Aliortllanton

Nothing more authentic than appeared last week on the causes and mode of Lord Palmerston's leaving the Cabinet has been vouchsafed this week.

Concerning the future foreign policy of the Government, however, there has appeared a programme, evidently with "authority." The Globe of Saturday evening was Made the medium of the following ex- plicit and satisfactory statement. " It would be a great mistake to suppose that because there has been a change in the Foreign Office there will be a change in the Foreign Policy. of this country. Still greater a mistake would it be to suppose that Foreign Powers have influenced the change of men that has happened, or would cause the change of measures that is conjectured. Most extravagant of all is the supposition that England would abet the claims of the Elder or Younger branch of the House of Bourbon against the existing Government of France, recognized as it is by the great mass of the French nation.

"The policy of the Government has been English ; it will continue to be so. It has been directed to the maintenance of peace ; it will continue to be so.

" When foreign countries have successfully established constitutional go- vernment, they have received the moral support of England ; they will re- ceive in future the same sympathy, and the same moral support. " But if other nations choose to live under a different form of government, placing more power in the Executive, or giving greater control over the Executive, this country will always respect national institutions. "A policy so simple and so just ought not to excite enmity or to require concealment. It is consistent with a respect for the 'rights, and a desire for the prosperity of all nations."

But while nothing has appeared which can be received as more au- thentic than the explanations of the Times last week, there have appeared some "revelations" of a more explicit character. The Standard of Tues- day quoted an article of that description, the original of which has not fallen under our eye, from the Morning Advertiser. We presume that the Standard omitted nothing which would qualify or alter the writer's meaning. As we view it, the communication must either have been made with the confidence of Lord Palmerston himself, or it must be a very elaborate fabrication.

" We say, then, in the plainest possible terms, that the extraordinary con- duct of the Premier was the sole cause of Lord Palmerston's retirement. . . . .

"First of all, we beg to state, that for some time ;met the Prime Minister, fancying, it is to be presumed, that the duties of his own department were

not suffleiently numerous or important to afford full scope to his adminis- trative talents, had determined on discharging those of the Foreign depart- ment also. Nor did he deem it enough to offer to assist Lord Palmerston ; he has not so modest an estimate of his own ministerial abilities as that would imply. He assumed a part, and a most important part to boot, of the functions which devolve on the Foreign Secretary, not only without the leave asked and obtained of Lord Palmerston, but even without his know-

ledge As a high-spirited nobleman, Lord Palmerston—not verbally, not while holding personal intercourse with the Premier, but by letter— demanded an explanation from him. The latter noble Lord returned a vague, unmeaning, shuffling answer. With such an answer Lord Palmerston, as might be expected, was not satisfied. The result was, that a lengthened correspondence ensued between the Foreign Secretary and the Premier. Anything more spirited or more racy, so far as the letters of Lord Palmer- ston are concerned, has not, we are assured, been penned by any statesman for a long time past. That correspondence will see the light within a few days after the meeting of Parliament ; and we venture to say, that never before did the Premier appear in so pitiable a position as that in which he will then find himself placed. It is right we should mention, that though Lord Palmerston has only at a comparatively recent date discovered the ex- tent to which the Prime Minister was trenching on his department, there is reason to believe that he has done to more or less for some considerable time past.

" With regard to the Cabinet Council of yesterday week, at which Lord Palmerston's resignation was received, it is right we should state, that the members of the Ministry try generally are not implicated, to the extent or in the way which was generally supposed, in the improper treatment which Lord Palmerston has received. Lord John Russell, we have reason to believe, did not lay before them the letters which had passed between him and the Foreign Secretary, but merely mentioned, that in consequence of a misun- derstanding about certain foreign matters which had occurred, Lord Palmer- ston had thought proper to mop. The Premier proposed the acceptance of the noble Lord's resignation. This was agreed to in silence on thepart of all, and with regret on the part of some. It is proper to add, that only nine members of the Cabinet out of the fifteen were present on the occasion. "But we now come to another aspect of the matter, and one which must be the reverse of gratifying to Lord John Russell. Since the Cabinet Coun- cil of yesterday week broke up, the real facts of the case have begun to transpire in the Ministerial circles; and the result has been, that several of Lord Palmerston's late colleagues have written to him, expressing their utter astonishment, and hardly caring to conceal the existence of another feeling, at the way in which he has been treated. They assure him of their deep re- gret that their official connexion with him has ceased ; and entreat him, in the most urgent terms, to believe that when they acquiesced in his resigna tion they did so in perfect ignorance of the circumstances connected with it. We are privy to the names of three of the Cabinet Ministers who have writ- ten to Lord Palmerston to this effect, since his retirement : one is that of a a noble Marquis, another that of a noble Earl, and the third is that of a right honourable Baronet. The name of the first, we may mention, is that of the Marquis of Lansdowne. The names of the other two we forbear to introduce into our columns, for reasons which it is not necessary to state. "But now comes yet another phase of this strange eventful history. It is hoped by the Premier to propitiate the people of England by the promise of an accession of liberal and independent parties to his Cabinet. Who are the persons whose expected advent is to compensate for the loss of Lord Palmer- ston, we are sure the public would not guess, were they to exercise their conjectural faculties until this time tomorrow. The coming men '—at least the men who are supposed to be coming—are none other than the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Cardwell They have been called by the Premier, or will be so in a day or two, to come to the rescue of the Russell Ministry : but whether they will respond to the call or not, is more than we can say.' A singular consequence of Lord Palmerston's exit from the Cabinet is the flutter into which it has thrown the Protectionist party. The Morn- ing Post, faithful to its modern alliance with the late Secretary on the subject of his foreign policy, has diligently collected from country news- papers a number of testimonies of regret over his fall; but as the Daily News has been able to marshal a good number of provincial testimonies which mingle doubts with regrets, the gleanings from the provincial broad-sheets do little more than show what a very extensive connexion with the press Lord Palmerston enjoyed. The Standard has gone be- yond the Post in the sympathizing line : it betrays a hope that the Whig ex-Secretary would secede in wrath to the Conservative camp, and again fight under the Protectionist banner, to which it has been supposed he never lost his old attachment.

