uBf^tn
itf^iv R
(iKOiscK, 4Tii KAKI. OF ABERDEEN, K.T.
As Foreign Minister.
'rum a picture painted for Sir Kobort Pod by Sir Thomas Lawromr. P.K.A.
Enjjravod by Samuel Cousins, 1831.
THE
LIFE OF GEORGE
FOURTH EARL OF ABERDEEN
K.G., K.T.
BY
LADY FRANCES BALFOUR
LL.D., D.Litt.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED LONDON
MADE AND PRINTED IN GRKAT BRITAIN.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
PRINTERS, BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
PREFACE
THE papers and correspondence of the Earl of
Aberdeen, Queen Victoria's Prime Minister, were
entrusted to me by his grandson, the Marquis of
Aberdeen and Temair, in the year 1913. I also
received a large number of papers from Lord Stanmore.
His father, the Arthur Gordon who appears so often
in this work, known in the House of Lords as the first
Lord Stanmore, had devoted much time to the collec-
tion and the editing of the mass of State papers and
correspondence left behind by Lord Aberdeen.
It had been the intention of Lord Stanmore to
publish these papers on a scale which has not been
attempted in these volumes. In fact, the vastness
of the work was too overwhelming for him to achieve.
After Lord Aberdeen's death in 1860, Lord Stanmore
was much abroad, and his life was filled with public
work. Lord Aberdeen's life was published in the
series entitled the " Queen's Prime Ministers," and
that again was the shortened precis of a one-volumed
Life privately printed, but never published.
In Lord Stanmore's preface to the Short Life, he
says it was with reluctance that he consented to write
the book. He thought the life and nature of Lord
Aberdeen's character were such as to make it pecu-
liarly difficult to do them justice within the limits
of a short biography. Lord Stanmore was conscious
also that it must dimmish the value of any future
publication of Lord Aberdeen's correspondence " a
duty entrusted to me by the terms of my father's
will."
iv PREFACE
More than sixty years have passed since the death
of the Prime Minister. The publication of the Short
Life has undoubtedly made the editing of the papers
left seem a work of some difficulty.
The vast and careful scale on which a longer memoir
had been planned, made it almost impossible in these
less leisured days to carry out the filial desire of the
son, and the strong sense of duty which has throughout
inspired the grandson.
In the light of this double inspiration, I have tried
to present a readable and understandable picture both
of the times in which Lord Aberdeen lived, and of the
strong personality of the Queen's Prime Minister.
It is not often remembered that he was Castlereagh's
Ambassador to Vienna in 1813, that he twice held the
Seals of Minister for Foreign Affairs, before, at the age
of sixty-nine, he became the Prime Minister of " the
girl of eighteen," whom he had seen ascend the Throne.
Lord Aberdeen was essentially, as he well describes
himself, " a Minister of Peace, if ever there was one."
Fate has almost entirely associated him with an
unfortunate war.
His life in his native Scotland was as remarkable
as any other part of his career. If I have dwelt out
of proportion on this feature, it is because I felt it
to be of deep and dramatic interest. It presents a
continuous picture of what " the landowning class,"
as they are now contemptuously called, have done in
building up the prosperity of the country in all parts
of Great Britain.
I have endeavoured to follow the lines laid down
by Lord Stanmore, and to select from the correspond-
ence the things which seemed most to illustrate the
times, and the man who lived in this epoch, and left
his impress on his country.
I have resisted the temptation " to write before and
PREFACE v
after," to make the past fit into the present. That
history does repeat itself must come forcibly to the
mind of every student of the world's public affairs.
That public men are mortal, and capable of very obvious
mistakes; that nations change their outlook, and the
temper of to-day is not necessarily the temper of
to-morrow, is self-evident to those who write ; whether
it is so to those who read, depends much on how
honestly history has been presented.
I can only say that I have tried to represent things
as they are revealed by the documents before me. If
I have failed it is not the fault of the written words,
which are nothing if they are not consistently upright
and sincere, and " as the noonday clear."
Two chapters have been devoted to the Disruption
within the National Church of Scotland. I have
endeavoured to write the story so as to make it com-
prehensible, even to the mind of an Anglican, and an
Englishman. The papers on this controversy ran into
eight hundred closely printed pages. The two chapters
were submitted to the late Lord Guthrie and to Sir
William Robertson Nicoll. Both have kindly read
and approved them. Lord Guthrie, the son of a
Disruption Father, was so interested in the revival of
these ancient ecclesiastical controversies, that he made
himself quite ill over their perusal. To those who feel
they are of no interest, and contain no lesson, it can
only be said that they may be left unread, without
the history being interrupted.
One personal note may be allowed me. Lord
Aberdeen was born in 1784, and my father died in
1900. When Lord Aberdeen died, I was an infant.
As I have traced the features and conned the mind
of this great Minister, I have come on much in the
papers that has proved the deep veneration in which
he was held by my father, and even yet more by my
vi PREFACE
mother. Something of that long chain of association
was, no doubt, in the mind of the present Marquis
when he asked me to write or, more properly, to edit,
the Life. The war, with its personal anxieties and
national absorption, has made the work long overdue.
But it is not altogether inappropriate that the history
should now appear. The world is weary of strife and
warfaring, and it may have leisure to read and ponder
on the work of one who was among the earliest heralds
of the gospel of peace and a good understanding among
the nations.
FRANCES BALFOUR.
32 Addison Road, London.
July 19, 1922.
CONTENTS
FAQS
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 1
CHAPTER II
MARRIAGE (1805-1813) 83
CHAPTER III
EMBASSY TO THE ALLIES (1813-1814) .... 69
CHAPTER IV
FRANKFORT TO CHATILLON (1814) 135
CHAPTER V
HOME AND COUNTRY (1814-1825) 191
CHAPTER VI PART I
RUSSIA AND TURKEY (1828-1830) 216
CHAPTER VI PART II
FRANCE (1830) 245
CHAPTER VI PART III
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) .... 265
INDEX 297
ILLUSTRATIONS
To face pagt
GEORGE, FOURTH EARL OF ABERDEEN, K.T., AS FOREIGN
MINISTER ...... Frontispiece
THE TERRACE, HADDO HOUSE ..... 48
HADDO HOUSE, 1815 56
HADDO HOUSE, 1860 64
GEORGE, FOURTH EARL OF ABERDEEN .... 96
JANE, CAROLINE AND ALICE GORDON . . . .128
CATHERINE HAMILTON, COUNTESS OF ABERDEEN . .160
"A CABINET PUDDING" 192
" SOME OF THE INS AND OUTS OF THIS WORLD " . . 192
ARGYLL HOUSE . ....... 240
A SKETCH OF LORD ABERDEEN RIDING IN ROTTEN Row. 256
AT BUCHAN NESS ........ 272
HARRIET DOUGLAS, COUNTESS OF ABERDEEN . . . 288
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805)
" O happy is the man who hears
Instruction's warning voice ;
And who celestial wisdom makes
His early, only choice.
For she has treasures greater far
Than East or West unfold ;
And her rewards more precious are
Than all their stores of gold."
GEORGE HAMILTON GORDON was born at Edinburgh
on January 28, 1784. His father, George Lord
Haddo, died from the result of an accident before
he succeeded to the title.
He and Lady Haddo were at the time residing
in the beautiful castle of Gight, situated in a secluded
valley five miles from Haddo House. The castle
stands on the precipitous bank of the river Ythan,
which here runs through a deep glen. Nothing is
left of the castle save its ruined walls, holding vestiges
of chapel and hall. Here occurred that event which
in its sequel was destined to remove the future
statesman from the place of his ancestral lands, and
to bring him under influences which were to shape his
career apart from the ways of his country and people.
The tradition runs that Lord Haddo, riding out
from Gight, had to pass the castle well, now standing
in the green garth of the domain, though probably
at that period it was within the outer court of the
castle. A girl was about to draw water, and the horse,
startled by the noise of the chain, or by her sudden
appearance, reared violently, and fell back with the
rider, who was thus mortally injured. Lord Haddo
insisted, however, on walking to the Castle door,
VOL. I. B
2 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
in order to allay his wife's alarm ; but very soon after-
wards he expired.
Lady Haddo soon left the place where her married
life had come to so sudden and unhappy an end, and
she resolved to spend the rest of her life in England.
It was not destined to be a long one; she never re-
covered from the shock of her husband's death, and
lived in melancholy retirement until her death four
years later, in 1795.
Her children accompanied her to England. She
settled at Barnet in Hertfordshire, and it was
there that her eldest son George received his earliest
education, and later in another school at Parson's
Green. By Lady Haddo's death her children were
left in a position which was one of singular and
unhappy isolation. Their grandfather, Lord Aber-
deen, would naturally have stood to them in the place
of the father that they had lost. This unfortunately
was not the case, and to trace the strange circumstances
in which the family was placed it is necessary to
give some account of the ancestral history.
Like many of the great Scottish families, the early
history of the Gordons is full of legend. Lord Stan-
more writes : " That Bertrand de Gourdon, by whose
arrow King Richard I was killed before the castle of
Chalus in Perigord, left children, who settled in
Scotland, and became the progenitors of the house
of Gordon, is a proposition which I should hesitate
to affirm ; but it is one which, in the presence of other
members of that house, I should equally hesitate to
deny."
It is not from the senior branch of the family, which
in the male line came to an end in 1408, that the
Gordons of Haddo trace their descent. Half a century
before the marriage of the last heiress of this line
to Alexander Seton, who took the name of Gordon,
a son of John Lord Gordon was established as Laird
at Haddo in Aberdeenshire, and from him, in unbroken
and direct male descent, springs the present line of
Earls of Aberdeen. The Lairds of Haddo were a
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 3
tough and exceedingly long-lived race. Some of
them came to a violent end on the battlefield or on
the scaffold, otherwise they reached, or exceeded,
the allotted span of life.
Sir John Gordon of Haddo distinguished himself
in the Royalist cause. On March 19, 1644, he managed
with a handful of men to surprise the town of Aberdeen,
then closely watched and guarded by the Covenanting
party. " Haddo's Raid " was completely successful.
The bold cavalier, attended by some other gentlemen,
and with a troop of about threescore horse, came
galloping through Old Aberdeen to New Aberdeen,
and the Provost and chief men of the city found
themselves made prisoners of war. After other acts
of violence, the old chronicle narrates :
" Go to hors schortlie, and cumis bak throw the
old toun, about ten houris in the morning, with thair
four captives; and, but bo to thair blanket, thay
rode doun throw the Gallowget, none daring to say
it wes evill done. Simlie it is to be markit the like
seldom hes been sein that so few men so pertlie,
and publictlie, sould have disgraceit sic a brave brughe
by taking away thair provest, and the rest men of
note, without any kynd of contradictioun or obstacile."
Haddo, at this time, had his children living in
Old Aberdeen for the sake of their education. He
could hardly rely on their safety in a town thus out-
raged by this raid, so the chronicler notes, " he takis
his young barnis at scooll hame behinde sum of his
servandis." Thus, taking part in the triumphant
return of his father, the future Earl and Lord Chan-
cellor first appears upon the stormy scenes of the
period.
On the following day Sir John Gordon sent the
children, with the exception of his eldest son, back
to school. George, the second son, was born October
1637, and his mother was Mary, daughter of William
Forbes of Tolquhen. -
The affairs of the Royalists were mismanaged, and
Sir John Gordon, who had been appointed by the
4 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
King next in command to the Marquis, had to retire
to his house of Kellie before the Covenanting Army,
led by the Marquess of Argyll. He was attacked
in it by an overwhelming force, and after a brief
resistance his artillerymen deserted, and he was forced
to surrender both himself and his house to the enemy.
His children, including the future Earl, were
gathered round him at this last fight. " He had
sex young children within the place of Kellie ; which,
when it was rendeied, were all put to the yett saif
and sound."
Then followed the complete spoiling and destruction
of the house. " Statelie wes the plenishing within
this hous, and plesant yardis and planting about the
samen. First, they take out the staitlie insicht and
plenishing, sic as bedding, naprie, veschel caldrouns,
chandleris, fyre vexhele, quhairof their wes plentie,
trists, cofferis, cabinetis, trunbris, and armour."
Household gear, cattle and sheep were driven away.
Thus was the house of Kellie spoiled and made waste.
Sir John Gordon was carried prisoner to Edinburgh,
and there was no escape for such a noted Royalist.
He was the first individual who was judicially con-
demned and executed for adherence to the Royal
cause. To the King, whom he had served with such
zeal and courage, he commended on the scaffold
his children. In a short prayer he said, " I com-
mend my soule to God, and my sex children to his
Majesteis cair, for whose saik I die this day." " And
albeit Haddoche wes ane auncient barron of good
estait, and still ane loyall subiect to the king; hardie,
stout, bold in all haserdis; freind to his freind, and
terribill to his enemy, of a goodlyf and conversatioun,
moderat, temperat, and religious ; loth and unwilling
still to give offence, and alss loth to tak offence; and
withall ane good nichtbour, loving and kynd to his
tennentis, kinsfolkis, and freindis, yet thus he ended."
The children being thus bereft of parents and estate,
" friendis took thrie of them, and uther thrie wes
sent into Old Abirdene for lerning at the scoollis;
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 5
bot had not ane penny of thair father's estait bestowit
upone thame."
George was one of those sent to Old Aberdeen, and
when next heard of he was a distinguished scholar
in King's College. Here he studied under John
Strachan, who had a great reputation for learning.
He took his Master's degree in 1658, and it is recorded
that he was promoted to his degree first in order
before the others of his own class or year. On his
tutor's resignation, at his own request, the College
appointed to the vacant regency his distinguished
pupil, who thus became a professor the day after he
ceased to be a student.
The family at Haddo were not forgotten at the
Restoration, though no other benefit was conferred
on them than the rescinding of the forfeiture of their
title and estates. In the Act which was passed, in
the first Scottish Parliament held after the King's
return, honourable mention was made of the conduct
and sufferings of Sir John Gordon. In consequence
of this Act the eldest brother of the " sex," who had
been put out of " the yett," recovered possession of
the family estates.
The second brother remained at King's College
till the spring of 1663, when he went abroad, resolved
to devote himself to the study of law. The death
of his eldest brother without male issue recalled him
from the Continent, and placed him in possession
of the estate and baronetcy. Sir George Gordon
became a member of the Scottish bar, having in 1668,
after the usual preliminary trials, been admitted by
the Lords of Session " in and to the place and office
of ane ordinarie advocat before them."
We next find him elected as one of the Commissioners
to represent the county of Aberdeen in the second
Scottish Parliament held by Charles II. To this
Parliament were submitted certain proposals with a
view to the union of the kingdoms. Popularly these
proposals were regarded with aversion, as an attempt
to overthrow the national independence. The King's
6 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
Commissioner, the Duke of Lauderdale, laid the letter
under the King's hand before Parliament. The
immediate adoption of an answer of assent was rudely
pressed on the House by the Commissioner. Sir
George Gordon was not to be intimidated either by
the King's representative or the rash and arbitrary
terms submitted to Parliament. Almost alone, he
offered resistance to the measure, and when Sir George
Mackenzie counselled a day's delay in the decision
of Parliament, he found a seconder in Sir George.
Sir George's reputation as a lawyer did not suffer
from his opposition to the Court. In 1678 he was
made one of the King's Privy Council for Scotland,
and in 1680 he was promoted from being one of the
ordinary Lords of Session to the bench of the Supreme
Court of Scotland, under the title of Lord Haddo.
Under the administration of the Duke of York,
Lord Haddo continued to rise in reputation and office.
He succeeded Sir James Dalrymple of Stair as
President of the Supreme Court in 1681, and in the
same year there died John Leslie, Duke of Rothes,
the Chancellor of Scotland. There was a delay in
filling up the appointment, and the Duke of York
was expected to make it on his return from London
in 1682. The new occupant of this high office was
to have his appointment made known under extra-
ordinary circumstances. The Duke of York had
embarked for Scotland on the Gloucester frigate,
accompanied by Lord Haddo and a numerous
retinue. The ship struck on a sandbank off Yar-
mouth, on May 5. Nearly two hundred persons
perished, and the Duke himself, with difficulty,
and most unfortunately for Scotland, escaped by
leaping from his cabin window into a small boat.
Two or three others were thus saved, and the Duke
called to Sir George Gordon to follow their example.
In leaping he fell short of the boat into the sea.
In the excitement of the moment the Duke called
out, " Save my Chancellor ! " thus giving the first
intimation how this high dignity had been bestowed.
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 7
On reaching Edinburgh the Duke laid before the
Privy Council the King's letters patent, constituting
Sir George Gordon of Haddo to be Lord High Chan-
cellor of Scotland, in place of the Duke of Rothes.
The Duke of York had from an early period of his
residence placed great reliance on the ability and
character of Sir George, and, in 1682, he was promoted
to the Peerage under the title of the Earl of Aberdeen.
The patent recited the eminent services he had
rendered the King by means of his splendid mental
endowments.
The reference to his father's loyalty and suffering
was made more marked by the record how Lord
Aberdeen " now sat in that very city and judgment
seat where his father suffered so sad and unjust a
sentence."
During a period of more than two years the adminis-
tration of public affairs remained in Lord Aberdeen's
hands. He had a reputation for a close and steady
application to business, and he superintended with
watchful care and a steady hand every department
of public affairs. His singleness of eye and dis-
interested mind were typical of his descendant, the
fourth Earl, and in the succeeding generations it is
possible to trace the same aloofness of mind and love
of justice, which made them not always understood
by those whose outlook on the affairs of Church and
State was more coloured by the passions of personal
and party gains.
The Lord High Chancellor was entirely at one
with the Government in prosecuting with the utmost
rigours of the law the party in rebellion in the
south and west of Scotland for the cause of
civil and religious liberty. Outside the law he was
not prepared to go, and when the Duke of York's
obsequious Privy Council originated a scheme of
unlawful rigour against the rebels, that husbands
and fathers should be made responsible by fine and
imprisonment for the opinions of their wives and
daughters, he declared as a judge that such an order
8 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
could not be carried out under any existing statute,
and as a Minister he declined to propose any alteration
in the law. His remonstrances were unheeded, and
rather than countenance measures which were alike
unjust and illegal he resigned his high office into the
hands of the King.
There was no comprehension of this " Just Judge."
But Lord Aberdeen's loyal services were of value
to the Government, and even the ignoble conspirators
who had got him out of office made new overtures to
him, " if he would have condeschended to act as Chan-
celor with the juncto." He told the King, except
he exercised (office) as freely as his predecessor the
Duke of Rothes did, he could not serve him ; and the
King telling him " he wold be served in his owne
manner and conforme to his own measures, he then
voluntarily demitted."
These transactions took place in London in May,
1684. The Earl travelled back to Edinburgh, there
dismantled his house, and retired to his Aberdeenshire
estate. The Earl of Perth succeeded him as Lord
Chancellor, with the Duke of Queensberry as Lord
Treasurer. They set to work remodelling the different
offices at their disposal, and engaged in an effort to
crush and disgrace the eminent statesman they had
supplanted. A rumour reached them that a con-
venticle had been held within the County of Mid-
lothian, of which Lord Aberdeen was Sheriff principal.
