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xv. ORIGIN OF THE WAR. 615

‘eturned ang resigned again, These confused and distract-ME
 retreats, one after amother, of the statesmen who had
0 diligently fanned the flame of warlike passion, filled
the Country with a perplexed exasperation. It would inlood
 be difficult for the historian to find in our annals
* More remarkable exhibition of political heedlessness,
“ministrative incompetency, and personal incoherence
han marked the fifteen months between the declaration
f war, and the second retirement of Lord John Russell.
Never was confidence in public men more profoundly and
Miversally shaken, It was now that Cobden made a decla-"ation
 of a kind seldom heard from politicians: “I look
back,” he said, “ with regret on the vote which changed
Lord Derby’s Government; I regret the result of that
Motion, for it has cost the country a hundred millions of
reasure, and between thirty and forty thousand good lives.”
It is not difficult to believe that at the time of the Vienna
Conference (1855) Lord Palmerston felt that the continuance
f the war was required by domestic emergencies, Strong
nguage was heard at public meetings about the aristocracy.
The newspapers talked very freely about Prince Albert. The
ry for inquiry was so passionate that Lord Palmerston was
bliged to assent to the Sebastopol Committee two or three
lays after ho had expressly refused his assent. If peace had
been mage at Vienna, the nation would have discovered the
*purious pleas on which the war had been begun. Its temper
Vas dangerous, and Lord Palmerston may well have seen the
"8ks to much that he valued, if that temper were baulked.
When we look back upon the affairs of that time, we see
hat there were two policies open. Lord Palmerston’s was
le, the Manchester policy was the other. If we are to
“Ompare Tord Palmerston’s statesmanship and insight in
the Fastern Question with that of his two great adversaries,
%i8 hard, in the lioht of all that has happened since, to resist

1854.
Arp. 50.