an admirable circular addressed in January 1848 to the British representatives in Italy, he urged them to impress upon the Italian rulers the dangerous temper of the times, and the risk of persistent obstruction of reasonable reforms. In this spirit he had sent Lord Minto in 1847 on a special mission to the sovereigns of Italy to warn and prepare them for the popular judgment to come; but the mission came too late; the ‘Young Italian’ party was past control, and the princes were supine or incapable. Palmerston's personal desire was for a kingdom of Northern Italy, from the Alps to the Adriatic, under Charles Albert of Sardinia, combined with a confederation of Italian states; and he was convinced that to Austria her Italian provinces were really a source of weakness—‘the heel of Achilles, and not the shield of Ajax.’ He was out in his reckoning for Italian independence by some ten years, but even he could not foresee the remarkable recuperative power of Austria, whose system of government (an ‘old woman,’ a ‘European China’) he abhorred, though he fully recognised the importance of her empire as an element in the European equilibrium. Throughout the revolutionary turmoil his sympathies were frankly on the side of ‘oppressed nationalities,’ and his advice was always exerted on behalf of constitutional as against absolutist principles; but, to the surprise of his detractors, he maintained a policy of neutrality in diplomatic action, and left each state to mend its affairs in its own way. ‘Every post,’ he wrote, ‘sends me a lamenting minister throwing himself and his country upon England for help, which I am obliged to tell him we cannot afford him.’ The chief exception to this rule was his dictatorial lecture to the queen of Spain on 16 March 1848, which was indignantly returned, and led to Sir H. L. Bulwer's dismissal from Madrid; but even here the fault lay less with the principal than with the agent (who was not instructed to show the despatch, much less to publish it in the Spanish opposition papers), though Palmerston's loyalty to his officer forbade the admission. Another instance of indiscreet interference was the permission given to the ordnance of Woolwich to supply arms indirectly to the Sicilian insurgents. Only the unmitigated brutalities of ‘Bomba’ could palliate such a breach of neutrality; but Palmerston's disgust and indignation were so widely shared by Englishmen that when he was brought to book in the commons, his defence, in ‘a slashing impudent speech’ (Greville, Journal, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 277), completely carried the house with him. His efforts in conjunction with France to mediate between Austria and Sardinia had little effect beyond procuring slightly better terms of peace for the latter; but the Marquis Massimo d'Azeglio's grateful letter of thanks (August 1849) showed how they were appreciated in Italy, and a result of this sympathy appeared later in the Sardinian contingent in the Crimean war.
The French revolution of February 1848 found no cold reception from Palmerston. ‘Our principles of action,’ he instructed Lord Normanby on 26 Feb., ‘are to acknowledge whatever rule may be established with apparent prospect of permanency, but none other. We desire friendship and extended commercial intercourse with France, and peace between France and the rest of Europe.’ He fully trusted Lamartine's sincerity and pacific intentions, and used his influence at foreign courts on his behalf. One result was seen in Lamartine's chilly reception of Smith O'Brien's Irish deputation; and the value of Palmerston's exertions in preventing friction between the powers and the French provisional government was warmly attested by the sagacious king of the Belgians, who stated (3 Jan. 1849) that this policy had assisted the French government in ‘a system of moderation which it could but with great difficulty have maintained if it had not been acting in concert with England.’
The rigours adopted by Austria in suppressing the rebellions in Italy and Hungary excited England's indignant ‘disgust,’ as Palmerston bade Lord Ponsonby tell Prince Schwarzenberg ‘openly and decidedly.’ When Kossuth and other defeated leaders of the Hungarian revolution, with over three thousand Hungarian and Polish followers, took refuge in Turkey in August 1849, the ambassadors of Austria and Russia demanded their extradition. On the advice of Sir Stratford Canning, supported by the French ambassador, the sultan declined to give up the refugees. The Austrian and Russian representatives at the Porte continued to insist in violent and imperious terms, and on 4 Sept. Prince Michael Radzivil arrived at Constantinople charged with an ultimatum from the tsar, announcing that the escape of a single refugee would be taken as a declaration of war. The Turkish government, in great alarm, sought counsel with