They began with pious zeal to proceed against him
for not having suppressed it. Lord Perth had suc-
ceeded him in this office as well as that of Lord Presi-
dent. Their researches into this matter led to the
discovery that the conventicle had indeed been held,
not, however, in Lord Aberdeen's county, but a few
yards within the march of the property of their own
peculiar friend and fellow-conspirator, the Earl of
Tweeddale. Whereupon, the chronicler says, " the
matter was suffered to sleip."
Their next effort was to get hold of Lord Aberdeen's
papers, hoping to find in them incriminating matter.
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 9
Sir John Dalrymple's person and papers were seized
and he was committed " to the tolbuite of Edinbrugh.
The Hy Tresurer was incensed that Sir John would
give them no discoveries against the Earl of Aberdeen."
These and other efforts to blacken and sully Aberdeen's
reputation, though carried on over a considerable
period, came to naught. William Fletcher, one of
Aberdeen's advocates, brought sharp rebuke on him-
self for saying, " My Lord Aberdeen could justify
all the interlocutors he had procured when he sate
on the bench, and that he nather was guilty of injustice
nor malversations."
Lord Aberdeen continued to take an active part
in Parliament after his withdrawal from office, but
after the landing of the Prince of Orange he retired
to the country. William III regretted that he could
not obtain his services, for Mackay had represented
him as being " the solidest statesman in Scotland ;
a fine orator, speaking slow but strong."
He remained a non-juror till the accession of Queen
Anne, when he emerged from his retirement and for
the first time took the oaths to the new Government.
He lived to a great age and died in 1720 at Kellie,
from whence he had been driven out as a child, and
from whence his father had been carried to the scaffold,
seventy-six years before his own peaceful end in the
place of his ancestors.
His son William, as Lord Haddo, had been elected,
after the Union, to the Parliament of Great Britain
as member for Aberdeenshire. The election, after
much debate, was set aside in 1714, on the ground
that the eldest sons of Peers had not been allowed
to sit in the Scottish Parliament, and were therefore
ineligible for a Scottish seat in the Parliament of the
United Kingdom.
Lord Haddo was a strong Jacobite, and the House
of Commons may have considered that fact more
than the question of constitutional law, which was
strained by the decision. Earl William married,
first a daughter of the Duke of Atholl, and secondly
10 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
a daughter of the Duke of Gordon. These alliances
did not help to detach him from the cause of the House
of Stuart. He corresponded with the Jacobite leaders,
and masses of letters in cypher are preserved in the
archives at Haddo House. He did not join the Pre-
tender in 1745, though he was much interested in
his earlier success. " Fortunately for the interests
of the family," he died somewhat suddenly.
His eldest son and successor, George, according
to the prudent custom of Scottish families at that
time, had been brought up as a Whig, and he at once
declared his adhesion to George II. He lived till
over eighty, and died in 1801, surviving his eldest
son George, Lord Haddo. Pie formed a marked
contrast to his father, being a man of exemplary
character, refinement and taste. He married, in
1782, Miss Baird, daughter of William Baird of New-
byth, sister to the famous General Sir David Baird.
They were the parents of seven children, of whom
the eldest was not twelve years of age, and the
youngest barely four, at the time of the death of their
father.
Lady Haddo was not on friendly terms with Lord
Aberdeen. She had expressed a well-grounded dis-
approval of his dissolute mode of life, and his interests
were removed from her and his grandchildren by other
relations not compatible with the legitimate claims
of his name and race. He had been persuaded or
coerced by powerful friends to send the young Lord
Haddo to Harrow, but there his intervention ended.
He refused to take upon himself any of the respon-
sibilities attaching to the bringing up of his grand-
children, and their other relatives seem to have been
afraid to intervene or assist them in any way.
George, when between the age of eleven and twelve,
addressed a respectful request for help to his grand-
father, but finding his request completely unheeded,
he showed a rare judgment, in one of his years, when
he turned elsewhere for parental advice and guardian-
ship.
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 11
Henry Dundas, afterwards created Lord Melville,
was at that time the most powerful man in Scotland.
Lord Haddo had been well acquainted with him, and
after his death Lady Haddo had occasionally sought
his advice and help. To him in his difficulties the
boy turned, and Henry Dundas at once responded to
his appeal. The condition of the young family was
such as to commend them to the interest of anyone
conversant with the facts, and bound, as Henry
Dundas was, by the ties of friendship. He was also
probably not unmindful of the influence he would
thereby attain over one of the most powerful families
in the north of Scotland. From that time Dundas 's
house became Lord Haddo's home, and his only
sister Alicia lived for the next thirty years as a daughter
with Lady Jane Dundas, under whose maternal care
all the children came on the death of their mother.
As the five younger brothers grew up, two of them,
William and John, entered the Navy, and lived to
attain the rank of Admiral. Two others, Alexander
and Charles, obtained commissions in the Army.
Alexander was a favourite aide-de-camp of the Duke
of Wellington; he was already a Lieutenant-Colonel,
and had been created a K.C.B. when killed at Waterloo,
at the age of twenty-eight. Charles died Colonel of
the Black Watch in 1835. The remaining brother,
Robert, entered the Diplomatic Service, and his
correspondence with his eldest brother appears often
in the family papers.
Dundas lived at Wimbledon, and there was no
more frequent visitor in his house than Mr. Pitt.
From the first he took the keenest interest in Lord
Haddo, and as the youth grew older their friendship
and intimacy increased. At the age of fourteen
Lord Haddo again took a decisive step. A right is
given by Scottish law to one reaching that age to
name for himself " curators," or guardians. Lord
Haddo named in that capacity Mr. Pitt, then Prime
Minister, and his earliest friend, Henry Dundas.
They both accepted the charge, and from that time
12 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
their ward lived with them alternately. Thus the
disadvantages of his family circumstances led him
in early youth into direct contact with the master
minds of his age. It was a veritable " school of the
prophets " into which he entered, and by his own
happy choice he had selected the greatest statesmen
of the time for his guardians and leaders.
We know very little about his school life. Harrow
gave him perhaps the only good gifj a public school
can give, some friendships with men who were to
be his comrades and colleagues through life. Among
these were Palmerston and Althorp ; and there also he
met Peel, Lord de Grey, Lord Ripon, and Lord Binning,
afterwards Lord Haddington, with whom in particular
he contracted an intimacy which was to last through
their mutual lives.
At Harrow he was known as a quiet and studious
boy. His interests were classical and he devoted
himself to Greek scholarship, in which he obtained
distinction. He was a wide reader outside the usual
grooves of school work, and acquired an acquaintance
with the Italian poets which was said to be greater
than most men attain in a lifetime. He read also
such histories of modern Europe as were then at the
command of the student. When the time came for
leaving Harrow, Lord Haddo proposed to continue
his studies at Cambridge University. His grandfather
refused to furnish him with the means for what
he called a needless extravagance. Lord Haddo's
curators were of a different opinion, and the following
letter shows that Henry Dundas did his best to put a
more enlightened view before Lord Aberdeen :
Wimbledon, Oct. 10, 1800.
MY DEAR HADDO,
I send you a letter I have received from your
grandfather. I do not know if my letter will make
any impression on him, but I take it for granted you
do not mean to acquiesce in the principle that your
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 13
Rank supercedes the necessity of education, and if
you sincerely wish to go to the University, means
must at any rate be fallen upon to send you there.
Yours Affect.,
HENRY DUNDAS.
The curators jointly threatened Lord Aberdeen
that if he would not properly provide for the education
and expenses of his grandson, they would themselves
advance what was necessary from their personal funds.
It is not known to which course Lord Aberdeen
consented. In one way or the other Lord Haddo
was enabled to follow his own desire, and he entered
St. John's College, Cambridge, in October 1800.
Succeeding to his title on the death of his grand-
father in 1801, Lord Aberdeen took steps to continue
his relations with Mr. Pitt, and for the remainder of
his minority associated him with other trustees,
whose relations may have been more formal, but could
not have been more parental on the one hand, or
more filial on the other.
Walmer Castle, Oct. 22, 1801.
MY DEAR LORD,
I am sincerely obliged to you for your very
kind letter and accept with great pleasure the Testi-
mony it gives me of your Partiality and Regard,
of which I am persuaded I shall allways have reason
to be proud. It cannot I fear be in my power to
render any material assistance to those with whom
you have joined me, but I am happy to think they
will not want it; and I can at least answer for it,
that you will find me at all times (as indeed I have
long been) sincerely interested in whatever concerns
your happiness and credit.
Believe me, my dear Lord,
Yours very sincerely,
W. PITT.
14 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
He collected while at Cambridge a fine library
consisting of early editions of the classics, and of
early Italian poetry. It included the De Officiis of
Cicero, printed by Fust at Mayence in 1464, the Dante
of 1486, and many other rare editions of works. His
friends at College were men of like mind with himself,
and with many of them he carried on a life-long
correspondence .
When the Peace of Amiens reopened the Continent
to British travellers, Lord Aberdeen was among the
first to take advantage of it. One of the few letters
preserved from Pitt deals with the manner of his going.
Park Place, Sunday, Dec. 20, 1801.
MY DEAR LORD,
On my return from Cambridge yesterday evening,
I found your letter. If it were not for the circum-
stances you mention, I confess I should have rather
inclined to doubt whether you would not have found it
more advantageous to defer your visit to Paris to a
later Period ; But I certainly do not think that it is now
desirable for you to make any change in your plan.
" The question of being introduced to Bonaparti
(if contrary to your expectation it should present
itself) seems to me to be one of mere etiquette, and
therefore to be best decided by whatever you find
practiced by others in similar situations to your own.
Probably you may think it best on that or any other
Point of ceremony to consult Mr. Jackson the English
Minister whom you will find at Paris. If you think
it will be of any use, I shall be happy to give you a
Letter of Introduction to Him, and perhaps it may
be some convenience, if you enable me to mention
your companion's Name to Him at the same time.
Believe me, my dear Lord,
Yours most sincerely,
W. PITT.
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 15
In 1802 he visited Paris. Young though he was,
one so nearly connected with Mr. Pitt, even though
the great Minister was not at that moment in office,
Lord Aberdeen was not a person to be neglected.
He was the object of much attention from the
First Consul and La Citoyenne Buonaparte, as on
her invitation cards she still styled herself. Lord
Aberdeen dined with them several times, almost
in private, and had much conversation with the First
Consul. He was greatly fascinated by his singular
beauty and used to say " that Napoleon's smile
was the most beautiful he ever saw, and that his eye
was wholly unlike that of any other man." Some
notes have been preserved which he made of his
impressions of the state of France. The book through-
out its length does not contain a single date, but the
topics on which Lord Aberdeen writes prove that the
observations were made during this, the first of many
Continental journeys he was to make throughout his
life.
NOTES
I am apt to believe that Royalty in France has
many more partizans than is generally understood.
At a dinner given by Lord Cornwallis, there was a
General Officer who admired an ornament in the
middle of the table on which there were some medal-
lions. He enquired who one was meant for, and upon
being told the King of England, He exclaimed, " Good
God, how like mon pauvre Roi ! '
Upon going to see Versailles, which is in a state
of devastation and misery, I said to several of the
tradesmen, that the town seemed to be in a state of
prosperity and the people flourishing, notwithstanding
the alterations which had taken place; their uniform
answer was " Prosperous, flourishing ? How is it
possible to be so without a King ? "
16 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
Formerly Versailles was the most beautiful town
in Europe, now it is the most miserable. I can easily
conceive it to have been much more beautiful, but
it is still one of the prettiest towns in France.
It is evidently the " Ton " at Paris to ridicule
the Revolution and all species of Equality. I am
persuaded that Buonaparte only made the King of
Etruria in order to familiarize the people to the idea
of Regal power being perfectly compatible with civil
Liberty. At one time indeed, I have little doubt
he intended to call himself Emperor of Gaul, or some
such Title, but probably he thought the acquisition
of the power of greater consequence and much easier
to be accomplished than the Title.
The conversation in Paris, indeed through the
whole of France, is perfectly unrestrained. You may
hear a party of Jacobines railing at the present Govern-
ment, and complaining of their being deluded with
only a show of Liberty etc. etc. A party of Contents
and Royalists all in the same Coffee House, talking
most vociferously.
Moreau is a quiet, moderate man, and much re-
spected in France. He allows that if it had not been
for gross blunders of the opposite party his retreat
must have been inevitably cut off. Indeed all their
principal battles seemed to have been determined
by some lucky chance, which gives us at once cause
of regret and pleasure.
Journal from Calais to Paris.
The first I saw of the French sailors, did not
conduce to give me a very favourable idea of their
skill, as it was with considerable difficulty we got
into Calais Harbour, and not without a compleat
wetting.
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 17
The rapacity of the Municipal officers is incon-
ceivable. I was obliged to pay 220 Livres before even
my carriage was suffered to pass.
From Calais we passed through an open hilly
country to Boulogne, which seems to have suffered
a great deal during the Revolution. Here, of course
I narrowly inspected the Harbour, and I beg leave
here to mention a few circumstances relative to the
Bombardment of this place by Lord Nelson, last
summer, and although it is an unpleasant employment
to detract from the character of a great man, but
truth obliges me to say, upon the authority of respect-
able eye witnesses on both sides, that Lord Nelson
added nothing to his fame by that business. The
sailors, as might be expected, behaved most gallantly
but the business was badly planned, and of course
could not be successfully executed ; it was injudicious
to make three divisions, as by that means they came
into action at different times. Our sailors also were
only armed with a cutlass, a Pistol, and tomahawk,
whereas the French boats were full of troops armed
with muskets, and defended from being boarded by
a net-work 8 or 10 ft. high. One boat's crew however,
would not leave England without muskets, and they
succeeded in capturing a boat. The French Admiral
(Latouche) said at the time he had no hopes of any
of the French being saved, for he declared that if
the English came a little nearer they might set every
ship on fire. It is false that there were any of them
chained, there were one or two aground.
I was pestered by a great number of women and
children begging, and upon my enquiring the cause,
I was instantly told because formerly there were
several of the noblesse who lived in and near the
town, but that now they were gone, the town was
in wretchedness and beggary.
VOL. I.
18 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
At Abbeville, as I was returning to the Hotel,
some women hissed and gave me some interruption,
probably from my being in regimentals.
We lay the next night at Rheims. The Cathedral,
which was also built by the English is extremely fine,
and has suffered very little by the Revolution, the
Mayor having taken up arms against the soldiery
who wished to destroy it. It has however been
despoiled of all its plate and riches, and some of the
figures demolished. Particularly, compartments in
which are represented history from the Old and New
Testaments. The heads of nearly all the figures are
cut off.
On Friday we slept at Chantilly, which I only
mention, in order to observe that it is one of the most
distressing scenes I have ever witnessed in France.
The magnificent Palace, once the abode of princely
worth, is in ruins, and a band of rcgicidal Freebooters
living in what were the stables. The woods and
gardens are all neglected, and in disorder, in short
the whole is calculated to excite the most melancholy
ideas.
At Amiens I saw Lord Cornwallis who was very
kind. I was invited to dine with Joseph Bonaparte,
but did not go, in hopes of seeing him in Paris, when
after a little Practice I should be able to speak French
more Fluently.
The Priest at Calais, who seems a sensible man,
informed me that the people came daily in greater
numbers to Church. The religion of the people is
greatly altered, and although there are not a very
great number of Atheists, yet it appears to me that
they are impressed with no awe, no warmth of devo-
tion, professing the Catholic religion yet remaining
indifferent about any.
Notwithstanding the ordinances of Government
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 19
in order to oblige tradesmen to keep open their
shops on Sunday, one frequently sees those who in
defiance of the Legislature shut them up, indeed
there is certainly an air of Sunday through the town.
The devastation amongst the ecclesiastical buildings
is immense, there is not a village I saw but what
there was a Church in ruins or greatly injured, the
same is the case in many of the streets in Paris. The
manners of the lower classes are certainly altered by
the Revolution, but not nearly so much as one would
be led to expect, from the great changes which have
taken place in the Government; in general they are
remarkably civil and obliging. They seem to have
lost some of their National gaity, which renders
them still more like the Scotch, who indeed I should
say are like the French.
I have scarcely ever seen a countryman with a
muff, which practice used formerly to be universal,
instead of which they wear a great pair of gloves,
with fur inside and out. They dress worse, and
more dirtily than before the Revolution, among the
lower classes cocked hats seem to be the rage, one
may see people of all discriptions, sailors, soldiers,
tailors, blacksmiths, carters and even sportsmen and
postmen, with these immense inconvenient articles.
Caps of all descriptions are worn, from the red cap
of Liberty to a cap made of Fox's skin, with the
brush hanging down behind a la guerre.
Bonaparte is certainly popular, but it is more
through necessity than anything else, not but what
they must be grateful for his overturning the Directory.
They all say, we lived in continual terror and danger ;
he came, we live at least in safety and tranquility
if not in happiness. They are, however, sensible
that it is only conferring Supreme power upon one
man which before was possessed by five, and they
20 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
wisely prefer one Tyrant to any other number,
in as much as Tyrants, always get worse in an inverted
ratio, for instance of all Tyrannies a Monarchical
Government is the best, an Aristocratical the worst,
and a Democratical the worst possible.
It would be unpardonable were I to omit saying
something of Moreau, whom I shall not hesitate to
affirm is one of the greatest characters of the age.
He is indubitably one of the best officers, if we except
the Archduke Charles, perhaps the very best in
Europe he is extremely modest in his manners and
temperate in his opinions, he possesses an accurate
knowledge of the Laws of his country, (having prac-
tised formerly as advocate), joined to considerable
learning. I think the most admirable trait in his
character is that in whatever part he may have
carried on the War, he has always made himself
beloved by the inhabitants. This, when we con-
sider that he is the only officer who never received
any succours from the Treasury at home, is an
incontrovertible proof of his consummate skill as a
commander, and goodness as a man. I had the
happiness of being introduced to him, and found him
everything I had expected.
The Government of France at present is almost
entirely Military. The Generals are the people who
are looked up to in the place of the ancient noblesse
and whose alliances are coveted with equall avidity-
even the appartments of Bonaparte in the Tuilleries
which are extremely magnificent (formerly the royal
appartments), are decorated almost entirely with
military ornaments, swords, helmets, shields, etc.
all scattered about in the greatest profusion. In
the magnificent hall, where the great dinners are
given, I discovered nothing but statues of eminent
military characters, such as the great Conde, Marshall
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 21
Turenne, Chevalier Bayard, the Great Duquesne,
Marshall de Luxembourg etc., etc. A martial air
reigns through the town, soldiers parade most of the
principal streets, and keep the peace. The utmost
respect is paid to everything military but although
the influence of the army is thus predominant, yet
Bonaparte neither as chief nor in his civil capacity is
quite absolute, as has been proved by the rejection
of the code of Civil Law proposed by him, and the
adoption of which he was known to have had very
much at heart. The fundamental principle of the
constitution is, that all Laws must originate with,
and be proposed by, the Consulate. The Legislative
Body have thus the power of rejecting this proposal,
or of ordering it to pass into a Law. It is true
however that the Chief Consul by virtue of what is
called an " arrete " can do what he pleases, but it is
as a violent proceeding, and never acted upon but
on trifling occasions. I understand, however, that
he is determined to carry his proposed Civil Code
through all opposition, and in this manner, namely,
by getting rid of everyone who opposed it ; which is
done by declaring the necessity of a new election.
