Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. Part 19

'I am, My Lord,

'Your very humble servant,

'W. PARKER, _Vice-Admiral_.'

Letters from Viscount Palmerston, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the Lords of the Admiralty, enclosing copy despatch from the Marquis of Normanby, Her Majesty's Amba.s.sador in Paris.

FOREIGN OFFICE: April 24, 1849.

'SIR,

'I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to transmit to you for the information of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty a copy of a despatch from H.M. Amba.s.sador at Paris, stating that the French Minister for Foreign Affairs has expressed his conviction that during the late insurrection at Genoa, that City was in a great measure saved from pillage and destruction by the energetic att.i.tude a.s.sumed by H.M.S.

_Vengeance._

'I am, Sir, &c.

'(Signed) H. A. ADDINGTON.'

H. G. WARD, ESQ.

FOREIGN OFFICE: April 30, 1849.

'Sir,

'I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to request that you will acquaint the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that his Lords.h.i.+p has received from H.M. Minister at Turin, a copy of a despatch addressed by the Earl of Hardwicke to Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker, dated the 18th inst., giving an account of the measures which he took to promote the surrender of Genoa to the Forces of the King of Sardinia, and I am to state to you at the same time for the information of their lords.h.i.+ps, that Lord Hardwicke's conduct on this occasion seems to Lord Palmerston to have been highly praiseworthy, and Lord Palmerston is of opinion that the Earl of Hardwicke, by his prompt.i.tude, energy and decision saved the City of Genoa from the calamities of further bombardment, and prevented a great effusion of blood and much destruction of property and life.

'I am, &c.,

'(Signed) H. A. ADDINGTON.'

H. G. WARD, ESQ.

PARIS: April 19, 1849.

LORD,

'Monsieur Drouyn De Lhuys has more than once expressed to me his conviction that during the late troubles at Genoa that City was in great part saved from pillage and destruction by the energetic att.i.tude a.s.sumed by the British Naval Force in that port. The Minister read to me extracts both from Monsieur Bois le Conte and from Monsieur Leon Favre the French Consul at Genoa, stating that there were moments when the lives and properties of the peaceable inhabitants would have been in great danger but for the dread inspired by the position taken up by H.M.S. _Vengeance_ and the efficient support given by Lord Hardwicke to the Consular Authorities. Monsieur Drouyn De Lhuys said there had been no distinction whatever between the two Commanders of the two nations except inasmuch as the British Naval Force at that time in the Port of Genoa was of so much more commanding a character.

'I am, &c.,

'(Signed) NORMANBY.'

Extracts from 'An Episode of Italian Unification' by General Alfonso la Marmora.

'Lord Hardwicke conducted himself to me like the honourable man that he is, expert in dealing with men and circ.u.mstances. He did not propose unacceptable conditions to me; indeed, he charged himself with the task of persuading the Munic.i.p.ality to submit to the conditions which I might impose, for the welfare of Genoa itself, and the permanent re- establishment of order.

'On the 9th another complication developed. I have said that the English Captain placed his s.h.i.+p opposite the docks to prevent the liberation of the convicts. Avezzana allowed two days to pa.s.s without protesting against this menace: then he addressed to the aforesaid commander a letter of truly radical insolence, ordering him to vacate the harbour before 6 P.M. and declaring that _if by that hour he were not gone he should be sunk by the batteries of the people, and so teach the Queen of Great Britain that it did not suffice to entrust her men-of-war to men of high lineage unless they were also men of judgment._

'Lord Hardwicke, like a man of sense and good feeling, contented himself with acknowledging the receipt of the insulting letter, being determined not to stir a finger to leave his drawn position.

'He submitted copies of the correspondence to me and to all the representatives of the friendly powers.'

