Lord Lyons (Vol. 1&2). Thomas Wodehouse Legh Newton
Thomas Wodehouse Legh Newton
Lord Lyons
(Vol. 1&2)
A Record of British Diplomacy (Complete Edition)
e-artnow, 2021
Contact: [email protected]
EAN 4064066387822
Table of Contents
Volume 1
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II WASHINGTON (1859-1860)
CHAPTER III Outbreak of Civil War—The 'Trent' Case (1860-1861)
CHAPTER IV COURSE OF THE CIVIL WAR (1862-1865)
CHAPTER V CONSTANTINOPLE (1865-1867)
CHAPTER VI THE SECOND EMPIRE (1867-1869)
CHAPTER VII SECRET PROPOSALS FOR DISARMAMENT (1870)
CHAPTER VIII THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR (1870)
CHAPTER IX THE GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE (1870-1871)
PREFACE
It was the practice of the late Lord Lyons to preserve carefully the whole of his correspondence, whether official, semi-official, or private, and upon his death this accumulation of papers passed into the possession of his nephew, the present Duke of Norfolk.
I have been able to draw to some extent upon my own diary and recollections of the five years (1881-1886) during which I served as a member of Lord Lyons's staff at the Paris Embassy, but that period represents only a very small portion of his official career, and it is from the above mentioned papers that this work has been almost entirely compiled. All the material was placed unreservedly at my disposal, and I desire to make full acknowledgment of this mark of confidence. I desire also to express my gratitude to the numerous persons who have readily given their consent to the publication of important letters in which they possess a proprietary interest: notably to Emily Lady Ampthill, Lord Clarendon, Lord Derby, Lady Granville, Lady Ermyntrude Malet, Lord Rosebery, the Hon. Rollo Russell, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Sanderson.
I am indebted to Mr. J. F. Marshall and Mr. Alan Parsons for their assistance in sifting the enormous mass of documents found at Norfolk House, and to the Hon. Arnold Keppel for a service rendered at a subsequent period. Finally, I have to thank Mrs. Wilfrid Ward for an interesting contribution entitled "Lord Lyons in private life," containing personal details only available to a near relative.
NEWTON.
October, 1913.
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE
Born in 1817, Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, second Baron and first Viscount and Earl Lyons, eldest son of the distinguished Admiral Sir Edmund (subsequently first Baron Lyons), was apparently destined like his younger brother for a naval career, since at the age of ten he was already serving as an honorary midshipman. A sailor's life, however, must have been singularly uncongenial to a person of pronounced sedentary tastes whom nature had obviously designed for a bureaucrat; in after years he never alluded to his naval experiences, and it was probably with no slight satisfaction that the navy was exchanged for Winchester. From Winchester he proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1838, being apparently at that period a quiet, well-behaved, hard-working youth, living carefully upon a modest allowance, and greatly attached to his parents and family.
In the following year he entered the diplomatic service as unpaid attaché at Athens, where his father occupied the position of Minister. In 1844 he became a paid attaché at Athens, and passed thirteen uneventful years at that post.
At this stage of his career, prospects looked far from promising; he had started later than usual, being twenty-two at the period of his entry into the service; younger men were senior to him; he had had no opportunity of distinguishing himself at Athens, and as he laments in a letter to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Malmesbury, written in April, 1852, he felt 'mortified and humiliated that a man six years younger than himself had been passed over him as Secretary to the Legation in which he had served for thirteen years.' Promotion indeed seemed so remote that, having reached the age of thirty-five, he seriously contemplated abandoning diplomacy altogether.
As a matter of fact, there was no cause for uneasiness. In 1852 he was transferred as paid attaché to Dresden, and early in the following year received the gratifying intimation that Lord John Russell, who had been struck with his capacity, had appointed him paid attaché at Rome. 'What I mean for him,' wrote Lord John Russell, 'is to succeed Mr. Petre, and to conduct the Roman Mission, with £500 a year. If there were any post of Secretary of Legation vacant I should gladly offer it to him, as I have a very good opinion of him.' The importance of the post at Rome consisted in the fact that, whereas technically dependent on the Tuscan Mission at Florence, it was virtually semi-independent, and might easily form an excellent stepping-stone to higher and more important appointments if activity and discretion were displayed.
In June, 1853, Lyons started for his new post carrying despatches, and as an illustration of the conditions of travel upon the continent at that period, it is worth noticing that the expenses of his journey to Rome amounted to no less a sum than £102 3s. 3d., inclusive of the purchase and sale of a carriage, although no man was ever less prodigal of public money. Nor is there any record of any official objection to this somewhat alarming outlay.
In 1853 the Pontifical Government, exercising its sway over some 3,000,000 inhabitants of the Roman States, was in possession of no inconsiderable portion of the Italian peninsula, and presented the remarkable spectacle of a country jointly occupied by two foreign armies whose task it was to protect the Pope against his own subjects. With this object, 10,000 Austrians were stationed in the Ancona district, and 10,000 French troops in Rome, the latter paying their own expenses, but the former constituting a heavy charge upon the Holy Father with his embarrassed revenue and increasing deficit. The foreign policy of the Government was