Bonaparte takes care of course that no ob-
noxious member shall be re-elected; in this manner
they go on rejecting twenty or thirty of the old
members daily, they are however to be allowed to
sit, until the first of Germinal, when the Code is to
be proposed again and no doubt carried. All Bona-
parte's friends are much surprised at this strong
measure, the consequences of which nobody can
foresee, but I think the sentiment of his enemies
seems exaltation, and of his friends dread. He him-
self probably thinks that the object is tantamount to
any danger to which he may be liable, and therefore
through a real desire to do good, and perhaps relying
22 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
upon his popularity, he hopes all may turn out
well.
Bonaparte has returned from Lyons with the
title of first Consul of the Italian Republic. I
should suppose that this must have been understood
by the negotiating parties, for if not it is calculated
to produce serious consequences, as in all probability
he will soon make himself First Consul of the Helvetic
and Batavian Republics. It is impossible to cal-
culate the advantage which France must receive
from the Incorporation of these three Republics. As
in each of them will be organised at least thirty
thousand men. There will be then on the Frontiers
of France a Force of 90,000 men, ready to march at
a moment's warning. Bonaparte was received with
no particular demonstrations of joy.
Soon after he arrived there was a review at which
I was, after which I was introduced to him, he talked
for about a quarter of an hour.
The Spectators were very numerous, yet no joy
was shewn. All this very strange, but I apprehend it
springs from a kind of jealousy mixed with their
admiration, which must for some time be the case,
until all the popular ideas of liberty have subsided,
and the people are contented to sit quietly down
under an absolute Government, which is the only
one by which France can ultimately flourish, of
this truth Bonaparte is perfectly sensible, as are all
those who know the interests of France.
From France Lord Aberdeen went to Italy, and in
Florence spent some interesting evenings at the
house of the Pretender's widow, the Countess of
Albany. At one end of the room the Countess sat
with her bevy of visitors ; at the other, cloaked and
hatted, seated at a table, was Alfieri, alone, and
apparently unnoticed by the little Court around
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 23
the Countess. Lord Aberdeen's acquaintance with
Italian literature enabled him to have some converse
with the poet, which he was not accustomed to have
with British visitors.
Lord Aberdeen was anxious to travel in the Levant,
and at length extorted from his two guardians a
somewhat reluctant permission to gratify his wish.
At Malta he joined Mr. Drummond, the new
British Ambassador to the Porte, and accompanied
him to Constantinople. The Embassy touched at
almost every island in the ^Egean Sea in its route.
After reaching Constantinople, Lord Aberdeen spent
some time there, and after obtaining the necessary
firmans he proceeded on a long journey through
Greece and Asia Minor. In those days such wander-
ings were attended with much hardship, and
occasionally with a certain amount of danger.
He stayed for a considerable time at Athens,
where he rediscovered and excavated the Pnyx;
he then crossed to Smyrna, and thence visited
Ephesus and other points in Asia Minor. He returned
to Greece and explored the Morea, visited Albania,
and passing to Corfu, returned home, after an absence
on the Continent of two years.
On his return to England in 1804 Lord Aberdeen
resumed the life he had lived before going abroad,
and he resided alternately with Mr. Pitt and Lord
Melville.
On January 28, 1805, he attained his majority,
and he then went to Haddo House to take possession
of his estates, and receive a welcome and congratula-
tions from his many tenants and county neighbours.
Lord Aberdeen had never visited the home of his
ancestors since he had left Scotland as a child of
only eight years old. Such impressions as he retained
of his early life at Haddo were those misty and
illusionary impressions which are made on the infant
mind. His boyhood and early youth had been
passed among the most cultivated and illustrious
men of the time. His school and his various homes
24 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
were situated in some of the most beautiful of English
counties. He had travelled early and far, and he
had lingered amid the Southern scenes of a great
past. There he had seen the vestiges of a complex
and ordered civilisation, set amid a natural scenery,
untouched in its glowing beauty and richness by the
history of the decay and ruin of vanished nations.
Whether at home in England, or travelling abroad,
the surroundings of his life had been totally unlike
the conditions which existed in Scotland at that
date; and his imagination had never pictured what
awaited him on his return to his native land.
His son has recorded that Lord Aberdeen could
but rarely be induced to speak of these early days, or
the rough awakening he was to experience. When
he did recall them, he spoke " with great force on his
sensations when brought face to face with the
realities." It was very literally the nakedness of the
land that lay before him.
Two hundred years had passed since the union of
the crowns, and the union of the countries was barely
seventy years old at the date of Lord Aberdeen's
birth. Aberdeenshire lay remote from the tide of
prosperity and common interests, which was slowly
linking up the two countries. When the north of
Scotland began the movement of enlightened progress,
it was no laggard in the race, and its people were to
take the lead in everything that needed commercial
sagacity and agricultural science; but that period
was only just looming on the horizon of its history at
the date when Lord Aberdeen came to his home.
When he had mastered his first deep disgust at
the backward condition of agriculture, the miserable
dwellings and half-savage habits of the people,
the drinking and coarseness of the gentry, the
inclemency of the climate, the ugliness and monotony
of the country, bare and undulating and treeless, he
entertained wild ideas of breaking the entail and
disposing of the property. He saw he could not do
this, and then the intention of permanent absenteeism
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 25
presented itself as another form of temptation. It was
not until after many days of mental conflict that his
intense desire to escape to more smiling regions gave
place to the conviction that it was his duty not to
abandon, but to improve the vast territorial posses-
sions to which he owed his place and position in the
world.
To desert those who were living under his influence
was clearly impossible, and the work which lay to
his hand was to improve those conditions, which he
felt so keenly were neither those of progress nor of
civilisation.
It is rare in any age that one born to the name and
position inherited by Lord Aberdeen should have
been brought up until he had attained his majority
in scenes so remote from the lot in which his inheritance
was cast.
Scotland has always suffered from so many of her
sons being educated in England, leaving them without
the knowledge of that race and country from which
they have sprung. Too often they neither share nor
understand the beliefs and traditions of their own
countrymen. Yet in the beginning of the nineteenth
century, had Lord Aberdeen remained in the remote
and isolated north of Scotland he might have differed
very little from those neighbours whose lack of
refinement he felt so keenly, when called upon to
view them in the light of social acquaintances.
Had he not been conversant with a different
standard of comfort and well-being within the rural
districts of England, he might never have taken rank
among those who were bent on being reformers and
benefactors on their native soil. That the young
man was not over-fastidious can be demonstrated
from any of the records of the condition of the
country-side at this time.
" A tree in Scotland is as rare as a horse in Venice,"
was Dr. Johnson's dictum, and there was a larger
amount of truth in the Saxon gibe than was always
the case where Johnson and Scotland were concerned.
26 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
The ancient woods had been laid low, wastefully
used as fuel, and destroyed as cumberers of the soil,
or sold by impecunious and absent landowners who
wasted their revenues by dissipation at the English
capital and Court.
In agriculture the cultivation of the turnip made
no real progress till after the famine of 1782. That
disaster taught farmers a severe and much-needed
lesson, and at last the ancient and outworn methods
were abandoned. Before the famine there were not
two hundred acres put under turnip in any one
year.
Improvement had set in by the time Lord Aberdeen
came to his home, but how much it was needed, and
how little had been effected in the outer face of nature
and man, may be gauged by the impressions made
upon him.
In writing to his friend, Hudson Gurney, three or
four days after attaining his majority, he says, " I
have feasted about eight or nine hundred neighbours
as well as the principal gentlemen of the County,
and I have been immersed, not in Greek [as Gurney
supposed], but in Port and Claret."
Lord Stanmore wrote thus, regarding his father's
first arrival at Haddo :
The scene before him was certainly cold and
cheerless. The short lime avenue before the house
terminated in a dreary and extensive peat moss,
which lay stretched between it and the grim high
walls of a distant deer park. Snipe were to be shot
in the marshy swamp which reached to the foot of
the garden terrace. Stacks of fuel and sheds of
lumber were piled against the walls of the house
itself. The neighbouring lairds, not excluding the
few peers who lived almost wholly in the country,
were uneducated, and had little in common with
" Athenian Aberdeen."
Three o'clock in the afternoon was the ordinary
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 27
hour of dinner, at which every gentleman present was
expected to propose a toast and every lady a senti-
ment. A particular small kind of raw turnip appeared
on the table as the winter dessert. Stores of salt
meat were laid in for winter use. There was one house
on the estate, besides the great house, which paid
window tax, but only one. Women habitually
assisted to draw the plough; and the houses of the
peasantry, and even the smaller farmers, were of the
poorest description. It is difficult to believe that
even the remotest districts of our island could have
been so far behind the conditions which had been
attained by the more civilised parts of the kingdom.
One anecdote will be sufficient to show how little
advance had been made, at all events in luxury.
The umbrella which Lord Aberdeen brought down
with him on this occasion was the first ever seen in
the parishes of Methlick or Tarves, and on going out
with it, he was repeatedly stopped by curious persons,
who asked him to put it up and close it again. Having
one day performed this operation several times, at
the request of an old man, he was rewarded by a long
sigh, a grave shake of the head, and the ejaculation,
' Eh, they're braw chiels i' the Sooth.' The con-
trary opinion was expressed by the old huntsman of
the family, who declared that the young Earl would
have been a fine man, " gin they hadna ta'en him
to England, and spoiled his education."
When this was repeated to Lord Aberdeen he wrote
to his friend Gurney :
I by no means despise the old huntsman's reflections.
My father certainly contrived to make himself the
most popular character of this county by conforming
to the pursuits of the country, and by the art of
concealing the learning and rationality he possessed,
28 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
and of which, indeed, few people had more. This
appears to me enviable.
Enviable it might be, but Lord Aberdeen's gifts did
not lie in this direction, nor at any time of his life
could he successfully affect interest in that which did
not interest him.
Once convinced that " duty stern and high "
demanded any sacrifice of him, Lord Aberdeen
never failed to pursue the appointed task. That in
the course of long years he lived to see his particular
wilderness blossom as the rose, that his labour for
the country and his own property became a labour
of love, and that he had the reward of seeing his
estates increase in prosperity and in material value,
lay still in the unknown future. What conditions he
found, and what conditions he left when his life
ended, are well recorded in an interesting report,
covering the period from 1801-1860, by Mr. George
Muirhead, F.R.S.E., during the time that he was factor
to the present Lord Aberdeen. Some extracts give a
clear account of the estate and condition of things :
Previous to the early years of the eighteenth
century agriculture in Aberdeenshire was in a very
rude state, little or no improvement having been
made in the cultivation of the land, which still con-
tinued to be cropped and managed by the unenlight-
ened tenantry in the same manner as it had been for
ages by their benighted forefathers. The whole
country was bare and open; no fences, trees or
plantations for shelter or ornament were to be seen
in the wide expanse of Buchan and Formartine.
Moors, mosses, and barren wastes, interspersed with
bogs and morasses, covered the greater part of the
surface of the ground. The cultivated lands were
continually soaked by the copious rains and melting
snows of winter, and poached into mortar by the
heavy feet of the drowsy steers which dragged the
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 29
cumbrous " twelve owsen " plough along the crooked
furrows, which were thus rendered sour and unfruitful
and yielded poor and scanty crops.
Artificial drainage, as well as the use of lime for
agricultural purposes, was almost unknown. There
were no roads or bridges, and no means of conveying
grain to the market except on the backs of pack-
horses.
The land was occupied by two classes the
proprietors and their tenants. Owing probably to
the disturbed state of the country, the former took
little or no personal interest in agriculture. The
only ground they cultivated was near their mansions,
and that just for household purposes. The tenants
tilled only small patches of land on the running
system. They followed the practices of their fathers,
and these were thriftless and barbarous in the
extreme. They sowed successive crops of corn on
the same piece of ground until it was utterly ex-
hausted, when it was left foul with weeds, to recover
its powers by an indefinite period of rest. Oats,
bere, and peas were the usual field crops, and the
straw of these, along with such herbage as they
could find in the field, formed the winter food of the
cattle, which before the return of the spring were
often so weak from starvation that they were unable
to rise without assistance.
The improvements introduced by the enterprising
and patriotic landowners, such as drainage and
liming, turnip-growing and the sowing of the land
with artificial grass seeds, were at first but slowly
adopted by the tenantry.
The report then quotes the Rev. Francis Knox,
Minister of Tarves. Writing in 1842, he says that
agriculture in 1772 in that parish, a typical one of
the Haddo estate, was in a truly wretched condition.
30 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
Green crops, with the exception of a few potatoes
and cole worts in the gardens, were unknown. The
horses employed in agriculture were diminutive in
size and used merely for burden, never for draught.
They carried out manure and home peats in panniers
or creels. Carts and wheeled carriages were only to
be found in the possession of landed proprietors.
The dwelling-houses of the tenants generally con-
sisted of two apartments a " but " and a " ben."
The walls were built of stones and clay, and roofs
covered with " divots " or thatched with rushes or
heather cut from the neighbouring moors.
One bad harvest of 1782 and the disasters which
followed it had a very depressing effect upon the
tenantry, and the close of the eighteenth century
found the general condition of the Haddo House
estates much the same as it had been for the previous
five-and-twenty years.
About 1805 the rise in the price of agricultural
produce, and especially of cattle, which succeeded the
breaking out of the war with France, stimulated the
tenantry to engage in improvements on their holdings.
From this time forward the progress was very rapid.
As a proof of this, the rental of the estates rose about
fifty per cent, in eight years. In the first ten years
of entering into his property Lord Aberdeen laid out
in improvements close on three thousand pounds.
The report traces all the enlightened management,
the improved system of leases, and the example set by
the landowner, through the years covered by this
report. Much of it seems the commonplaces of
to-day over agricultural Scotland, but Lord Aberdeen
and many of the surrounding proprietors made
possible by their generous terms, and steady leader-
ship, the enrichment of the country and its people.
When an end came to his stewardship, the total
he had expended in improvements, which included
buildings, roads, draining and planting, was close on
sixty thousand pounds :
He drained, he planted, he built. Tracts of
EARLY YEARS (1784-1805) 31
moorland became fields of corn, new schools rose in
every parish, new buildings on every farm. Few
knew the sacrifices of taste and inclination involved
in his adoption of Haddo as an habitual summer
residence. For many years it was in the highest
degree repugnant to him. But in spite of inclination
he persevered.
Lord Aberdeen lived to see the works of his hand
prosper, and he learnt to love his patrimony with the
love which was that of a native of Caledonia stern
and wild. He never lost his early impressions of the
rigours of the January winter in which he returned
to his home. To the end of his large correspondence,
much of it when written from Haddo dwelt on the
changes and chances of climate. In early autumn,
and even in the late summer of the north, he con-
stantly forecasted snow-storms, and the blockading
of roads he had in many cases himself constructed.
Writing to a friend from Haddo in October 1809 he
says :
It will make me truly happy to see you, but,
alas ! this is not my Paradise : this is not Vail'
Ombrosa of which you have heard so much, but a
real Siberian waste. Far as the eye can reach no
tree is seen. " Earth clad in russet scorns the lively
green." The desolation of the exterior is only equalled
by the appalling badness of the house. We will
contrive, however, to despise these matters. If the
storm rages we will sit close in the old Library. I'll
broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie and bring pasties of
the doe ! in short do all that is possible to make you
forget the frozen latitude in which we are placed.
I go to-morrow to visit a brother Kamskatchan.
It has been worth while to describe the condition
of Aberdeenshire and the Haddo estates at the end of
the eighteenth century, not only because it is part
32 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
of the history of the development of Scotland after
the union of the countries, but because much of the
character and talent of Lord Aberdeen may be
traced to the race and country from which he drew
his name and position. The success of the " Aber-
donian," in all spheres of work, has passed into a
proverb, and something of the tough dourness and
long-headed sagacity of the race of men and women
who have owned Aberdeenshire as their county, is
due to the wrestle with a harsh climate and soil,
which was never that of the Garden of Eden.
You may transport a Scot, and nurture him in the
soft South, amidst the luxuries of the capitals of
Europe, but untouched will remain those character-
istics which have been welded into his being by
conditions which have called forth the courage,
endurance and sagacious ability of the sons of the
North.
CHAPTER II
MARRIAGE (18051813)
" I feel, as everyone ought, that the most solid blessing in life,
perhaps the only one, is the possession of a faithful and true heart."
ABERDEEN .
LORD ABERDEEN'S residence at the University
seems to have extended to two years. Lord Stan-
more, writing of that period, says :
At that time, not only did the vicious practice of
granting degrees to noblemen without examination
prevail, but they were actually precluded from pre-
senting themselves for examination even when desirous
to do so.
He appears, however, to have continued the classical
studies which he had carried on at Harrow, and to
have made himself conversant with modern history,
especially that of the Renaissance.
After what has been said of Lord Aberdeen's
studious habits, the reader may be surprised to learn
that one of his favourite recreations while at Cam-
bridge was acting. Silent, shy and sensitive as he
was, the personation of another seemed to give him
confidence which in his own character he did not
possess. On one occasion, he and two friends presented
themselves under assumed names to the manager of
the theatre at Canterbury, and were engaged by him
to perform the principal parts in Shakespeare's
tragedy of King John. Their success was complete,
and the manager was most anxious to retain them in
his company, offering Lord Aberdeen a liberal salary,
VOL. i. 33 D
84 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
if he would only enter into an engagement for the
entire season.
He did not leave this talented taste behind him
when he left Cambridge, and when he joined the
circle at the Priory he became a welcome recruit of
the private theatricals carried on there. In one
play in which there were but eleven male parts,
there are to be found among the actors two future
Prime Ministers, Lord Aberdeen and Lord Melbourne,
two Ambassadors at Vienna, Sir R. Gordon and
Lord Beauvale, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Mr. T.
Sheridan.
Probably his curators knew nothing of his
theatrical engagement at Cambridge, but after his
marriage the watchful eye of Lord Melville was on
him, and he expressed his anxiety to his former
charge :
Dalchonzie, 1805.