CHAPTER IX

POLITICS AND LAST YEARS. 1850-1873

Having resumed the profession to which he had always been devoted, it was the ambition of Lord Hardwicke's life to continue his naval career, and to complete a period of active service afloat which would have ent.i.tled him to promotion to flag rank. He was encouraged in this desire by all his friends, even by those who, like John Wilson Croker, had opposed his return to active service. In a letter written by that gentleman to Lady Hardwicke in 1849, he said: 'I never was very favourable to his going to sea, but I am now decidedly against his not going through with it, and I cannot but believe that his services are appreciated, if not at their full value at least with respect, on the part of the Whigs. But however that may be, and however glad I shall be to see you all again at Wimpole, I earnestly advise him to play his hand out.'

Unhappily, Lord Hardwicke was prevented from carrying out his intention by the very serious illness of Lady Hardwicke, which caused him the gravest anxiety, shortly after the termination of his arduous responsibilities at Genoa. Lady Hardwicke was brought to death's door by an attack of fever at Naples, and he immediately resigned his command of the _Vengeance_, and hurried to her bedside. She happily recovered, and after her convalescence the whole family returned to England.

Apart, however, from this urgent private trouble, it is doubtful whether Lord Hardwicke would have continued his service in the Mediterranean. He felt, indeed, that the approval of his conduct at Genoa by the Whig Government was less hearty than Mr. Croker believed was the case, confined as it was to the barest official acknowledgment of services which to everyone else appeared not only creditable to Lord Hardwicke as a captain of a British s.h.i.+p of war, but of the highest value to Italy, to the cause of good order, and, by the havoc and bloodshed his tact and firmness had certainly prevented, to humanity itself. As the doc.u.ments set out in the appendix to the last chapter fully show, all this was highly appreciated abroad. King Victor hastened to confer on Lord Hardwicke the order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus for what were described by General de Launay, his foreign secretary, as 'les importans services que vous avez rendus a Son Gouvernement pendant les graves evenemens qui ont afflige la ville de Genes et l'empress.e.m.e.nt efficace avec lequel vous avez puissamment seconde M. le General de La Marmora pour y ramener l'ordre'; Lord Normanby, the British Amba.s.sador at Paris, reported to his government that the French Minister at Turin had more than once expressed his conviction 'that during the late troubles at Genoa that city was in great part saved from pillage and destruction by the energetic att.i.tude a.s.sumed by the British naval force in that port, and that the French consuls had stated to him that there were moments when the lives and properties of the peaceable inhabitants would have been in great danger, but for the dread inspired by the position taken up by H.M.S. _Vengeance_, and the effective support given by Lord Hardwicke to the consular authorities.' There was less value perhaps in the thanks given by 'the Count and Colonel, Director of the Bagni Maritim,' whose grat.i.tude was mingled with a sense of favours to come, in the possible exertion of Lord Hardwicke's good offices with King Victor Emmanuel for clemency for the convicts under the Count's charge, whose conduct had added so much to the dangers of the situation. But of the foreign testimony to Lord Hardwicke's service at Genoa perhaps the most eloquent was that of Mazzini, who admitted to Lord Malmesbury that his career in Italy had been spoiled 'by one English sailor at Genoa called Hardvick.'

This universal approbation of the part played by Lord Hardwicke was of course perfectly well known to the Government; it was also more or less known to the public from the letters written by the _Times_ correspondent at Genoa. 'But for the decision and judgment Lord Hardwicke manifested,' he wrote, 'Genoa would, in all probability, have been at this moment a ruined and pillaged city. The very worst vagabonds were hired to mount guard and man the walls, since the National Guards had retired for the most part to their own dwellings. It was indeed a reign of terror, and it was most fortunate for Genoa that the _Vengeance_ was in the port to prevent its being a reign of blood.'

Under these circ.u.mstances Lord John Russell's government could scarcely withhold official recognition of Lord Hardwicke's success in having virtually saved a great and historic city from destruction. His conduct, moreover, was such as would certainly appeal to Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, who took the occasion to inform the Admiralty 'that Lord Hardwicke's conduct seemed to him highly praiseworthy, and that he was of opinion that the Earl of Hardwicke by his prompt.i.tude, energy and decision saved the city of Genoa from the calamities of further bombardment, and prevented a great effusion of blood and much destruction of property and life.'

