the French army, calling for the invasion of England as a nest of brigands and assassins. The irritation thereby produced in England, followed by the acknowledgment that the despatch of Count Walewski had perhaps been accepted in a too quiet manner, led to the fall of Lord Palmerston's government on the second reading of a bill intended to strengthen the law of conspiracy, which on the first reading had been carried by a very large majority. That the dangerous condition of affairs produced by these events did not develop into something graver, was mainly owing to the tact and judgment of Cowley. Walewski was induced by him to explain away the unfortunate expressions of his despatch, and to state that the addresses of the army had been published in the ‘Moniteur’ in ignorance of some of the expressions which they contained. British opinion, already partly satisfied by the fall of Lord Palmerston, had meanwhile had time to realise that the law of conspiracy did require strengthening; and the excitement in both countries gradually cooled down, after a ministerial explanation on 12 March 1858 in parliament and the presentation of a despatch from Cowley to Clarendon by Lord Malmesbury, who was now secretary of state. In this despatch he explained that, though he had not been charged to make any official communication to the French government, he had been enabled by Lord Clarendon's private instructions ‘to place before the French government the views of her majesty's government far more fully, and I cannot but believe far more satisfactorily, than would have been the case had my language been clothed in far more official garb’ (Martin, Life of the Prince Consort, iv. 196–8; Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, pp. 418–30; Hansard, Parl. Debates, new ser. vol. clix.)
In February 1859 Cowley was charged with a highly confidential mission to Vienna, in the hope of being able to arrange a mediation in regard to the differences between France and Austria (cf. Parl. Papers, 1859, Lord Cowley to Lord Malmesbury, 1 Jan. 1859; Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, pp. 457–62, 469–473). The mission was, however, foredoomed to failure, as the war party had got the upper hand in Paris (Martin, iv. 391, 404; Greville, 2nd ser. ii. 223). Immediately after the signature of the preliminaries of peace between the two belligerents at Villafranca, the mysterious negotiations which followed placed a severe strain on the abilities and tact of the British ambassador in Paris. Public opinion on the British side of the Channel complained of the enormous naval and military preparations which continued on the French side, and asked against whom they were now intended; while on the French side complaint was made of the constantly increasing mistrust displayed by their old Crimean ally. The volunteer movement, initiated in 1859, was the outward manifestation of British anxiety at the continental situation. The peace of Villafranca had practically left the questions which had caused the war between France and Austria unsettled and open. The wishes of Italy herself as to her future had not been consulted, and the whole peninsula was rapidly sinking into a state of anarchy. The emperor grasped at the idea of a congress to settle the situation which he had created but was unable to terminate, and thereby hoped to be able to free himself from the almost hopeless imbroglio into which his policy had drifted. But it soon appeared that, among other pledges, he had given an undertaking at Villafranca to the emperor of Austria not to press such a proposal. He suggested, however, that a proposal to the same effect should come from London, in which case he promised to support it. It was Cowley's painful duty to suggest in diplomatic language that such a course was one which ‘honour forbade Great Britain to undertake’ (Martin, v. 475). In language of mingled firmness and courtesy he proceeded to point out how impossible the constant shiftings of the imperial policy made it for his government to establish any permanent hold on the good will of the English people. He dwelt more particularly on ‘his majesty's sudden intimacy with Russia after the Crimean war; his sudden quarrel with Austria; the equally sudden termination of the war, which made people suppose he might wish to carry it elsewhere; the extraordinary rapidity with which the late armaments had been made; the attention which had been devoted to the imperial navy, its increase, and the report of the naval commission, which showed plainly that the augmentation was directed against England;’ but England, he insisted, could never allow her naval supremacy to be weakened or doubted. ‘Let the emperor appeal,’ he said, ‘to the common-sense of the English people by facts rather than by words, and he would soon see common-sense get the better of suspicion’ (Lord Cowley to Lord J. Russell, 7 Aug. 1859).
A serious feature of the situation was the distrust which the conduct of the emperor inspired in the two leading statesmen of England, Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. The suggestion that Savoy and Nice should be surrendered to France, and that the surrender should be recognised as the price of French consent to the annexa-