I am not much in the way of hearing anything at
this place, but it was mentioned by somebody two
days ago in conversation, that there was to be some
theatrical entertainment at the Priory and that you
was to have a part. Not knowing the circumstances,
nor whether it is a thing which either yourself or
Lord Abercorn are eager about, it may be pre-
sumptuous or perhaps rusticated in me to suggest
doubts as to the propriety of your taking a part, but
having these doubts, it can do you no harm merely
to suggest to you whether at your time of life, and
with the prospects of ambition which naturally
present themselves to your view, it would not be as
well to keep your oratorical talents for another theatre
than that of any private spectacle of mere amuse-
ment, and of which as performers it is not likely
you are to meet with many partakers of your own
rank and condition in life.
If I am wrong you can think no more of my
MARRIAGE (1805-1813) 35
doubt and throw this into the fire, but if you think
there is anything in my suggestion it will not cost
either Lord Abercorn or you much trouble to give it
five minutes' consideration.
I have spoken to the Duke of York of a Commission
to Alec, and about the latter end of next week Charles
goes to sea under the care of Sir Home Popham. He
will have a fair trial of his love of the sea, as Sir
Home is going on a very distant service.
I remain, my dear Haddo,
Yours affectionately,
HENRY DUNDAS.
Lord Haddo took counsel with his other guardian
and received an answer :
Downing Street, Sunday, Oct. 27, 1805.
MY DEAR LORD,
I feel very much flattered by your wish to
know my opinion on the subject of your Note. Your
character for attention to real Business cannot, I am
sure, suffer in my eyes, nor I think in those of others,
from your taking a Part in the Amusement of the
Priory. They will, I hope, only be a prelude for
graver Exhibitions; and whenever an opportunity
may arise, you will be ready to obey the summons
you remember in Tacitus :
" Nunc ego te ab Auditoriis et Theatris, in Pulverem
atque Aciem et ad vera Proelia voco."
Ever, my dear Lord,
Most sincerely yours,
W. PITT.
It was not the private theatricals, which so
disturbed Lord Melville, which were the centre of
Lord Aberdeen's thoughts at the Priory. He was
about to enter into the drama and tragedy of his
36 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
private life, and at this time all his hopes and
prospects seemed of the fairest.
On attaining his majority Lord Aberdeen con-
tinued to live chiefly with Mr. Pitt, and his entrance
into Society was into that circle which contained
Mr. Pitt's friends. Among those to whose notice
Lord Aberdeen was specially commended by Mr.
Pitt was Lord Abercorn. John James, Marquess of
Abercorn, occupied a position at that time less sin-
gular than it would be now that of a man who,
never sitting in a Cabinet, or accepting office, never-
theless, by virtue of the possession of rank and wealth,
and the command of shrewd ability, exercised no
inconsiderable influence on affairs, and was consulted
by Cabinets and by the sovereign. In his youth
Lord Abercorn's accession to the title had not been
anticipated, but his handsome person, his great
strength and the boldness and frequency of his
adventures of gallantry had made him, at an early
age, a marked figure in Society. Mr. Pitt had a very
high opinion of his talents, and according to Walter
Scott, declared that had Lord Abercorn remained a
Commoner he would have become one of the most
distinguished speakers of the Lower House. As a
peer he was remarkable for pride and stateliness, but
in the brilliant society which he gathered round him,
literature and art held at least as high a place as rank
and power. The imperious owner of Bently Priory,
and those who habitually gathered there, have been
sketched by Sir Walter Scott in a now forgotten
article in the Quarterly Review. The picture is an
attractive one. The Shcridans, Walter Scott him-
self, Lawrence the painter, Kemble the actor, Payne
Knight the antiquary, were among the most constant
and familiar guests, and to Lord Aberdeen the Priory
soon became a home.
MARRIAGE (1805-1813) 37
The eldest daughter of Lord Abercorn, Lady
Catharine Hamilton, was one of those bright and rare
beings who seem rather to rest on the earth's surface
than to belong to it. The likeness of her graceful
form, full of restless life, of her stately bearing, and
eager, passionate face, has been preserved to us by
Lawrence. Though the fire and animation of the
mobile features are shown upon his canvas, it is
evident that their beauty, great as it is, must have
been enhanced by their constant play of varying
expression, the Lampeggiar delV Angelica riso which
goes so far to form love's paradise.
To his friends, Lawrence whispered that his
fortune would have been made if he could have dared
to paint, as the embodiment of scorn, her attitude
and expression, as with half-averted head and out-
stretched arm she allowed the Prince of Wales,
whom she despised and thought she had reason to
hate, to fasten an armlet above her elbow. With
her Lord Aberdeen fell passionately in love, and she
with him. There was nothing to impede his suit,
and they were married on the 28th July, 1805. Lord
Aberdeen worshipped her with complete devotion.
He found in her society a happiness he had never
known or imagined, and which was all the more
appreciated from its contrast to his previous solitary
and forlorn condition. Kind as his guardians had
been, the dependence on strangers had been bitter
to him. He had known no home or family life.
There were none on whom he could freely lavish his
strong affection, and he had early learned to repress
all outward signs of feeling. For a few short years
his happiness was now brilliant and unclouded, it
was then lost for ever.
In these words, the son of his old age gives the
history of what were truly the sanctities of Lord
38 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
Aberdeen's home. The happiness and subsequent
tragical grief runs like the warp and woof of the web
of life through all his subsequent history. It was a
grief borne with a fortitude, and concealed by a
reserve which even at this distance of time can be
vividly read in the faded ink of these documents which
tell the story of all the lives which were so early
removed from the happy circle of Lord Aberdeen's
home. The marriage made no difference in his
relations with his two guardians and friends. Lord
Melville, visiting the Priory after the betrothal,
writes warmly of his pleasure in making Lady
Catharine's acquaintance.
Priory, July.
MY DEAR LORD,
I can't pass a second day here without com-
municating to you my cordial contentment in the
prospect of your affairs after saying this I need
hardly explain it by adding that I find Lady Cath-
arine is really one among ten thousand, and that I
don't find that any part of all the good I had heard
of her has been exaggerated. I think her one of the
most natural and most pleasing people I ever saw, and
I am persuaded, though on so short an acquaintance,
that she has one of those happy natures that, the
more undisguised they are, must become the more
attaching; and certainly there are circumstances,
extreme cases, that almost preclude of common
gradations of intimacy. She has perfectly complied
with your desire in this respect, and met me at least
half-way but what I honour her for is the honesty
with which she shows her regard for you without
either mystery or affectation. It might not be
sufficiently flattering in Lord A.'s ears, but you will
do justice to the extent of my meaning when I declare
to you that I am quite satisfied, and more so than I
ever could have been if the choice of your destiny
MARRIAGE (1805-1813) 39
had been left to me. I trust nothing will happen to
detain you long, I never saw any person's presence
more desired than yours is here.
His relations with Mr. Pitt became even more
intimate after the impeachment and trial of Lord
Melville by the House of Lords, which took place in
1806, and at Mr. Pitt's request the young couple took
up their residence at Lord Melville's villa at Wimble-
don, so as to be near Mr. Pitt's house at Putney. It
was not to be for long, and how profoundly the
change affected Lord Aberdeen is set forth in his
correspondence.
FROM LORD MELVILLE l
Bath, Jan. 5, 1806.
Mr. Pitt was seized with another
attack of the gout last night in the foot not attacked
before. He is thin and feeble. Sir Walter Farquhar
arrived here last night and I shall know more accur-
ately to-day the state of his health. But without
being a physician or hearing any report, upon my
own observation I cannot help regretting most
severely the early approach of the meeting of Parlia-
ment, before which time it does not appear to me
possible for him to have recovered any competent
degree of strength. . . .
Conduit Street, 22nd.
I have received your letter. The fatal Blow
I am to receive from Putney, in the course of not
many hours, would at any rate have disabled me
1 Henry Dundas, 1742-1811. Mr. Pitt's most trusted colleague
and intimate friend. Lord Advocate, 1775 ; President of the India
Board, 1784-1801. Created Viscount Melville, 1802. First Lord of
the Admiralty, 1804-5. Tried and acquitted by the House of Lords
on a charge of peculation, as Treasurer of the Navy, 1806. Though
acquitted he was shown to have been negligent in financial control,
and declined to resume office when asked to do so by the Duke of Port-
land in 1807.
40 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
from joining any party at present ; I will endeavour to
give you a Call in the course of to-morrow, but I shall
go on to Bath without delay. God bless you and
yours. . . .
London, Jan. 23, 1806.
MY DEAR ABERDEEN,
The fatal Blow you will have heard is struck.
I am going to Blackheath but will breakfast with
you to-morrow on my way to Bath. My love to
Lady Aberdeen, and I remain,
My dear Lord,
Yours very truly and affectionately,
MELVILLE.
LORD ABERDEEN TO THE REV. G. WHITTINGTON 1
Wimbledon, Jan. 24, 1800.
MY DEAR WHITTINGTON,
With mingled sentiments of grief and horror
I now write to you. Mr. Pitt is no more; the
country has lost its only support in this dreadful
time of disasters; and I have lost the only Friend
to whom I looked up with unbounded Love and
Admiration. The sun is indeed set, and what can
now follow but the blackest night 1 Why are you
absent ? not that I can tell you anything ; Lord
Melville was here this morning in absolute despair.
Everybody in the streets looks as if they had lost a
a father and Protector; and they are right; they
have. He was sensible until a short time before he
died, which he did with perfect resignation. He
continued to talk when senseless, and wished to
write to the Foreign Office and Treasury. But why
do I expatiate on anything so distressing ? To think
that I am now writing at a Table, where I have seen
1 Rev. G. Whittington, 1780-1807. Fellow of St. John's College,
Cambridge.
MARRIAGE (1805-1813) 41
him a thousand times, is indeed Agony. What will
become of the Country torn by differing factions ?
While he lived, whether in or out of place, there was
at least one object to which all eyes were directed,
and which might have united all hearts in the time
of danger. But now it is all void and blank : on
whom can we put our trust? where can the mind
repose with confidence?
Nothing is known of any arrangements, and you
will not expect me to go over reports at present.
For God's sake come to England; if I do not close
my eyes, which I have not these last two nights, I
shall be soon as miserable in body as in mind. The
Blow is so dreadfully fatal, because wholly irreparable,
and admits of no alleviation.
Farewell, and come to England.
Believe me your most affectionate Friend,
ABERDEEN.
LORD ABERDEEN'S JOURNAL
Jan. 25, Saturday. Wimbledon. I have often
resolved progressively to note down and record the
political events and transactions which pass under
my observation and are worthy of such attention,
but more particularly every subject of that nature
in which I am individually concerned or interested.
More especially at the present time am I inclined to
observe and record my own actions, as from the
expulsion of Lord Melville last year, and the recent
death of Mr. Pitt, I am deprived of the two only
persons to whose influence I have so long looked up
for assistance and protection.
Mr. Pitt, having spent some time at Bath without
benefit, returned to Putney in order to attend the
ensuing meeting of Parliament. His health remained
in a fluctuating state, but when Parliament did meet
42 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
on the 21st of this month he was too ill to attend.
I received on the evening of the 22nd a note from
Lord Melville, intimating that his death might be
expected, and on the morning of the 23rd I was
informed he was no more, having expired that
morning at a quarter past four.
From my having lived with him on terms of the
utmost intimacy from my childhood, from his having
been my guardian, and from his constant affection
for me, the dismay and affliction which I suffered
and still do suffer under this irreparable loss, by being
absorbed in individual feelings, renders me callous
or insensible to those of a public nature. Yet the
idea is dreadful ! the sun is indeed set, and what can
now follow but the blackest night ?
I am resolved to recollect and write down many
things which I heard Mr. Pitt say, in the course of
this journal. Nothing fell from his lips without its
weight !
Jan. 24
RUSSIA AND TURKEY (1828-1830) 241
hereafter, in case of its entire annihilation and ex-
tinction. All I wish is, to get out of the Greek affair
without loss of honour, and without imminent risk
for the safety of the Ionian Islands.
After much discussion, the independent sovereignty
was conceded to Lord Aberdeen; but he could not
gain the assent of the Cabinet to any extension of the
limits of Greece beyond those already determined.
With his accustomed loyalty to his chief and to his
colleagues, he strove, in all his correspondence, to
make the best of an arrangement he did not really
like. To his brother alone he permitted himself to
express the whole extent of his views with regard
to the future which lay before the new State. In
his judgment, however, the exact limits of the Greek
kingdom had now become of far less importance
than the choice of an efficient sovereign for it. He
thought it essential that he should be a man of real
capacity, willing to work and competent to rule ; one
on whom would naturally devolve or who, in case of
need, might seize the inheritance of the Sultan.
Among the numerous princes who were either
candidates for the new sovereignty, or had been
urged to become so, there were two Prince Frederick
of Orange and Prince Philip of Hesse who appeared
to Lord Aberdeen to combine the qualities required
for the post. Both were men of ability, decision,
and strength of character. But of these, Prince
Frederick declined to allow himself to be nominated,
and the French Court refused to permit the appoint-
of a prince who was also a general in the Austrian
army, which was the position of Prince Philip. Of
him the Duke wrote : "I know him, and believe him
to be as little friendly to this country as any other
Prince on the Continent."
Prince John of Saxony was the candidate put forward
by France, while Prussia urged the claims of Prince
Charles of Mecklenburg. Two Archdukes, Maxi-
milian and Bernard of Tuscany, were supposed to
VOL. I E
be willing to undertake the task. In Lord Aberdeen's
opinion they were more fit to criticise Greek archi-
tecture and collect Greek coins than to rule a turbulent
and hungry crowd of modern Greeks.
Two other princes had proposed themselves as
candidates, Prince Paul of Wiirttemberg and Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Prince Leopold was
accepted, to his own great satisfaction, by the Con-
ference, rather on the principle that no Power could
offer a definite objection to him.
Lord Aberdeen wrote to his brother at Constanti-
nople :
I hope you have been preparing our friends for
the independence of Greece. This is what we shall
certainly establish. We have reduced the limits as
much as we have been able; but in this respect we
have been obliged to give way more than we could
have wished. I consider the appointment of Leopold
an invaluable security for the Porte.
I think you are allowing yourself to be deceived
respecting the state of that Empire. It is not
wonderful that you should feel a kindness for people
who treat you with such favour and distinction,
and I am among the first to admit that the poor
devils have endured great injustice. For their
great misfortunes they have themselves only to thank ;
their obstinacy and infatuation have brought them
to their present state, and have deprived us of the
means of being really useful to them. It is impossible
that you can be right respecting the possibility of
their recovering their former position in Europe.
Every province is in revolt, and the moral effect of
a peace dictated at Adrianople cannot be recovered
by any means at the disposal of the Sultan.
Sir Robert said Lord Aberdeen's despatch had
made him perfectly unhappy, because he regarded it
RUSSIA AND TURKEY (1828-1830) 243
as tantamount to a death-warrant of Sultan Mahmoud's
power, which he had been labouring to defend and
foster. He believed that the Treaty of Adrianople,
with all its burdens, would be more palatable to the
Porte than the certain knowledge that the preser-
vation of the Turkish Empire was no longer an
object of the British care.
Lord Aberdeen wrote in reply to remove some of
the apprehensions he had raised by his despatch.
He said that His Majesty's Government had formed
decided opinions concerning the Turkish Empire.
After having seen a victorious enemy within a single
march of the Capital, apathy and disaffection prevail-
ing in every province, a general disorganisation,
and even attempted reforms made without method
and discretion, it was difficult to place much confi-
dence in the stability of a Power in such a condition.
At the same time he told Sir Robert he was entirely
mistaken in supposing that the Government was
indifferent to the preservation of the Porte, or that
they contemplated its downfall with complacency.
Greece, he said, could not be left as it was before
the peace of Adrianople. The increased dangers
to the Turkish Empire, and its uncertain duration,
made the complicated relations at one time contem-
plated with the Greek State impossible. " We are
satisfied that the independence of Greece, with a
restricted frontier, will ultimately prove more
advantageous to the Porte."
The shrewdness and diplomatic talents of the
future King of the Belgians, Prince Leopold, were
not then suspected. He was thought to be indolent
and undecided, and that the Russian Minister who
then presided over the Greek State would be able
to guide his ways.
Capo d'Istrias had no wish to part with his own
authority, and when he became aware that the
Prince was a man of considerable capacity, he was
as anxious to get rid of him as he had been to name
him. By playing on the indolence and self-indulgence
244 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
of Prince Leopold's character he knew how to frighten
him into abdicating the dignity he had accepted.
It was a misfortune. Had he, or either Prince
Frederick of Orange or Prince Philip, assumed the
reins of government, Greece would probably have
played the part which Lord Aberdeen intended her
to play, and which was much the same as that which
Bulgaria has played in our own times. No successor
to Prince Leopold had been selected before Lord
Aberdeen left the Foreign Office. By Lord Palmerston
it was determined that the sovereign of Greece should
not be its ruler, but a constitutional king of the
approved type, a figure-head, not a governor; and
that, even during the time which must elapse before
a Constitution could be framed, he should rule
through a council. Accordingly, the young Otho of
Bavaria was chosen, and a council of regency, mainly
composed of Germans, set up to rule in his name.
It was an unfortunate choice. What Greece wanted
was the direction of a single vigorous mind, the grasp
of one firm hand. What it got was a divided council
of timid and selfish pedants, acting in the name of a
dull, incompetent boy.
CHAPTER VI
PART II
FRANCE (1830)
" A time there is for change and chance,
A time for passing of the cup ;
And One abides can yet bind up
Broken France.
A time there is for change and chance.
Who next shall drink the trembling cup,
Wring out its dregs and suck them up,
After France ? "
C. Rossetti.
THE dispute in Portugal concerning the successor
to the Crowns of Portugal and Brazil came before
the Foreign Office. Lord Aberdeen was of the
opinion that neither the interests of Great Britain
nor of Portugal would be benefited by interference.
Dom Pedro, on his accession in 1826, chose Brazil
and resigned Portugal to his infant daughter. He
at the same time granted a Constitution to Portugal
which wholly set aside the existing Cortes.
The question was one of imposing the young Queen
and the Constitution by means of British bayonets.
To this Lord Aberdeen decidedly objected. His
argument to M. Barbecue is only interesting as it
shows how much interference there had been with
the affairs of neighbouring States.
It is then either for the purpose of resisting
successful rebellion, or for that of deciding by force
a question of doubtful succession, that Great Britain
has now been called upon to act. But it is impossible
to imagine that any independent State could ever
intend thus to commit the direction and control of
245
246 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
its internal affairs to the hands of another Power;
for doubtless, if His Majesty be under the necessity
of furnishing effectual succour in the event of any
internal revolt or dissension in Portugal, it would
become a duty, and indeed it would be essential,
to take care that no such cause should exist if it
could possibly be prevented. Hence a constant
and minute interference in the affairs of Portugal
would be indispensable, for His Majesty could never
consent to hold his fleets and armies at the disposal
of a King of Portugal without any of those due
precautions, and that superintendence, which would
assure him that his forces would not be liable to be
employed in averting the effects of misgovernment,
folly or caprice. Is this a condition of things in which
any State professing to be independent could endure
to exist?