This official approval, as we have seen, was conveyed to Lord Hardwicke by his admiral, Sir William Parker, who had already indicated his own rather tepid approval accompanied, however, by the hope that there had been 'no actual infraction of the neutral position of Her Majesty's s.h.i.+p, or undue interference in the political contention of the opponents.'

But it seems clear that both political and professional influences were already at work against Lord Hardwicke. On the happy conclusion of the trouble at Genoa by what he truly described in a letter to Lady Hardwicke as 'the only English interference that has been successful in Europe since the affair began,' he had already detected a certain faintness in the praise he received from Admiral Parker: 'The good admiral gives me negative praise,' he writes, 'but I leave it all to him to judge my acts. I have no fear of results; I have a good reason for all I did.' But from a memorandum written by Lady Hardwicke after his death, it appears that he felt very acutely the grudging spirit in which his services had been received by a section, at least, of the Cabinet.

Upon reporting himself at the Admiralty on his arrival in London he was greeted by Sir Francis Baring, the First Lord, with these words: 'Well, Lord Hardwicke, you certainly did do well at Genoa, and it was lucky that you succeeded, for if you had failed you certainly would have been broke.' He made no complaint, however, but returned to Wimpole, resumed his life of a country gentleman, and renewed all his interest in the affairs of his estate and his county.

He was called at length from this retirement by the return of his own party to power. In March of 1851 Lord John Russell had announced the resignation of the Government owing to their defeat on the franchise question; Lord Stanley was sent for by Queen Victoria, but found himself unable to form a ministry, and upon the advice of the Duke of Wellington the Queen had requested her ministers to resume office. But this arrangement lasted less than a year. On the 27th of February following Lord Stanley, by that time Earl of Derby, became prime minister in the new Government with Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Spencer Walpole, Lord Malmesbury and Sir John Packington, among his colleagues, and in this cabinet Lord Hardwicke sat as Postmaster-General. It was a short term of office, which lasted less than a year, during which time, however, Lord Hardwicke's energy and powers of organisation were much appreciated in his department, where he came to be known as 'Lord Hardwork'; but his official life came to an end with that of the Government upon the return to power, in December 1852, of the Aberdeen administration, which included Lord John Russell as Foreign Secretary and Sir James Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty.

A characteristic souvenir of the immortal Duke of Wellington occurs to me in connection with this first administration of Lord Derby, well known as the 'Derby D'Israeli Ministry,' which may find a place here. A great many new men necessarily composed it, and when they were all mustered before being 'sworn in' the Duke began chaffing them 'as somewhat _raw recruits_,' and then taking his stick he put them into line and said, 'You will require a little drilling' and he flourished his stick about, imitating a sergeant, and amused them all very much. Such was the great man's way of putting a _home truth_.

The fall of Lord Derby's government was the occasion for a letter to my father from Mr. Croker, in which that gentleman appears to admiration in the characteristic role of candid friend. I print this, not only as a typical effort of that critical spirit, but because it contains a very just appreciation of my mother's great qualities, to which her husband and her children owe so much.

Dec. 31, 1852.

'... As for the party, I cannot but feel with you, that a party without a spokesman in the House of Commons is as nothing, but with such a spokesman as Disraeli, it is worse than nothing. In Opposition, his talents of debate would be most valuable, if there was any security for his principles or his judgment. I have no faith in either.

'But after all, n.o.body is so much to blame as Derby; why did he not take higher and surer ground. Why are you all turned out on--neither you nor anyone else can say what? You had not even hoisted a flag to rally round. You have been like some poor people I have read of in the late storm, buried under the ruins of your own edifice, but whether you were stifled or crushed, killed by a rafter or a brick, n.o.body can tell. You have died a death so ign.o.ble that it has no name, and the Coroner's verdict is "Found Dead."

'Why did you not die in the Protestant cause; on something that some party could take an interest in? Why did you spare Cardinal Wiseman? Why b.u.t.ter Louis Buonaparte thicker than his own French cooks? Why did you lay the ground of the confiscation of landed property by a differential income tax and by hinting at taxing property by inheritance? "You have left undone the things you ought to have done, and you have done those things which you ought not to have done, and there is no help for you."