A correspondent of the Standard, signing "Anglicus," has mooted an Ultra-Protestant source of alarm, to this effect- " Our new Minister of Foreign Affairs is fortunate in having a very charming per- son for his wife ; but as she is French by birth and tastes, and Roman Catholic in religion, and as all sincere Roman Catholics must obey their priests, and open their hearts and minds to their confessors more freely than to their husbands, it is a mat- ter worthy of consideration how far the secrets of the Foreign Office may become the property of Cardinal Wiseman, and be by him conveyed to M. de Montalembert and the French Government, to be used as they think fit for their own advantage and that of their Church 1" The charge was instantly opened up by the Standard- " The history of modern European diplomacy unfortunately proves that the apprehensions of our correspondent are not altogether groundless : gene- rally speaking, the husband of a foreign lady, more especially if, like Lady Granville, the lady possess great attractions and high talents, is but half an Englishman, and if the lady be a Roman Catholic, generally but half a Pro- testant. Lord Granville has been in fact, always, we believe, eminent for his pro-Romanist zeal. These considerations raise the question, whether the Foreign Courts have been more anxious to get rid of Lord Palmerston on account of that excessive Anglicism with which he has been reproached by most of the foreign journals, or to instal at the head of our foreign policy the lees English and more liberal Earl of Granville, well known to most of the Foreign Courts by his former diplomatic services, and connected through his lady with the Court of Naples as well as with the Court of Rome." Reference was made to an apocryphal note in a Breslau paper, which is said to have stated, that on the 23d December—the day before the re- signation of Lord Palmerston was announced by the Times—rumours were current in Vienna of negotiations by high persona in England with the Vienna Court, without the knowledge of Lord Palmerston' for a " rapprochement " between the two courts, and the retirement of the noble Lord from office was certain soon to happen. Then followed these comments- " . . . . . . . It is plain that neither Queen nor Parliament nor people can be faithfully served and truly informed if there are two lines of diplo- macy to be carried on together, the one ostensible, and conducted by a re- sponsible Minister, and the other secret, conducted by persona absolutely un- known (possibly by Lady Granville's friends, Prince Castelcicala and Cardinal Acton) ; and so far from being in communication with the responsible Mi- nister as to be actually intended for his ruin The consideration that the whole Cabinet must be regarded as accomplices in this very dirty and very unconstitutional transaction, is not the least mortifying consideration to all who feel for national honour." In reference to the tactics of the two Protectionist journals, the Daay News has had its word of warning, softened by a hint that all may yet blow over, and the lost Pleiad be found again- " Lord Palmerston may, perhaps, successfully vindicate his conduct and his system in 1852, as he did in 1849: and we can conceive his looking for- ward to the ultimate triumph of his principles by a resumption of power, when the heats and irritations of the present disagreement shall have passeci away. But we cannot realize so abject or lamentable a termination of a great career as would be involved in his turning sham fanatic or paltering with Protection. As a Liberal statesman of versatility, energy, and expe. rience, he may yet play a worthy and popular part. but as an apostate he would speedily become valueless ; and those who now are so desirous of win. ning him on any terms he might think proper to prescribe, would soon be ready to get rid of him on their own."

The Count de Flahault had an interview with Lord John Russell on Saturday, at his official residence in Downing Street.

Earl Granville, her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, held a diplomatic levee at the Foreign Office, Downing Street, on Tuesday afternoon. All the Foreign Ministers appeared in their diplomatic costumes, and such as are members of orders of knighthood wore their insignia.

A Cabinet Council is to be held at the Foreign Office on Thursday the 8th instant.