These demands on the part of the young Queen
were echoed in the House of Lords by Lord Holland,
to whom Lord Aberdeen pointed out that the obliga-
tion incumbent on Great Britain to defend the House
of Braganza from foreign invasion did not extend to
the case of internal dissensions. " It would be quite
impossible to fulfil such engagements, if they had ever
been entered into, which they had not. There
would be no end to interference, if we were liable
to be called on in every case of dispute between the
members of that family or between the King and
his people."
This is a doctrine more obvious to-day than to
the Whig opposition of 1830. We may be content
with knowing that apart from the age of the Treaty,
British bayonets were not employed against Portugal,
" our ancient ally." Indeed other matters were
engrossing the attention of the Foreign Office. France
was on the eve of her Revolution of 1830, and was
in various ways endeavouring to distract attention
by foreign enterprise. A few weeks after the French
FRANCE (1830) 247
Revolution which set Louis Philippe on the throne
of France and drove Charles X as an exile to the
Palace of Holyrood, Belgium was in revolt, and this
was speedily converted into a revolution.
Questions more difficult of solution than those
involved in the French Revolution were thus raised.
Whatever might be said as to the inapplicability
of the protocol of Aix-la-Chapelle to the existing
state of things in France, it was impossible to deny
that the obvious primd facie interpretation of existing
engagements under the Treaties of 1814 and 1815
bound England and her allies to maintain the integrity
of the kingdom of the Netherlands, and to comply
with the King's request for their armed intervention
between himself and his revolted subjects. The
Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen were resolved
not to adopt a course which would have rendered
war with France all but inevitable, and were most
anxious to engage the French Government in negotia-
tions which would, at all events, prevent any open
assistance being afforded to the Belgian insurgents
from that quarter.
In the pursuit of these objects they were most
efficaciously aided by Talleyrand, who had been sent
to London as French Ambassador by Louis Philippe;
and it is not impossible, nor indeed improbable,
that with his assistance means might have been
found to maintain the link which bound together
the Provinces of the Netherlands, while giving effect
to the just complaints of Belgium.
In one paragraph of the draft of a despatch Lord
Aberdeen had remarked, with satisfaction, that in
the change which had been effected " the horrible
excesses which disgraced the former revolution have
happily been avoided." The Duke of Wellington
pencilled on the margin, " We must not travel too
fast. Observe that only one month has elapsed
since the issue of the Ordinances ; compare that with
the first month of 1789."
The paragraph was altered to the expression of a
248 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
hope that such excesses might be avoided. The
discussion held with Prince Polignac daily assumed
a more threatening aspect, and but for the revolu-
tion in France might have brought about a war
between that country and England. It was held at
the time that the Wellington Government and Lord
Aberdeen entertained strong sympathies with the
reactionary Government in France. It was thought
that, if they did not advise, they at least regarded
without displeasure its attempt to recover autocratic
power.
This was a mistaken view. The correspondence
of Lord Aberdeen shows how clearly he saw the
folly, and how decidedly he disapproved the violence
of the French Government. His public as well as
his private letters prove that the Government of
Charles was regarded by him from first to last with
suspicion, distrust and dislike.
In the latter part of 1829 rumours reached the
English Government that France contemplated an
expedition against Algiers, and had entered into
engagements with Mehemet AH Pacha of Egypt
to assist in the operation, the Pacha receiving as his
reward the Regencies of Tunis and Tripoli. The
truth of these rumours was persistently denied.
In the early days of January 1830 Lord Aberdeen
received from Prince Metternich, through Lord
Cowley, copies of the despatches of the French
Ambassador at Constantinople to his Government,
which the Prince had found means to intercept.
These despatches afforded incontrovertible evidence,
not only that the French Government contemplated
an expedition against Algiers, but also of the alliance
with Mehemet Ali.
The English Ambassador at the Porte was directed
to interpose to procure reasonable satisfaction for
France, and a warning was dispatched to Mehemet
Ali, which effectually stopped his co-operation.
Lord Stuart de Rothesay was also instructed to
suggest to Prince Polignac " the sincere desire of
FRANCE (1830) 249
His Majesty that the King of France should obtain
from the Regency of Algiers the most ample repara-
tion which the provocation and insults he has endured
entitle him to demand from that State; but you will
at the same time avow a hope that it may still be
possible to obtain this reparation without carrying
into execution the measures of entire destruction
which have been threatened.
Should this termination of the affair prove to
be impracticable, and if the French Government
should persevere in the resolution utterly to destroy
the Regency of Algiers, you will suggest to M. de
Polignac the propriety of affording some explanation
of their ulterior views, and of satisfying those who
cannot but witness with some anxiety the con-
sequences of an undertaking of this description.
M. de Polignac will probably think it right to give
the necessary assurances that his most Christian
Majesty has no intention of establishing a French
garrison on the coast, or of finally settling this State
with a view to the exclusive prevalence of French
interests.
On the 25th Lord Stuart saw Prince Polignac, who
told him that the expedition was resolved on, and
would enforce the demolition of the fortifications of
Algiers and the abolition of piracy and slavery. He
denied the intention on the part of the French
Government to form any colony, or place French
garrisons on any part of the African coast, saying
that, whenever the object of the expedition was
obtained, either by the submission of the Dey 1 or the
establishment of a new national government dependent
on the Porte, the expedition, which was to be of 40,000
men, would return to France.
Lord Aberdeen drew attention to the alarm felt
by the Maritime Powers at such a force being sent,
1 Husein III, Dey of Algiers, 1818-1830.
250 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
and, as M. de Polignac had only verbally stated the
above, it was of course necessary that this pledge
should be recorded more formally. " The formidable
force about to be embarked appears to indicate
an intention of effecting the entire destruction of
the Regency, rather than an infliction of chastise-
ment. This probable change in the condition of a
territory so important from its geographical position
cannot be regarded without much interest, and it
renders some explanation of the intentions of
the French Government still more desirable. The
intimate union and concert existing between the
two countries give us reason to expect to receive
the full confidence of the French Government in a
matter touching the interests of both, and which
in its results may be productive of the most important
effects upon the commercial and political relations
of the Mediterranean station."
On the 15th Lord Stuart wrote that he had seen
M. de Polignac, who had informed him that explana-
tions would be given through the Duke of Laval,
that the despatch would contain a full recapitulation
of events which had provoked the expedition, and
that it would conclude with the assurance that the
King of France would concur with all or any of
his allies in determining the future government of
the country which had been the scene of military
operations. No renunciation on the part of France
to obtain territory on the coast of Africa appeared
in the despatch when, after long delay, it was com-
municated to Lord Aberdeen.
The Duke here interposed a memorandum :
It will be necessary for Lord Aberdeen to consider
what the Cabinet ought to do upon this case.
We have demanded an official explanation, we
have received a verbal one; which upon one point
is so far unsatisfactory as that it states the intention
of the French Government to alter the nature of the
tenure of its possessions on the coast of Africa from
FRANCE (1830) 251
being, as heretofore, a commercial factory, to here-
after a fortified post.
We have stated in Parliament that the French
Government had manifested a disposition to give
every explanation we had a right to require. They
now decline to give that explanation in the only
form in which it can be used in Parliament or
elsewhere.
I don't think that we can go to war because we
have a verbal explanation instead of one in writing,
but I think that we ought to desire Lord Stuart to
present a Note to Prince Polignac, expressing the
disappointment of this Government upon finding
that, notwithstanding His Highness's repeated assur-
ances, the French Ambassador in London had not been
authorised to give more than verbal explanations.
The Memorandum concluded that Lord Stuart
might be ordered to convey to the French Government
the knowledge that although we admit the justice
of their cause, His Majesty will look with anxiety
on the termination of those operations, as the interests
of his people and the honour of his crown require
that there should be no alteration in the state of
possession on the coast of Africa, to the detriment
of the Ottoman Porte, and in favour of His Most
Christian Majesty.
On May 4 Lord Aberdeen again wrote :
The affair begins to wear a sinister appearance,
and to give rise to doubts and suspicions, which it
would be very far from the desire of His Majesty's
Government to entertain. We have a duty to per-
form from which we cannot shrink. It is clearly
our duty to require an official explanation of the
ultimate designs of the French Government in
equipping and fitting out a military expedition of
unexampled magnitude, and thereby calculated to
252 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
excite speculation and apprehension throughout the
south of Europe.
But the rotund processes of diplomacy were too
slow to overtake the French action. They were
now fully equipped and had their prey in view.
Lord Aberdeen heard with astonishment and concern
that the French Government thought the expectations
of His Majesty's Government were unreasonable,
and declined to give any further explanation or
assurances in any official form.
Lord Aberdeen on his part made one more appeal
to the consistency and good faith of M. de Polignac.
" It will be my duty humbly to take His Majesty's
commands respecting such further instruction to
your Excellency as the occasion may seem to require.
The affair of the explanation respecting Algiers has
become very serious."
Lord Stuart, bombarded with despatches, replies
that " Your Lordship has sufficient experience of the
mode of proceeding of this Government to admit that
I cannot fairly be rendered responsible for the false-
hood of the assurances I receive, or the failure of
M. de Polignac's promises. My representations upon
this subject, both direct or indirect, have been un-
ceasing, and have on more than one occasion been
accompanied by indications of the hostile consequences
which must result from the formation of French
establishments on the coasts of Africa that have been
contained in your Lordship's instructions."
Another despatch was forwarded, where the word
" official " was underlined, and the gravest consequences
were pointed out.
Austria now takes up the word, and Lord Cowley,
our Ambassador at that Court, writes of certain
despatches received there. The new elections were
on in France and M. de Polignac speaks with con-
fidence of their result. He expects a considerable
majority. The Austrian Ambassador considers that
the Algerine expedition has been undertaken upon
FRANCE (1830) 253
so large a scale with no other purpose than to give
eclat and consideration to the Government.
The elections in France took place at the same
time with the success of the French arms in North
Africa. They varied from day to day, and M. de
Polignac was determined that all was satisfactory.
It was admitted that the Algerine success had
gratified the vanity of the French, but Lord Stuart
reports : " The progress of the elections is unfavour-
able, and whenever the deputies in the department
in which the return has been deferred shall have
been chosen, there is little doubt that the party
opposed to the present Ministers will bring together
a majority of at least one hundred members."
After surveying M. de Polignac's position Lord
Stuart says : " The nearer the crisis approaches the
more the French Minister appears determined to run
every risk rather than abandon the principles which
he professed when the Administration was formed."
In the meantime, on July 16, Lord Stuart
officially congratulated M. de Polignac on the success
of the French arms at Algiers.
M. de Polignac now gave every assurance that
the French had no desire to retain possession of
the territory, and Lord Stuart remarks that, " the
treasure which has fallen into the hands of the army
having covered the whole expense incurred by the
expedition, the project of a military occupation for
the purpose of obtaining an adequate indemnity of
course falls to the ground."
On the 19th M. de Polignac told Lord Stuart
that he had resolved to divide the Algerine question
into two parts : the one embracing the territorial
possession of Algiers and its dependencies; the
other relating to the immediate and complete
abolition of piracy, tribute, and slavery throughout
the Mediterranean. With respect to the first, he
expects to remove all suspicion of an undue appro-
priation of the countries which the French army has
subdued, by the simple acknowledgment of the
254 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
sovereignty of the Porte, and the consequent mani-
festation to treat exclusively with that Government
for the possessions which the French were entitled
to claim before the war, leaving the Porte to make
the arrangements which they may think most
expedient to secure their own authority over the
whole Regency.
Whether the French Government would have had
the courage to carry out its professions, or whether
it had ever intended to do so, may be doubtful. But
the foregoing history makes it likely that a serious
breach with Great Britain would have followed.
Ten days after the last conversation with Lord Stuart,
not M. de Polignac alone, but also the dynasty
he served, was overthrown by the Revolution which
drove Charles X from France. Lord Aberdeen,
instead of considering what should be done in the
event of France evading her promises, was consider-
ing the place of exile, and the method of transporting
" the Count of Pouthieu " to these shores.
Lord Stuart was taken entirely unawares. On
July 23, 1830, the very day before the issue of the
Ordinances, he wrote : " The various reports respect-
ing the possibility of a coup d'etat I believe to be
utterly unfounded." As soon as the Ordinances
were published, unaccompanied by any serious dis-
turbances, Lord Stuart was at once instructed to
deliver no opinion.
On July 31, Lord Aberdeen, taking advantage of
a private conveyance, writes :
The truth is that from our inevitable ignorance of
the actual state of affairs at Paris, it would answer no
good purpose to furnish you with instructions which
the next hour might become wholly inapplicable.
Indeed we cannot form any opinion which ought to
influence our conduct respecting events of which the
progress is so rapid. We must, therefore, wait until
we see a conclusion of some kind; or rather a con-
clusion of the first act of the drama; for I take it
FRANCE (1830) 255
for granted that we are destined to witness a
succession of important scenes.
I do not understand how the city has been
evacuated by the troops, who appear to have been
everywhere the masters. If symptoms of defection
were gaining ground, it might be desirable to prevent
further contact with the people. If the troops
brought together at St. Cloud continue faithful,
and if they should be directed with energy, they
may still be too strong for the population of Paris,
even with the assistance of the National Guard.
The desertion which has already taken place makes
it impossible to confide in the steadiness of the other
troops, but upon this subject, which is the most
important of all, you can give us no information.
Judging from appearances, I should say that the
question now to be decided is, whether a monarchy
under any form will be permitted to exist, or whether
we shall again see a republic.
Notwithstanding the astonishment, and even
alarm, which prevail here, the effect on the Funds
has been but slight, the persuasion in this city being,
that a change of Ministers will set all to rights.
Rothschild receives frequent expresses, and I hope
you will avail yourself of his couriers when you are
able.
Algiers was soon found to be a victory in name
alone. Sickness decimated the troops, while the
continued hostility of the natives rendered it impos-
sible to retain even temporary possession of the
territory.
Lord Stuart on August 23, 1830, reports from
Paris :
Everything that has been said to myself and
friends upon the subject of the expedition to
256 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
Africa indicates great indifference respecting the
fate of their conquests in that country. That a
permanent settlement is useless, because experience
has shown that the climate and soil are not suited
to the cultivation of the productions of tropical
climates; that their exportations must therefore be
confined to corn, which will entail ruin on the pro-
prietors of the southern departments, who are now
beginning to recover from the effects of the import
of that article from Odessa under the administration
of the Duke de Richelieu.
They consequently return to the opinion that it
will be expedient to concert with the Powers interested
in the commerce of the Mediterranean the best mode
of re-establishing the authority of the Sultan in
those countries, under arrangement for the suppres-
sion of piracy, slavery and tribute ; and they consider
that this cession may be rendered conditional, depend-
ing on the consent of the Sultan to admit rectifica-
tions, which may prevent future differences respecting
the line of the Greek frontier.
Our Government and the French were much
concerned as to the future residence of the abdicated
Monarch. At one time Charles X believed that
the vessel on which he was to embark had orders
to convey him to the United States, and he requested
that two English ships of war should be sent to
escort him to Jersey.
Lord Aberdeen pointed out that this might lead
to very complicated relations. To suspect America
of lending herself to such " foul play," or to suspect
France of it, was equally impossible. " The situation
of the King is most difficult and cruel, but it is not
foreign advice which can improve it."
On July 11 Lord Aberdeen reported to the Duke
that he had seen Lord Marcus Hill, who had been in
Paris during the late disturbances.
A SKETCH OF LORD ABERDEEN RIDING IN ROTTEN Row.
Taken by H.B. from one of his cartoons.
He confirms in a greater degree than could be
thought possible the total want of preparation on the
part of the Government to meet any opposition, and
indeed the certainty of their never having calculated
upon any serious resistance to the Ordinances. So
entirely ignorant of the real state of affairs was the
King himself, that when Semonville went to St.
Cloud on the 30th and used the expression, ' tout est
fini,' the King imagined that the confusion was at
an end, and proposed to return to Paris the next
day !
Lord Marcus also confirms the general deter-
mination shown by the mob to abstain from pillage.
All accounts agree that the number of persons unem-
ployed and turned adrift by the manufacturers in
consequence of the bankers refusing to transact any
business, was the immediate cause of the assemblage
being formed to resist the military. We may safely
presume that the final result was looked to by such
bankers as Lafitte, Casimir Perrier, Odier Delessert.
However, it seems that we are now to have Philip I
King of the French. I suppose we must take it
for granted that King Philip will reign long and
prosperously, especially as Lafayette has declared
that his sovereignty is the best sort of republic.
Perhaps it may expire with the Chamber of Peers,
which it is clear is not destined to last long.
They have confined themselves to the destruction
of the Peers created during the reign of Charles X,
and have adjourned the question of whether an
hereditary peerage shall exist at all.
The tricoloured flag and the setting aside of the
Due de Bordeaux may sanctify the title of the Duke
of Orleans in the eyes of many, but I cannot think
that even the charms of Republicanism and usurpation
will enable him to last very long.
VOL. i s
In the meantime it is possible that we may have
Charles X and his family at Portsmouth. Sir George
Cockburn 1 has been here to know how they are to be
received. In these times the most simple and
natural things become matters of difficulty. Under
ordinary circumstances an abdicated King would
be received with the personal honours due to a
reigning Sovereign; and, at all events, a cargo of
princes and princesses arriving in their proper
character, as such could scarcely fail to meet with
the respect due to their birth.
I have told Sir George, however, in case they
should arrive before I hear from you, to desire the
Admiral to go on board, and to pay every personal
respect; but to make no public demonstration
without further orders; and to plead his ignorance,
and the absolute novelty of his situation, as his
excuse for waiting for instructions.
The Duke of Wellington sums it up :
It is very astonishing, but it is quite clear, that the
King, Charles X, was not prepared for the conse-
quences of his Ordinances. Those consequences, how-
ever, were prepared. I don't think that the Duke
of Orleans knew anything from either side; but he
has been very ready to act.
I conclude that I shall receive, on to-morrow or
Saturday, the accounts of the final termination of
the affair, and I will immediately go to London.
We can then decide whether we still act without
assembling the Cabinet, or without waiting for the
opinion of any of our Allies. There are some bitter
pills to swallow : the cockade ; the apparently
verbal, but, in fact, real and essential alterations
1 Admiral Sir George Cockburn (1772-1853) took part in the capture
of Washington in 1813.
FRANCE (1830) 259
of the Charter ; the act of placing it under the sauve-
garde of the National Guard; the tone assumed by
La Fayette. However, the best chance of peace
is to swallow them all. If we don't quarrel with
them they must set these matters to rights, or quarrel
among themselves, or quarrel with us. Any one of
these would be better for us and for the world than
that we should at this moment quarrel with them.
I believe that there is not a Power in Europe who
will not be relieved from a load of anxiety when it
is known that we have recognised the new Govern-
ment. However, we must look at everything.
