militia bill, and resigned. They had long been tottering, and were glad once more to avail themselves of a pretext. The result of the division was a surprise to Palmerston, who had not intended to turn them out (to his brother, 24 Feb.; Lewis, Letters, p. 251).
During the 305 days of the first Derby administration Palmerston thrice refused invitations to join the conservative government. He rendered cordial aid, however, to Lord Malmesbury, the new foreign secretary (Malmesbury, Mem. i. 317), and on 23 Nov. 1852 he saved the government from defeat by an adroit amendment to Villiers's free-trade resolution; but the respite was short. On 3 Dec. they were beaten on Disraeli's budget, and resigned. In the coalition government under Aberdeen, Palmerston, pressed by Lords Lansdowne and Clarendon, took the home office, the post he had settled upon beforehand as his choice in any government (to his brother, 17 Nov. 1852). He did not feel equal to ‘the immense labour of the foreign office;’ and probably he did not care to run the chance of further repression, though he now stood ‘in better odour at Windsor’ (Greville, l.c. pt. iii. vol. i. p. 14). But before he joined the cabinet of the statesman whose foreign policy he had persistently attacked, he took care to ascertain that his own principles would be maintained. He proved an admirable home secretary, vigilant, assiduous, observant of details, original in remedies. Stimulated by Lord Shaftesbury, he introduced or supported various improvements in factory acts, carried out prison reforms, established the ticket-of-leave system and reformatory schools, and put a stop to intramural burials. He shone as a receiver of deputations, and got rid of many a troublesome interrogator with a good-humoured jest. On the question of parliamentary reform he was not in accord with Russell, and resigned on 16 Dec. 1853 on the proposals for a reform bill; but returned to office after ten days on the understanding that the details of the bill were still open to discussion. Another subject on which the cabinet disagreed was the negotiation which preceded the Crimean war. Palmerston was all for vigorous action, which, he believed, would avert war. Aberdeen, however, was tied by his secret agreement with the Emperor Nicholas, signed in 1844 (Malmesbury, Memoirs, i. 402), granting the very points at issue, and was constitutionally unequal to strong measures. Of Lord Clarendon, who early in the administration succeeded Russell at the foreign office, Palmerston had a high opinion, and supported him in the cabinet. Concession, he held, only led to more extortionate demands. ‘The Russian government has been led on step by step by the apparent timidity of the government of England,’ he told the cabinet, when pressing for the despatch of the fleets to the Bosporus in July 1853, as a reply to Russia's occupation of the principalities. He believed the tsar had resolved upon ‘the complete submission of Turkey,’ and was ‘bent upon a stand-up fight.’ ‘If he is determined to break a lance with us,’ he wrote to Sidney Herbert, 21 Sept., ‘why, then, have at him, say I, and perhaps he may have enough of it before we have done with him.’ It is curious, however, that the special act which provoked the declaration of war—the sending of the allied fleets to take possession of the Black Sea—was ordered by the cabinet during the interval of Palmerston's resignation. When war had been declared, and the troops were at Varna, Palmerston laid a memorandum before the cabinet (14 June 1854) in which he argued that the mere driving of the Russians out of the principalities was not a sufficient reprisal, and that ‘it seems absolutely necessary that some heavy blow should be struck at the naval power and territorial dimensions of Russia.’ His proposals were the capture of Sevastopol, the occupation of the Crimea, and the expulsion of the Russians from Georgia and Circassia. His plan was adopted by the cabinet, and afterwards warmly supported by Gladstone (Ashley, Life, ii. 300). No one then foresaw the long delays, the blunders, the mismanagement, and the terrible hardships of the ensuing winter. When things looked blackest there was a feeling that Palmerston was the only man, and Lord John Russell proposed that the two offices of secretary for war and secretary at war should be united in Palmerston. On Aberdeen's rejection of this sensible proposal, Lord John resigned, 23 Jan. 1855, sooner than resist Roebuck's motion (28 Jan.) for a select committee of inquiry into the state of our army in the Crimea. After two nights' debate the government were defeated by a majority of 157, and resigned on 1 Feb. 1855.
On the fall of the Aberdeen ministry Lord Derby attempted to form a government, and invited Palmerston to take the leadership of the House of Commons, which Disraeli was willing to surrender to him. Finding, however, that none of the late cabinet would go with him, Palmerston declined, engaging at the same time to support any government that carried on the war with energy, and sustained the dignity and interests of the country abroad. When both Lord Derby