Lord Normanby, we are assured, has never written anything on French politics to any Frenchman not at the time connected with the Govern- ment of France. In alluding in this journal to papers seized by the Police agents of Louis Napoleon, when General Cavaignac was arrested in Paris, on the morning of the coup d'etat, it was not intended to impute any improper conduct to the English Ambassador in that city.—Daily News, Dec. 31.

The service companies of the First Battalion Rifle Brigade, under the command of Colonel Buller, are to embark at Dover in the Mezuera, screw-steamer, on the 2d of January, for the Cape of Good Hope. Drafts from the depfits Second, Sixth, Forty-third, Forty-fifth, Second Bat- tenon Sixtieth, Seventy-third, and Seventy-fourth, and from the First Battalion Twelfth and Ninety-first Infantry, as well as a small de- tachment from the depot of the Twelfth Lancers, are to embark for that colony about the same date, 'on board the Birkenhead war-steamer. These reinforcements for service at the Cape will altogether amount to about 1200 men of all ranks. There is no foundation for the report that the Eighty-fifth Regiment may proceed to the Cape. In fact, this corps is now under orders to proceed next year to Malta.—Daily News, Dec. 29.

The deaths registered in the Metropolitan districts have declined from 1206, the number returned in the preceding week, to 1040 in the week which ended last Saturday. In the ten corresponding weeks of 1841-50, the deaths ranged from 910 in the year 1845 to 1403 in the year 1848, and the average was 1137. If this average be corrected in proportion to the greater amount of population now existing, it becomes 1251; compared with which, the mortality of last week shows a decrease of 211. It appears, from a compari- son of the results obtained in the present return with those of the previous week, that the mortality from nearly all classes of disease is diminished.— ilegistrar-General's Deport.

The French Government have presented a chest of Sevres porcelain to Earl Granville, President of the Royal Commission, and a tea service to Mr. Dilke, member of the Executive Committee, as a testimonial of the sense it enter- tains of the part which they took in the Great Exhibition.

The Augsburg Gazette states that the greatest efforts are making by the Government of Bavaria to induce M. Liebig to leave the University of Giessen, in which he has so long taught, and accept the highest chair of Chemistry in that of Munich.

The Swedish Academy has selected Professor Hogberg, the translator of Shakapere, to the membership vacated by the decease of Bishop Kull- berg. The great prize of the Academy has this year been conferred on a poem entitled ' Bogner Lodbrok," written by Thekla Knoll, a daughter of the late Professor %nos.

The lovers of Northern literature will be delighted to hear that the great Icelandic English Dictionary of our late distinguished countryman Mr. Cleasby, who had devoted many years and much research to its completion, is now nearly ready for the press; • the late Mr. Cleasby's MS. collections having been arranged and copied for this purpose by another distinguished Icelandic scholar, Hector Konrad Gialason, author of the great Danish Ice- landic Lexicon.—Copenhagen Correspondent of the Morning Chronicle.

Madame Schroeder-Devrient, now Baroness von Book, the celebrated prima donna of the Dresden opera, who was charged with being implicated in the last insurrection in that city, has been pardoned by the King of Saxony, on condition of her paying the costs of the proceedings commenced against her.

The deficiency of the harvest in Saxony rendering it necessary to import large quantities of corn from Silesia, special night trains have been eats- blished, which bring upwards of two thousand bushels daily to Dresden.

The official accounts are now announced in Sweden on the result of the harvest. Out of its twenty-four counties, it has only been above moderate in one, the island of Gottland ; in three it has been moderate, in seventeen poor, and in two it has entirely failed.

Accounts from Russian Poland state the last year's harvest to have been so very bad that no more corn is likely to be exported from that quarter. Throughout Austria, both in town and country, the prices of provisions have risen enormously ; a fact partly to be accounted for by some of the peasantry refusing to cultivate their land under existing regulations. Large tracts of land, formerly devoted to the cultivation of tobacco in Hungary, are espe- cially lying waste from this reason.

A Dutch vessel has been chartered here to load a cargo of Odessa wheat, duty-paid, for a port in Holland and likely larger shipments will soon fol- low,.as our low prices attract foreign buyers. We also understand that there are inquiries for Indian corn and Irish wheat for a port in the Baltic.—Bel- fast News Letter.

The Staats Courant announces that a convention has been concluded

between the Netherlands and Austria for the of the Indian mail via Trieste.

The commerce of Holstein has decreased since the war ; and its commer- cial marine is now less by 125 ships, of nearly 2000 tons burden, than it was in 1847. Its exports also have annually diminished. Its commercial fleet at this moment consists of 1398 ships, measuring nearly 40,000 tons. The number of works printed in all languages at Paris during the year is 7350 ; during the last ten years it is 64,568. In the present year there have also been printed 485 musical works, 1014 engravings and lithographs, and 133 maps and plans.