His Majesty, King Charles X, accompanied by his
family, arrived at Spithead the day before yester-
day; and the Marquis de Choiseul was dispatched
with a letter, which has this day been placed in my
hands, for the purpose of being laid before the King
our Master. It appears that His Majesty has
assumed the title of Count de Pouthieu, and that it
is his wish to be considered as a private individual.
He has written to the Emperor of Austria, in whose
dominions he is desirous of obtaining a permanent
asylum; and until the answer to this request shall
be received, King Charles is anxious to take up his
residence in this country.
His Majesty's Government, considering the strictly
private character which the King has assumed, have
not thought themselves justified in offering any
opposition to the accomplishment of his wishes.
It has been impossible for us to forget his age and
his misfortunes; and we have felt, that to compel
these illustrious exiles to seek an uncertain refuge
from port to port would have afforded a spectacle
little honourable to the Government of Great Britain.
260 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
It is intended that King Charles and his family,
during their residence in this country, should fix
their abode in some mansion at a distance from the
metropolis, in which they may remain in privacy
and seclusion.
There are still those who remember stories concerning
the exiled monarch at the Palace of Holyrood. There
is no mention in the Aberdeen papers of his going
there, but we may believe that the plan came from
Lord Aberdeen. Holyrood was sufficiently " in
privacy and seclusion " at that date, and one wonders
what inhospitable welcome it gave the exiles. Not
worse perhaps than that which it extended to the
young Queen Mary, also accustomed to all the pomp
and fleeting vanities of " la belle France," and at least
King Charles was not the centre of plots between
the sister kingdoms. There remains a kindly
memory of an unfortunate gentleman, lavish with
his gold and silver, and looked upon with respect by
the good-hearted people, who knew so little about
the " Ordonnances " or the rival claimants to the throne
of France. Nor did they know of the tossings to
and fro, the desire for America and the Low Countries
before his little fleet finally brought him to the
shores of England. " Country houses have been
burnt and pillaged by the populace in the depart-
ments of Correze and the Garonne," but safe in the
ancient Palace of Holyrood lived the exiles.
Lord Aberdeen sent a despatch to our Ambassadors
in which he summed up the history of these months :
The events have followed each other with a
rapidity which has afforded little time for exami-
nation or reflection, and a very few days have been
sufficient to overthrow the established Government,
to dethrone and expatriate three generations of
Princes, and to call a new dynasty to the succession.
The Revolution being now consummated by the
elevation of the Duke of Orleans to the French
FRANCE (1830) 261
throne, we ought rather to direct our attention to
the actual condition and character of the Government
of France, and to the manner in which it may exercise
an influence upon the general welfare of Europe.
His Majesty's Government have especially felt it
to be their duty to consider how far the recent
changes have affected the political situation of Great
Britain and her Allies, and what course, under the
extraordinary circumstances of the time, it may be
most proper for His Majesty to pursue.
Lord Aberdeen pointed out the nature and extent
of our engagements under existing treaties, and how
far they were applicable in the present state of France.
For this they were to look for the objects of the
general Treaty of Paris of November 20, 1815, after-
wards explained by the protocols and declarations
of the contracting parties at Aix-la-Chapelle in the
year 1818.
There the Allied Powers, having overthrown the
usurpation of Bonaparte, and being anxious to protect
Europe from the evils which surrounded it, entered
into a solemn Treaty for that purpose. The stipula-
tion by which the Allies bound themselves to exclude
for ever from the throne of France any member of that
family, and to resist all territorial aggression on the
part of the French Government, were sufficiently
explicit. Should, however, the same revolutionary
principles reappear under other forms, convulsing
France, and thereby endangering the repose of other
States, the Allies further engage to concert among
themselves, and with His Most Christian Majesty,
the measures which they may judge necessary to be
pursued for the safety of their respective States,
and for the general tranquillity of Europe.
Manifestly this precise case has occurred in
France, and was not foreseen or provided for in the
Treaty. The object aimed at was the confirmation
of the order of things in France, founded on the
Royal authority, and of the constitutional Charter.
The danger to be guarded against was the overthrow
of this order of things by revolutionary principles
under some form or other.
The Revolution having been consummated, the
question now arises, whether revolutionary principles
have appeared in such a form as to endanger the
repose of other States.
It cannot be denied that the resistance to the
decrees of Charles X has been followed by acts which
are too well calculated to excite uneasiness and
apprehension. The adoption of the revolutionary
colours, the National Guard, and the arbitrary
destruction of a large body of the Peerage, with the
threatened abolition of the hereditary character of
the Chamber, all recall to our recollection the early
periods of the Revolution, although we may be
permitted to hope that the horrible excesses which
disgraced the progress of that event will be avoided.
Under these conditions there is nothing clearer
than that the Great Powers must act in perfect
union and concert, founded on their determination
to preserve the state of territorial possession as
settled in the Treaties of Vienna and Paris. The
very dangers of the Revolution in France, with all
its accompanying circumstances, point to the propriety
of union, and acting promptly so as to avert approach-
ing danger. The spirit of the Treaty appears to
justify and to require this concert. His Majesty's
Government has decided that we should studiously
abstain from all interference in the external affairs
of France. This principle, at all times recommended
by the British Government, deserves the utmost
attention at the present moment.
FRANCE (1830) 263
In the actual state of France it is not only
necessary to avoid every reasonable ground of offence,
but to afford no pretext for complaint of any kind.
Should we unfortunately be destined again to endure
the calamities of war, it is more than ever indis-
pensable that we should exhibit our enemy to the
world as being unquestionably the aggressor. The
justice of our cause will prove the chief cause of our
strength.
The opinions of our Allies upon this subject
coincide with our own. Despatches from the
Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin addressed to the
representatives of Austria and Prussia fully confirm
the system of policy which I have now endeavoured
to inculcate.
A watchful neutrality is recommended, with
an avowed determination to protect the integrity
,and independence of all States as established. In
view that the despatches from the different Govern-
ments have made no mention of the Duke of Orleans
as King of France, we find ourselves in a somewhat
insulated position.
It seems natural, with the course taken to
abstain from all interference, that we should not
hesitate to acknowledge the Sovereign placed upon
the French throne. The proposed neutrality of the
Allies has been dictated by a desire to give no cause
of umbrage to the French nation or Government,
and thus, if possible, to secure the continuance of
those blessings which Europe has enjoyed during a
long interval of peace. If we failed to recognise
the Sovereign it would create excitement and
irritation in France, and our hopes of preserving
peace must in proportion be diminished.
Lord Aberdeen pointed out that in the midst of
measures subversive of the Royal authority the
264 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
principle of monarchical government had still been
preserved.
It is by upholding this principle that we shall
best defeat the designs of those who would throw
France into confusion and render foreign war
inevitable.
The proximity of our situation demands a speedy
decision. Under these circumstances, and influenced
by these considerations, His Majesty has determined
to acknowledge the Duke of Orleans as King of the
French.
His Majesty has felt also, that in coming to this
determination, and to enhance its value, the recog-
nition should be made promptly, frankly and cordi-
ally. I have therefore received His Majesty's
commands to transmit letters to Paris without delay,
for the purpose of accrediting His Majesty's Ambas-
sador to King Louis Philippe."
CHAPTER VI
PART III
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830)
" We are on the threshold of a great age, the age of the Peoples."
Mazzini.
No sooner were the affairs of France settled than
trouble appeared at The Hague. Lord Aberdeen
wrote to the Duke :
There is unpleasant intelligence from the Nether-
lands, but it might have been still worse. There
were some disturbances, which were met by the
magistrates calling on the Garde Communale to turn
out and protect the public peace. The riot, serious
as it was, seems to have been in great measure
accidental. It has been the custom for some time
to attend the representation of Masaniello (" Le
25 AoQt on jouait sur la theatre de Bruxelle ' La
Muette de Portice,' qui montre precisement sur la
sce"ne une revolution populaire, Les jeunes gens,
sortirent du theatre, criant ' Imitons les Parisiens ' ")
for the purpose of applauding passages favourable to
liberty. In consequence of the events in France, this
piece had drawn an immense number of persons, and
the disturbance appears to have commenced among
the overflowing of the theatre. No leader has shown
himself, nor did the populace assemble at the house
of any popular Liberals. Perhaps the worst symptom
is the destruction of the Royal Arms upon the shops
of the King's tradesman. At all events it is a great
265
266 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
blessing that this tumult should have been suppressed
so soon, even without much aid from the military,
as there were but two battalions in the town. They
will now have time to take measures of precaution.
Sir Charles Bagot, our representative at The
Hague, writes of the frontier difficulty. It was a
great error to leave the fortresses so utterly defence-
less as, upon the first suspicion of danger, they
proved to be. The storm, if one be brewing, will
not burst on this side, and it is not to the north
that the eyes of the present French Government will
be turned. If a single French regiment enters the
country with overtures of fraternisation I would by
no means answer for the consequences.
The Duke returns the papers :
Falck knows better than I do what is the constitu-
tion, and what are the duties of the Garde Com-
munale. If they are at all the same as those of the
Garde Nationale of France, the retreat of the troops is
decisive. When I see that besides the Garde Com-
munale, the inhabitants received arms from the store,
I cannot but be apprehensive that this is another
revolution.
Sir Charles Bagot writes on August 27 :
Heaven only knows whether it is a riot merely or
a revolution that my despatch of to-day announces.
Till we know whether the contagion spreads, and the
other towns in Belgium imitate the example of
Brussels, it is impossible to decide. It is evident that
as yet nothing but the dregs of the people have
appeared as actors in the disturbances, that there has
been no distinct political cry or rallying word, and
that mischief and pillage have been the chief objects
of the mob.
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 267
Every hour that passes away before the disturb-
ances are quelled in Brussels increases the danger
of contagion to the other towns. I tremble for the
first accounts from Liege and Hainault; I tremble
too, though not so much, for those from Ghent and
Bruges. I do not think the spirit is bad at
Antwerp.
I fear (he writes again) that the question is
pretty nearly decided, and that it is not mere riots,
but something very like complete revolution. It is
true that at present we know of no disturbances
anywhere but at Brussels. There has been some
little assembling of the people at Louvain, but it
was without disorder, and has led to nothing. The
complexion of things, however, at Brussels is, as far
as it can be understood, because as yet it is very far
from clear what the armed bourgeoisie, which is
in full possession of the town, really is, and really
designs; and whether it proposes to itself complete
separation from the general Government, whether
they mean independence whether they mean junction
and fraternisation with France, or whether they are
acting by their own impulses or by French excitation.
The Princes are now in the act of starting for
Antwerp, and the States General are to be imme-
diately convoked here, because we are still (that is,
till the third Monday in October) in the year of
Hague residence. In four or five days I believe that
a force of about 10,000 men may be collected in and
about Antwerp. If the other towns remain quiet,
this may be ample to impose upon an open town
like Brussels.
It was not unnatural that France was supposed
to have a hand in this mysterious revolution, and
Sir Charles was asked, in the event of this proving
268 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
true, whether the Netherlands could look for military
assistance from England. He advised them in
their own interest to do nothing which can provoke
the cry of, or feelings inspired by, " baionettes
etrangeres."
Later Sir Charles Bagot writes : " Revolution, in
the broad sense of the word one can hardly call it,
but at Liege and Brussels at least the people are
ascendant, and in an attitude of armed negotiation
with their Government,"
Again Sir Charles communicates that the whole
may turn out to be a regular conspiracy :
Not one to overturn the fabric of Government, but
one to force the redress of grievances. In this con-
spiracy it is now nearly certain that some of the first
families of Flanders, both in name and wealth, are,
and have long been, concerned.
He continues :
It has been the tactics of these persons to get
hold of the Press, the Courrier des Pays Bas and the
Beige newspapers. Their plan has been to supply
the lowest rabble with money, and then to set them
on as a rabble, to attack and pillage the houses of
certain obnoxious persons. When this had taken
place, and the inhabitants of the towns were
sufficiently alarmed, the scheme was then to get the
middle classes and bourgeoisie to arm for public
tranquillity, then to engage the mob so to act against
this armed bourgeoisie as to induce them to fire upon
them, and thus establish animosity between them;
while, on the other hand, with money and brandy,
they kept the mob up to the proper mark of pillage
and riot, in order to justify the continuance of the
bourgeoisie in arms.
By this contrivance they managed to get and keep
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 269
under a most plausible and popular pretext, arms in
the hands of the more respectable classes, and to
put them in a condition to prevent plunder and riot
going too far.
If this be true, many of the Garde Bourgeoisie
will gradually retire on this account, others will do
so from the loss and inconvenience occasioned to
them by their military duties; and such a wish
will arise for the protection of more regular troops,
that what is now the great instrument of the agita-
tors will crumble from under them. The regular
troops, once peaceably admitted (a single shot might,
I admit, change all this) into Brussels, and the States
General once assembled here, the most effective part,
if not the whole of the machinery, upon which the
promoters of the mischief have reckoned is broken
up. We must add to this chance the prospect that
there now is that France will in no way come to
their assistance, for Baron Verstolt told us yesterday
that he had received more than a hint that M. de
Potter 1 had made a distinct offer to the French
Government to put them in possession of the Belgian
Provinces, and that another and separate proposal
of the same nature had been made directly from
Brussels, both of which had been met in Paris with
a decided and unqualified rejection.
The revolution in the Netherlands continued to
give great anxiety. Lord Aberdeen, writing to the
Duke, says :
You will have received Lord Stuart's despatch. I
do not clearly understand his proposition. If he
means that we are to join the French Government
in advising the King of the Netherlands to attend
to the demands of his subjects, the idea may
1 L. A. de Potter (1786-1859), a Belgian statesman.
270 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
be at once rejected. What advice it may be proper
to give to the King of the Netherlands is another
question, and which properly may belong to us.
We are bound to secure the union of Belgium with
Holland upon certain conditions; we have there-
fore a right to see that those conditions are fulfilled,
and that our guarantee shall not unnecessarily be
called into execution. Our advice has not been
asked ; and what may be the real state of the question
between the King and his Flemish subjects I do not
know. Probably no reasonable ground of complaint
exists.
The Foreign Minister at Paris, M. de Mole, 1 had
called on Lord Stuart to tell him that his despatches
showed that the movements at Brussels had produced
an effect throughout the Belgian Provinces which
induced him to consider the maintenance of their
connection with Holland extremely doubtful, and
he regretted that the King of the Netherlands should
delay the communication with the persons in power
at Brussels which are necessary to prevent the total
annihilation of his authority in Belgium.
M. de Mole also stated that the Belgian demands
were all concerned with local objects, and that the
French Government was not compromised by the
events taking place. Although the four Great
Powers are determined not to interfere in the affairs
of France, he felt sure that they were too interested
in the maintenance of the present state of territorial
possession to encourage the apathy of the Dutch
Cabinet by remaining silent spectators of the events
which were taking place in Belgium.
M. de Mole therefore felt anxious to ascertain
whether the Powers would agree to address to the
Court of the Netherlands a representation asking it
1 Comte M. de Mole (1781-1855), Foreign Minister to Louis Philippe.
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 271
to get into touch with the Belgian Provinces, and
endeavouring to find out the causes of their discon-
tent, and to prevent their total separation from
Holland.
Lord Aberdeen wrote on the perplexed situation
to Sir Charles Bagot :
Your revolution, or whatever it may be called, is
a most incomprehensible affair. We know so little of
the real causes, and of the actual state of parties, that
advice is out of the question, except of a general
nature which cannot be required by so sensible a man
as the King of the Netherlands. The question of
foreign interference is of a most delicate kind, and
cannot be answered offhand. You have done quite
right to discourage the notion, and I apprehend it
could not take place without leading to a general war.
At the same time our Treaties are sacred, and the
Netherlands Government may naturally rely on the
performance of our engagements. We have guaran-
teed the union of Holland and Belgium, and if the
King has faithfully performed his part, we must
perform ours. But I hear nothing of separation, nor
do I know what are their grievances. Do not imagine
that I am not fully aware of the force and bearing,
and tremendous possible consequences of the de-
spatches which I send, but we are come to this, the
kingdom can be no longer saved by its own internal
unaided means, and it now remains for the Allied
Powers to decide whether it is to be preserved at the
risk which foreign intervention of any kind may, and
probably will, incur.
It is for you to determine whether the communi-
cation which I announce from hence does or does
not make out the casus fcederis. It is for you also
to determine whether, if we have the intention, we
272 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
have also the means of prompt and of sufficient
assistance; you too must decide whether France
can be made to stand aloof while we fulfil the obliga-
tions (if obligations they prove to be) of our Treaties,
or whether they are to be fulfilled at the peril of
war with her. All this is high matter, qui n'est pas
de mon ressort ; but rely upon it that this Govern-
ment has no longer the physical means of defending
the greater part of Belgium against France, or
against those who design to surrender it to France.
All that has happened is remotely French, all
that is happening is directly so. It is no cause, real
or pretended, of Belgium which has triumphed at
Brussels. If it is not the cause of the French Govern-
ment, it is the cause of a French faction which is
superior to the Government and the result must be
the same for the rest of Europe. It is no longer a
question of what this Government can or cannot
do to satisfy demands. We have passed that stage.
I believe that no declaration of the King's and no
measure of the States General would now produce
any effect whatever in the greater part of the Southern
Provinces. All that is opposition to the Government,
all that is even home-made faction, is now swept
away. I have no doubt the French Government
are perfectly sincere in their desire not to interfere,
but they are powerless, and the impulse is given
from Paris in spite of them, and by persons nearly
connected with the Government.
Sir Charles Bagot wrote from The Hague, Septem-
ber 3 :
I know not what you will think of the Prince of
Orange's measure of entering Brussels as he did; I
know not what to think of it myself. If the choice
lay between entering as he has done and taking the
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NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 278
town by assault, he has perhaps acted wisely, and
it may prove a great card in his hand that, as yet,
no drop of blood has been spilt under his orders, by
the national troops, but it was a fearful experiment,
and I suspect that it was with the greatest difficulty
that the Garde Bourgeoisie saved him from worse
than insult on the part of the mob when he first
entered the town. That danger past, his reception
was on the whole good, and it is scarcely possible that
the confidence and courage which he has displayed
should not, in the end, impose even upon that basest
of all human congregations, a Belgian rabble.
I do sincerely believe that in the whole history of
the world there never was an example of a popular
revolution so totally uncalled for, and so totally
unjustified by real popular grievances, as this will
prove to be, if it really ends in becoming revolution
in the extended sense of the word. I hope, and I
still think, that it will not so end, but, end as it may,
the work of fifteen years is already undone, and no
man living can say yet how it is all to be repaired.
On September 9 Lord Aberdeen wrote to the
Duke of Wellington :
The affairs of the Netherlands have now assumed
a new character, and one which will require much
attention from us as well as from the other European
Powers. The question of some kind of separation will
be considered by the States General under the King
himself. What the precise nature of the proposition
is does not yet appear; but it is clear that if the
separation shall be of such a character as to satisfy
the authors of the insurrection, it will be equivalent
to a juncture with France. A mere separate adminis-
tration for the Flemish Provinces under the control of
the King might be of little consequence, but if the
VOL. I T
274 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
finances are distinct, and the army also, what becomes
of the engagements of the King to protect the
frontier? The interest of the Great Powers, and
especially of this country, in the state of the fortresses,
and the money expended, will require to be attended
to. I apprehend that no separation can take place
such as is but too probably contemplated, without
the abrogation of the Eight Articles of the Treaty
of London. These form a part of the General Act
of the Congress of Vienna, to which France is a
party. The King will unquestionably refer to the
Great Powers the consideration of the changes which
it is proposed to make. The frontier was manifestly
constituted against France : is France to deliberate
upon the condition of that which is intended to be
a protection against herself? But, as France is a
party to the Treaty of Vienna, the question has
become European and the French Government may
assert their right.
In a despatch sent to Lord Stuart, Lord Aberdeen
notes the desire of M. de Mole to exculpate the
French Government from any charge of participating
in the disorders which had broken out. France,
through her Minister, had concurred in such measures
as might be necessary for the execution of the Treaties,
and in that had given evidence of the spirit of modera-
tion and justice which had directed the Councils of
the King of the French.
The condition of the Netherlands must be regarded
with the utmost degree of interest by the Powers of
Europe, as the result of the crisis might materially
affect the objects proposed by the parties to the
late Treaties, according to which the Belgian
Provinces were united to Holland.
Lord Aberdeen pointed out that anything that
gave a reasonable prospect of strengthening that
connection would meet with the agreement of His
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 275
Majesty's Government, but the propositions of M.
de Mole were not likely to be helpful. His proposal
was that a joint representation should be addressed
to the King of the Netherlands, which would point
out the manner of his dealing with the Belgian
Provinces. That he should communicate with the
authorities in those Provinces, to find out their
grievances, and to prevent if possible the total
separation of the countries.
It appears (Lord Aberdeen wrote) that the
populace of Brussels and of other towns, stimulated
possibly by the example of what had recently taken
place at Paris, suddenly broke out into acts of riot.
No political object was announced, but the excesses
were directed against the dwellings and property of
certain individuals. A Burgher Guard was organised
in self-defence, and this Guard had remained in
possession of the town, assuming a power not only
unconnected with the Government, but with the
exercise of any lawful authority.
These persons are said to have petitioned the
King for the redress of their grievances. We have
no certain information of the grievances, nor of
the petitions being presented. It would be extremely
hazardous to give to a Sovereign so enlightened as
the King of the Netherlands any general advice
on such a situation. The King, already by a most
wise decision, has sent the Princes, his sons, into
the Southern Provinces, with a body of troops
sufficient to restore order and to give confidence
to the well-affected part of the community. He has
convoked an extraordinary meeting of the States
General, by whose deliberations he may be assisted.
Under these circumstances we should incur heavy
responsibility by interposing foreign counsel. Every-
thing appears to have been done which is most
276 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
consistent with the character of a constitutional
Sovereign ; and we ardently hope, that by a judicious
union of conciliation and firmness, the dangers which
threaten the Government may be overcome.
On September 17 Sir Charles Bagot writes again :
The violent party, consisting either of pure
Jacobins or of those who desire to throw the country
into the arms of France, and the party which
by comparison may be called moderate, are, as it
should seem, now come to an open rupture. I cannot
conceal from Your Lordship that the situation of
the country and the position of the King are becoming
every moment more critical. The military force
does not amount to more than 20,000 men. Of this
force the proportion of Belgians to Dutch is at least
three to five; the fidelity of the Belgian part must,
in such a struggle, be very questionable. As yet the
Provinces of Liege and South Brabant alone can
be declared in a state of open revolt; there is every
reason to believe that the two Flanders and the
towns of Ghent and Antwerp are decidedly friendly
to the Government, but the other towns and a great
part of the Plat Pays are only waiting the signal
from the town of Brussels or from France. In all
the fortresses of the frontier the population is greatly
superior to their garrisons : the finances and credit
of the country are fast getting into derangement;
the Northern Provinces are becoming highly dis-
contented with the supposed inactivity of the Govern-
ment, and every sacrifice now made to the Belgian
demands, and every measure which might seem to
pardon or overlook the proceedings at Brussels,
might endanger the King's popularity in this part
of the country to a very serious degree.
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 277
Writing an undated despatch, Sir Charles says :
Since I wrote my despatches the Prince of Orange
has been with me. His object was to ascertain,
in consequence of the Council held this morning,
what we would and what we could not do. For
the would, I made him easily understand that it
was quite out of my power to answer. For the
could, materially speaking, I told him that I believed
that there hardly ever was a moment in which we
were so little provided. He seemed to admit that
this might be the case, but he seemed also to think
that we might afford a great moral assistance, by
giving France to understand that in interfering
under the engagement of our treaties, to maintain
the order of things to which we were pledged, and
nothing more, we should consider any obstacle on her
part to such an operation as a declaration of hostilities
against us, and probably against all the other Powers
connected with us by the same obligations.
On September 19 fresh disturbances broke out
in Brussels and the Burgher Guards were over-
powered. Prince Frederick of Orange, concluding
that action was inevitable, attacked the town. After
four days' fighting, on September 27, the Dutch
troops, unable to advance, were withdrawn from the
positions they had won. On the following day the
Lower Chamber of the States General decided in
favour of a dissolution of the union between Belgium
and Holland.
Lord Aberdeen wrote to his brother, Sir Robert
Gordon :
The events in our part of the world are sufficient
to move even the most phlegmatic Mussulman.
The French Revolution has completed its first period ;
you will see that we have acknowledged the King
278 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
of the French, and the Great Powers are following
our example. I have no great belief in the stability
of the present order of things in France. The
Jacobins are gaining ground, and the King and his
Government are without power. The first change
will probably be to turn the King into a President,
that is in name; for in reality he is now nothing
more. The condition of the Netherlands is most
critical. The conduct of the King has been wise
and moderate, as he has taken care to put himself
in the right. But the spirit at Brussels, and Liege
especially, is as bad as possible, and generally a
separation will be desired. I have no conception
how this will end. The French Government have
not openly interfered, and indeed profess to regret
this state of affairs ; but many of the most influential
persons in France are undoubtedly connected with
the whole affair, and the nation generally are eager
to resume possession of what they consider to be
their own Provinces. I think no party in this
country would agree to the separation of the Belgian
Provinces from Holland, and still less would tolerate
their union with France. Here then, with all our
desire of peace, is a cause of war not very distant.
Germany is in an extraordinary state. Insurrec-
tions have been frequent. Brunswick, Hesse, Saxony,
Hamburgh have all been convulsed, I do not very
well know why.
As yet nothing serious has broken out in Italy,
but it is to be feared, especially in Piedmont, where
some symptoms have already appeared. I hear too
that in the Roman States the danger is great. The
Austrians are reinforcing their army in Lombardy,
and I suppose are pretty secure.
You will want to know what we are about here.
The newspapers will show you that we have been
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 279
nearly mad about this French Revolution, and the
heroic populace of Paris. I think that people are
gradually coming to their senses, and they begin
to see what the revolution really is, and what are
likely to be its consequences. We have behaved
handsomely to the new Government, and if they
stand we may preserve peace; but happen what
may, if we take good care to be right, I think we shall
be supported.
You will be astonished to hear that old Talleyrand
is on his road as Ambassador ; I have already received
a letter from him, in which he refers to the pleasure
of his former rapports with me. Considering that
these related to the restoration of Louis XVIII, the
recollection is rather out of place.
In other respects the country is going on well.
We have had a good harvest, commerce is flourishing,
and I believe manufactures of all kinds. The King
is very popular, and cordially supports his Govern-
ment. Although we have gained numbers by the
late election, the general impression has been unfavour-
able, for we have met with signal defeats. I should
say there was no general hostility to the Government,
but there is certainly no zealous support in the
country. The Catholic question has utterly destroyed
all party attachment, and, having separated the Duke
and Peel from their natural followers, has thrown
them on the mercy of the candid and impartial,
who, I fear, will never give the necessary strength
to any Government.
For myself, I assure you that I am at single
anchor; there are many things in leaving office
which I should undoubtedly regret, but the motives
which induce me to wish to retire are becoming
stronger every day.
LORD ABERDEEN TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON
Sept. 29.
I think it best to send the intelligence which we
have received from the Netherlands, without any
delay. Its importance and character are such as
to require immediate attention ; and in this instance
I act according to the instructions of Bonaparte,
who decided that not a moment should ever be lost
in communicating bad news, but that the good
might be left to a convenient time. I will write
to Peel to-night, for we may expect to be called
upon by the King of the Netherlands immediately.
On the 3rd October he wrote further instructions
to Lord Stuart :
We are desirous that you should take an early
opportunity of seeing the King of the French, and
conversing with him upon the present state of the
Netherlands. You may impress him as strongly as
possible with the conviction of our sincere desire
to do everything in our power to prevent these
convulsions from becoming the cause of war in
Europe. He must be aware of the feeling of our
Allies upon this subject, and the difficulty under
which we are placed in recommending the most
conciliatory and pacific course. A frank concurrence
on the part of the King in friendly counsels may
effect this; but if he should separate himself from
the other Powers, and carry the principle of non-
intervention so far as not even to assist in giving
advice for the purpose of securing the continuance
of a work to which France herself is a party, it is
easy to see what must be the consequence. No one
will believe the sincerity of those declarations of
neutrality which are violated by hundreds of French
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 281
subjects every day, unless the Government should
come forward in the spirit of peace, and prove that
they are desirous of seeing an end of these troubles.
If the French Government will fairly act with us,
and with the other Powers, in the endeavour to
discover what may be the best practicable modifica-
tion of the union, we may hope that the Belgians
will come to their senses and that some arrangement
may be made.
The present state of anarchy cannot continue, and
if it could, it would be disgraceful to the Powers
who have created this kingdom to permit it.
I fear, therefore, that without a friendly concert
the course of events must inevitably lead to a state
of actual hostility at no distant period.
Lord Stuart in reply stated that the views of the
British and French Governments were sufficiently
analogous, and that he could not doubt the French
Government would concur in devising the means
of bringing about a settlement of the affairs of the
Low Countries, by which every interest might be
consulted. He believed the happiest result would
follow the similarity of opinion which prevailed in
the two Cabinets.
M. de Mole acknowledged the stipulations of the
several Treaties, and then said it would be necessary
to consider the means at the disposal of the Allies.
The Southern Provinces were now separated.
Whether the indication of the opinions of the several
Powers, through the King of the Netherlands, would
in the present moment of irritation be a good mode
of inducing them to acquiesce in the views enter-
tained by the Allies, he felt that it was impossible
for them to enter into direct communication with the
Provisional Government which had been formed at
Brussels, or to listen to any overture from that source.
A Conference of the respective Governments was
suggested either at Paris or in London. The King
282 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
of the Netherlands was in favour of a concert between
his Government and the Allies, and he thought the
choice of the Prince of Orange to govern the Low
Countries to be the most secure arrangement that
could be adopted. He felt that the maintenance of
the present order of things in his country depended
upon the maintenance of peace with Great Britain
and Prussia.
Lord Stuart after seeing the King, had a short
interview with the Prussian Minister. He asserted
that the views of his Court were the same as those
of the British, and he said he would support the
overtures which had been made to the French
Ministers. The Prussian Government was preparing
for every alternative, and in case the policy of the
Allies should not be duly appreciated, and the King
of the French encouraged projects incompatible with
existing treaties and the tranquillity of other States,
he asserted that military preparations in Germany
were in a state of forwardness which would permit
Prussia to bring a force of 260,000 men to the Rhine
within two months from October 1.
On that date Sir Charles Bagot, writing from The
Hague, says :
In the meantime the sceptre of Belgium has passed
away, and the King reigns no more over it than he
does over the two Jerusalems. Whether he is again
to reign over it par droit de conquete is a question
for you to decide. Everything is going or gone like
a house of cards. I have no conception how we can
weather the inevitable confusion of the finances. The
expenses are increasing threefold, and the revenue is,
of course, diminishing in at least the same proportion.
LORD ABERDEEN TO SIR CHARLES BAGOT
Oct. 6, 1830.
After what had happened in the Netherlands it is
clear that great alterations must take place in the
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 283
manner in which the Kingdom is constituted, even
if it be possible to preserve it entire. Our interests
and the interests of the three Allied Powers are the
same as those of the King. Nothing, therefore, can
be more desirable than to get France into a negotia-
tion with us, where her separate interest must be
pressed at a great disadvantage, in case she is disposed
to pursue it. The short of the matter is this, the
affairs of the Netherlands can never be permanently
settled without the concurrence of France. This can
only be obtained by persuasion or by force; we are
bound to attempt the first before we employ the
latter mode. If the Belgians should see that France
is employed with us in an arrangement of their
affairs, upon the avowed principle of conciliation
with Holland and separation from France, I cannot
help trusting that they will cool a little in the work
of revolution, and that by degrees they may be
brought to reason. At all events we shall have the
French Government committed to our principle,
which must necessarily embarrass their future pro-
ceedings, in case we should disagree.
We have reason to think that the French Ministers
are disposed to act with us cordially in this matter,
and we ought, therefore, if possible, to strengthen
their hands.
I received late last night the Note from Falck 1
demanding assistance. Having made our overture
to France last Sunday, we shall wait the result before
giving an answer to him. Have the goodness to
place it in the best light to the King and M. Verstolk.
Show them that, at all events, it is the safest for
the Netherlands and the whole world. It may
possibly succeed; in which case the blessing would
be beyond all price, but even if it fail it will give a
1 A. R. Falck (1773-1843), Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs.
284 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
moral power which we shall find of the utmost
importance in the adoption of future measures.
Sir Charles Bagot reported his conversation with
Verstolk :
I fear that I shall have some difficulty in
making our project of negotiations palatable to
him. He thinks that France will gladly accept our
proposition, that it is exactly what she wants,
that it gives her time to form and discipline the
110,000 men that she has called out, that the Govern-
ment neither can nor will give any security that,
while negotiations are going on, money and assistance
of all kinds should not continue to pour into Belgium
as they do now, and that in the meantime the hands
of England and the other Allies are tied up. Time,
he contends, is everything, and though he does not
deny the moral force which the Allies would acquire
by putting France yet more in the wrong, he does
not admit that it counterbalances the physical force
which she will now acquire by every day's delay.
The Allies, he says, must speak to the French
Government, but the Government cannot control the
Nation, and that while the Allied Powers are holding
diplomatic conferences, the French people, under
the name of Belgians, will be securing all the fortresses,
overrunning Holland (which has not, unassisted, the
means at this moment of defending itself), and
perhaps penetrating into Hanover and the North of
Germany. War is inevitable in his opinion, and
that all delay is provoking it in favour of France,
which is not yet prepared for aggression, and to the
disadvantage of Europe and the Allied Powers. I
have not failed to endeavour to persuade him that
an overwhelming foreign force might perhaps put
down the rebellion, and secure, for a very short time
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 285
longer, the nominal integrity of the kingdom and
sovereignty of the House of Orange, but that it would
be but for a moment, and that nothing could be
permanently arranged unless France, Government and
people, were concurrent parties to the arrangement.
Lord Aberdeen's note on this letter was :
It appears to me to be neither more nor less than
a demand to send troops into the Belgian Provinces
as a preliminary to all discussion. It is the duty of
this Government to look at the state of things at
present, at the chances of the conquest of Belgium,
and even of any benefit to be derived from the
conquest if made.
In the meantime Namur had capitulated, and
Antwerp and Malines were the only strong places
left in the hands of the Royal troops.
Baron Verstolk again wrote on the French attitude
that, whatever the intentions of the French Govern-
ment, the French nation (to which he attributed the
present complexion of the revolution) only desired
to avert for a time an armed intervention in the
affairs of the Netherlands, in order to acquire that
force which at the present moment it had not, and
which, when acquired, would make such intervention
nugatory. He said that while the Allies remained
inactive he could get no security from France that
she would not continue to encourage and support
the revolution by every means in her!' power, and
contended that, late as it was, the presence of a
combined Prussian and English force would suppress
the revolution, and probably preserve that general
peace which six months hence could not be preserved.
Both the Minister and the King pressed this view
with warmth, and Sir Charles Bagot thought that he
had had little effect in combating this view of the
true policy of Europe, and the obligations of the
four Allied Powers.
286 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
On October 15 the French Ambassador commu-
nicated the desire of his Government for a Con-
ference of the Allied Powers, to consider the
restoration of tranquillity, and the establishment
of a regular Government in the Netherlands, and
that it should be held at Paris. Lord Aberdeen
answered that, though the original idea of a Conference
came from His Majesty's Government, it had never
been the desire of his Goverment to make London
the usual place for such meetings. Under ordinary
circumstances the proposal of the French Government
would meet with no objection. " In the actual
condition of the Netherlands," the despatch went
on to say, " it is clear that these Conferences, to be
really useful, should be promptly undertaken, and,
if possible, speedily brought to a close. All the
Ministers at the Court of Great Britain are ready
to join in these deliberations, and to concur in what-
ever arrangements are thought suitable. At Paris,
on the contrary, where no Austrian or Russian
Minister is yet accredited to the King of the French,
a delay highly prejudicial must occur, and the intrigues
of the insurrectionary Government will tend to
impede the progress of the negotiations. Nothing
could more tend to give confidence in the desire of
the King of the French to maintain the peace of
Europe, and to execute the Treaties by which it
exists, than that the French Plenipotentiary should
be engaged in concert with the British Plenipotentiary
and his Allies, in endeavouring to re-establish tran-
quillity in the Netherlands. We lament that such
an opportunity should be lost by the perseverance
in the proposal to hold the Conferences in Paris
instead of in London.
On October 16 The Hague was expressing a wish
through Sir Charles Bagot that the Four Powers
which had signed the Eight Articles of London
should appoint Plenipotentiaries, to whom might be
referred the modification which it might be found
expedient to make in the Fundamental Law. As
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 287
the rebellion in the Belgian Provinces had made
such rapid progress, and had assumed so menacing
an attitude, it was very uncertain whether either the
Deputies or the States General would meet in sufficient
numbers to proceed to business, or in short whether
there remained any regular and legal means by
which the differences which had arisen between the
Northern and Southern Provinces could be adjusted.
His Netherlands Majesty felt that, although his
Allies were disinclined to afford him military assistance
in his present difficulties, a diplomatic measure of
this kind might be of the greatest service to him,
and might contribute essentially at this moment
to the preservation of the general peace.
On the Plenipotentiaries meeting, the King of
the Netherlands thought that their first measure
should be to demand an armistice, and if this was
conceded, the French Government taking part in
the measure, there could be very little doubt that
such an arrangement might be effected as would
satisfy the just demands of each division of the
kingdom, and prevent any disturbance of the general
peace. The Netherlands Foreign Minister suggested
that the proposed Congress should be held at The
Hague, but as the Belgians might fear coming to The
Hague, he suggested either the towns of Breda or
that of Cleves.
Lord Aberdeen wrote to Lord Heytesbury, our
Minister at St. Petersburg :
The importance of affairs in the Netherlands makes
us less alive to anything else. I am not very sanguine
about the effect of our conciliatory overture to the
French Government, because I cannot help entertain-
ing some doubt of their good faith ; and this is con-
firmed by the proposition of Talleyrand to transfer
the Conference to Paris. It is clear that the time of
forcible interference is not yet come; nor can we yet
tell what it is that we are to attempt to perform.
288 LIFE OF .THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
One only thing is quite indispensable union and I
am happy to say that nothing can be more perfectly
satisfactory than the spirit which prevails among
the Four Powers in this respect.
Lord Aberdeen's next letter was sent to Baron
Falck. It was in answer to a direct appeal made
for military succour. Lord Aberdeen proceeds to
sum up the situation :
Your Excellency may be persuaded that His
Majesty will scrupulously fulfil all the engagements
into which he has entered. The obligation of Treaties,
the interests of his own people, and his regard for
the person of the Sovereign, His Ally, all combine
to render it impossible for His Majesty to remain
indifferent to the fate of the Low Countries, and
to the result of the present troubles. The great
object of His Majesty's care, and of which he
can never lose sight, is to prevent, if possible, the
disturbances of these Provinces from leading to any
interruption of the general peace of Europe. It is
not to be doubted that the other Powers, parties
to the Treaties and diplomatic acts which regulate
the constitution of the Netherlands, are animated
by sentiments equally pacific.
With these views His Majesty's Ambassador at
Paris has been instructed to invite the French
Government, according to those Treaties to which
France is a contracting party, to join the deliberations
of His Majesty and his Allies, and to concur in such
measures as by common consent should be thought
indispensable for the re-establishment of order in
the Netherlands; and which should be framed with
a due regard for the security of other States. The
King of the French has testified his desire to enter
into this concert, and we may be permitted to hope
HARRIET DOUGLAS, COUNTESS OF ABERDEEN.
Sister of the 17th Earl of Morton. Married, first, Viscount Hamilton
(son of John James, 1st Marquess of Abercorn), who died in May, 1814.
She married secondly, George, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, at Bentley Priory,
July 15th, 181.3, and died August 20th, 1833.
From a picture by Sir Thoma* Lawrence.
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 289
that the sincere endeavours of the Allied Powers,
in conjunction with the enlightened judgment of
the King of the Netherlands, will prove successful
in applying an effectual remedy to the present evils.
The French still continued to raise objections to
the Conference being held in any other place than
Paris. M. de Talleyrand was directed to say that
rather than come to London, the Conference should
be conducted through the Ambassadors who were
acting as the medium of their Courts. A further
letter indicated that it was jealousy of the appoint-
ment by the King of Prince Talleyrand, and that
the proposal to meet in London was due to his
inspiration. To this Lord Aberdeen replied that
the extraordinary reason of M. de Mole against
the Conference being held in London did not appear
to be worth serious consideration.
"It is for the French Government to determine
in what manner they may think proper to employ
their representative, but M. de Mole must admit
that his observations about M. de Talleyrand afford
no valid answer to the reasons for selecting London
as the seat of the Conferences." Lord Aberdeen
said that if no better reasons were presented it would
give rise to the suspicion that a prompt and satis-
factory adjustment of the dissensions in the Low
Countries was not the object of the cordial and
zealous endeavours of the French Government.
The Netherlands also objected to the Conference
being held in London, on the ground that if Holland
were not chosen a very ill impression would be
produced. A direct appeal was made on October 25
through Sir Charles Bagot for a certain number of
troops for the defence of Antwerp. " It has certainly
been turned by the advanced force of the rebels,
and we are as certainly alarmed here for the Dutch
line of defence."
To the appeals for military assistance the Duke of
Wellington made vigorous reply :
VOL. i u
290 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
We are accused of apathy and our Ambassador at
The Hague says nothing.
Then we do not send military succours ! The
King of the Netherlands with great wisdom, deter-
mined in the first instance to consider the insur-
rection as an internal affair; and without consulting
with us, to discuss it and determine upon it
with the States General without insisting upon
the previous submission of the insurgents. He
subsequently tried force; and His Majesty's forces
were not sufficient to obtain possession of the town
of Bruxelle. It was at that time that His Majesty
called for the assistance of his Allies, and parti-
cularly of England, and before the demand arrived,
we heard of the revolt at Bruges, and of the loss
of Ostend, Nieuport, Ypres, Tournay, Ath, Mons,
Namur, Charleroi, Huy, and the Chartreuse at Liege.
The affair, however, increased in importance, but
was still considered in the Netherlands as one of
internal insurrection, to be settled by measures of
legislation. We were to consider the affair then as
domestic, and although there was and is undoubtedly
great jealousy of French interference in it, no charge
is made against the French Government.
Are we then to be accused of apathy in a cause
interesting to our Allies, as well as to this country,
because we do not at once get under arms, and put
ourselves and all Europe in a state of war, in a cause
in which we have not yet tried negotiations asked by
the King of the Netherlands himself : in which
course be it observed that we had commenced to
negotiate before we received the application from
His Majesty? But we ought to have sent our forces
when required to negotiate, and to concert with others
the means of pacifying the Netherlands ! For what
purpose ? to secure the fortresses ? They were lost,
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 291
and we should have been driven off by the fire of
the cannon which we had provided ourselves !
To defend Antwerp, Maestricht, the northern
division itself of the kingdom, from the hostility of
the southern Provinces ?
I am really ashamed of discussing such a question.
I cannot believe it possible that the necessity for
such defence exists; or that, the question being
fairly discussed, any man, who had any regard for
the honour of the Netherlands, could pretend that
it existed. But I'll for a moment suppose that the
King cannot defend himself against the Belgians;
it is surely necessary that, before we provoke a fresh
revolution at Paris, or a war, either with the existing
French Government or with another which may
displace the present Government, of which war,
the first movement would be to place all the Nether-
land fortresses in the hands of France, we should
try at least the effect of showing to the world, and
to the Netherlands, France engaged in concert with
England and all Europe in an endeavour to pacify
Belgium, and the further effect of negotiation.
The French yielded the point about the Conference
meeting in London, and appointed a Pleni-
potentiary to act with Prince Talleyrand. Lord
Aberdeen said that notwithstanding the ungracious
manner in which the French Government had acted,
he considered their acquiescence in the British
proposals a great point gained. " Only let the King
retain Antwerp and Maestricht, and the Belgians
may go on making what Governments and Constitu-
tions they please, without our chances of a satisfactory
settlement being diminished."
Antwerp fell on October 26. Sir Charles
Bagot writing says :
Whether the citadel has held, or can eventually
292 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
hold out, is more than I know. I have been this
morning with Verstolk to urge the importance of
maintaining the citadel as long as possible, and of
reinforcing in every way Lillo, Batz and all the
defences of the Scheldt. All that can be done will
be done, but all is, I fear, very little. They are
inundated.
If the country, I mean the old seven united
Provinces, is only to be defended by its own internal
means, and the French or Belgians, or whatever
they are, choose to attack it, it must fall. It has
absolutely no power of resistance whatever. The
whole disposable force of the Government is not
30,000 men. They are ill organised and ill officered,
and the extent which they have to defend is not
inconsiderable. In addition to this the spirit of the
country, without being bad, is beginning to be
discouraged, and emissaries are at work endeavouring
to make it discontented. On the other hand, the
Southern Provinces are flushed with their successes;
and though it may not enter into their policy to
overrun this country, they are, I fear, quite able to
do so if they please. It is certain that there is not
less than 20,000 Frenchmen in arms at present in
Belgium. A General Chasserond or some such name
a French General of Napoleon's who once commanded
in the Illyrian Provinces, and who has been living
for some years on property which he acquired in
Limburg has collected an army of 3000 men and
300 cavalry, with which he is so harassing the garrison
of Maastricht (a mixed garrison, by the way) by
keeping them constantly on the alert, that serious
apprehensions are entertained for the result.
Conferences were held in London, an armistice
was proclaimed, and Protocols were drawn up. These
were strongly objected to by the King of the Nether-
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 293
lands, as he considered the Netherlands were called
upon to surrender to the insurgents territory of which
they never had possession, but that after having
maintained at the suggestion of the Allied Powers,
and at great hazard to the security of the Dutch
dominions, the citadel of Antwerp, he was required
to surrender it at the moment when its successful
defence had contributed more than any other measure
to check the progress of the rebel forces. The King
went on to say that the ancient line did not even
reinstate the seven United Provinces securely in
their ancient possessions.
Sir Charles Bagot had ventured to remind His
Majesty that the Protocol had expressly stipulated
that the line suggested in the armistice should not
in any way affect or prejudice the general adjustment
which the Allied Powers would afterwards be called
upon to make. The Plenipotentiaries had necessarily
been ignorant of the exact position occupied by the
respective forces of the two divisions of the country
at the moment of the Conferences, but that according
to all the later reports which they must have received
of the danger to which this part of the kingdom
was exposed, they might have reasonably presumed
that the probable effect of the line which they
had prescribed would be to restore to His Majesty
positions occupied by the Belgians within the Dutch
limits.
M. de Verstolk also agreed with the King, that the
armistice upon the prescribed basis had never been
what the Dutch Government had wanted. Nothing
was stated in the Protocol as to the duration of
the armistice; and it was left doubtful whether the
King was at liberty to withdraw from Antwerp the
military stores with which it was abundantly
furnished. It was not clear whether Fort Lillo
and the other forts which commanded the navigation
of the Scheldt were to be evacuated or not; and
nothing had been stipulated in respect to prisoners,
of whom the Belgians had many, while the Prince
294 LIFE OF THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
of Orange had given up nearly all those taken by
the Dutch.
The despatch ended by saying that the King
would ultimately acquiesce in the armistice, but
that the matter which most touched his feelings was
surrendering the citadel of Antwerp, and that the
proposed line might need alteration.
Tl^ Protocol was signed by the five Powers in
London on November 4. The line of demar-
cation was still under consideration, and the Nether-
lands Government suggested that Commissioners
should be sent from London to trace the line on the
spot. The armistice was to last three months;
the citadel of Antwerp was not to be given up till
the frontier line was definitely traced; all prisoners
on both sides were to be exchanged, and the Pleni-
potentiaries were to make some public declaration
by which the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg was
excluded from the Belgian Provinces.
On November 26 the Wellington Government had
fallen and Sir Charles writes a farewell to his late
chief :
" More last words of Mr. Baxter." You probably
did not bargain for another letter from me, but I
must be allowed to thank you for the few and very
kind parting words which I received from you last
night. They have gratified me more perhaps than
you think. You have been thrust from your stool.
The same fate may await me. If Whigs can save
the country, in God's name let them save it, but I
fear the time is coming, if it be not already arrived,
when the spirit which is universally abroad is neither
to be influenced nor controlled by the Ministers of
established Governments, be they who they may.
A young Comte de La Rochefoucauld told me
the other day in my own room, that Monsieur de
Talleyrand had certainly been a man of some
NETHERLANDS AND BELGIUM (1830) 295
eminence in the old school, " mais que maintenant
la jeunesse faisoit tout ! "
This is the universal mode or creed, and no excep-
tion will be made in favour even of elderly Whigs.
I try not to croak, but I am seriously alarmed,
and I believe in my conscience that our days are
doomed to set in tenfold greater trouble than that
in which they rose, and this is saying a good deal.
INDEX
NOTE. The words "4th Earl" are used in this index to indicate the subject of
the biography.
ABBEVILLE, 18
Abercorn, John James, 1st Marquess of,
34, 51, 62, 184; his talents,
guests, and daughters, 36-7 ; cor-
respondence of, with 4th Earl,
52 sqq. , on his Mission to the
Allied Sovereigns, 69-71 ; tree-
planting by, 66 ; criticism of, on
4th Earl's attendance at Chatillon,
186 ; 4th Earl's second marriage
urged on by, 191 ; failing health
of, and correspondence with 4th
Earl, 194 sqq., death of (1818), 199
2nd Marquess of, 199
Abercorn, Marchioness of, 74 &"?&., 82
Aberdeen, Catharine, Countess of, born
Hamilton, 37, 174 ; first visit of,
to Haddo, 52 ; letter to her
father, on her impressions of
Haddo House (1806), 53-4 ; death
of, 66-7, 191
Countess of (the 2nd), widow of
Viscount Hamilton, born Douglas,
marriage of, to 4th Earl, 191-2
sqq. ; letters to, from 4th Earl,
on the journey to Haddo, and his
work there, '200, 201-2, 203, on
George IV. 's visit to Edinburgh
(1822), 205 sqq.
1st Earl of, Sir George Gordon of
Haddo, later, Lord Haddo, and
Lord High Chancellor of Scot-
land, 3, 5 ; attitude of, to the
Union, 6 ; elevation of, to the
peerage, 7 ; character of, 7-9 ;
resignation of his office and
efforts made to disgrace him, 8-9 ;
a non-juror, 9 ; death of, 9
2nd Earl of, William, Lord Haddo, a
Jacobite, 9-10; election of, to
Parliament of Great Britain set
aside, 9
3rd Earl of, George Gordon, 2 ; atti-
tude of, to his orphan grand-
children, IQsqq.
4th Earl of, George Hamilton Gordon,
ancestry and parentage of,
2 sqq. ; character, tastes and
studies of, 10, 14, 23, 24-5,
297
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, contd.
28, 32, 65, 200-1; love of
acting, 33-5 ; love of books,
197-9 ; love of nature, 184,
201 ; placability and self-con-
trol of, illustration of, 125-6
1784-1805. Early life and educa-
tion, 2, 10 ; brothers and sister
of, 10, 11, see also under names ;
friendship with Dundas and
with Pitt, 11 sqq. ; other
friends, 12 ; studies and tastes,
12, 23 ; life at Cambridge, 12,
13 sqq., 33-4; college friends,
12, 14 ; succession to the Earl-
dom, 13 ; library of, 14 ;
travels in France (1801), his own
notes on, 15 sqq. ; his acquaint-
ance with Buonaparte, 15, 22 ;
furtherjourneysin Italy, Greece,
the Levant, etc., 22-3 ; excava-
tions by, at Athens and dis-
covery of the Pnyx, 23, 65 ;
first visit to Scotland since
early childhood, 23, his im-
pression, 24, 31, and his im-
provements, 25 sqq., see also
under Haddo House.
1805-13. Taste of, for acting, hid
guardian's letters on, 33-5 ;
friendship with Lord Abercorn,
36, and marriage to his
daughter, hapmness of the
union, 37-8, 66, 67; life at
Wimbledon, illness and death
of Pitt, 39 sqq. , letters on, to
Whittingtou, and journal on,
46 sqq. ; desire of, to sit in
Parliament, 42 sqq. ; English
Peerage sought by, 423, 45,
49 ; correspondence with Lord
Abercorn, 52 sqq., with Lord
Melville, on the Dissolution
(1806), 57 sqq., with Whit-
tiugton on the fall of the
Grenville Ministry and the
General Election of 1807, 62-3 ;
Russian Embassy offered to,
62, 64, and refused, 65 ; Sicilian
298
INDEX
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, contd.
Embassy declined by, 64-5 ;
letter to, from Lord Melville
on Ids reluctance to return
to Office, 64 ; President of the
Society of Antiquaries, 65,
200-1 ; Trustee of the British
Museum and Fellow of the
Royal Society, writer in the
Edinburgh Review and work
of, with Pitt's Parliamentary
friends, 65 ; Order of the
Thistle bestowed on (1808),
G5 ; elected a Scottish repre-
sentative Peer, 65 : births of Ids
children and their early deaths,
66, 192-4; death of his first
wife, 66-7, 191 ; mission to
U.S.A. declined by, 67; letter
from, to Gurney, on events in
Sicily (1812), 68
1813-14. Embassy of, to the
Allies, course of, narrated in
letters and despatches, 69 sqq. ;
his instructions, tlsqq., 82;
correspondence with Lord Aber-
corn on his mission, tiQsqq.,
with Lady Maria Hamilton
(see that head), with Castlereagh
(1813), 72-3, 82, 87-94, 100-2,
IQlsqq., lllsqq., 117 sqq., on
the operations and diplomacy
of the Allies and of Napoleon,
73 sqq. , requesting nomina-
tion to Privy Council, 83, on
evils of divided command,
83 sqq. ; on the Treaty, 113;
conversations of, with Metter-
nicli on Imperial German
Crown, and on Peace negotia-
tions (1813), 87 sqq. ; state-
ment by, on his authority as
Ambassador, furnished by, to
Metternich, 92-3 ; popularity
of, with Allied Sovereigns and
Ministers, 94, 96, 102, 111,
116, 149, 166, 169, 172, 184;
letters from, to Stewart from
Teplitz, 94 sqq., 97; illness of
(cholera), at Teplitz (1813),
96 ; Treaty Negotiations of, 96,
100, 113, 154; letter from, to
Lord Harrow by, onlifeatTeplitz
and characters of the great folk
there, 92-100; impressions of,
on the notabilities at Teplitz,
etc. (1813), 100, 102, 103;
private audience with Alex-
ander I., 107; on the Battle
of Leipsic, 121, 122 sqq.
1813-14. At Frankfort and at
the Conference of Chatillon,
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, contd.
events narrated in letters
and despatches, 135 sqq. ;
estimate of the character and
abilities of those gathered at
Frankfort, 135; share of, iu
Peace negotiations, attitude to,
of other British Ambassadors,
136, 137-9, jealousy of, as
being "an amateur," 137, 139;
request of the Powers that he
be appointed the British Pleni-
potentiary in matters affecting
the Alliance, 139 ; letters and
despatches from, to Castlereagh
on the Frankfort negotiations
(1813), IBS sqq., 115 sqq., 153
sqq., 162 sqq., on the Capitula-
tion of Dresden, an honour
for Schwartzenberg and the
Treaty of General Alliance, 158
sqq.; Liberal politics of, Sir R.
Wilson on, 143-4; efficiency
preferred by, to political and
social considerations, 145 ;
letters from, to Abercorn, on
his wish to quit his Ambas-
sadorship, on those present at
Frankfort and on the plan of
campaign, 149-51; desire of,
to leave his Embassy, 149, 152-
3, 156, 162, 165, 174-5, 184-5,
190; on the Treaty of General
Alliance, 157, 160, 167-8; on
his children's letters to him,
153; Order bestowed on, by
Francis I., 167; letter to,
from Ward, 169 sqq. ; letters
from, to Harrowby, 172 sqq.,
176 sqq., 186; position of, at
the Chatillon Confereuce(1814),
intended, and actual, 185-6;
share of, in negotiations at,
Paris over the Treaty of Peace
of 1814, 186 sqq., 190; death
of his brother-in-law (1814),
190, and its consequences, 191
1814-25. Return to England and
second marriage (1815), 190,
191. ?qq.; doings at Haddo,
192-3, 194, sec also under
Haddo House ; a looker-on in
politics, 195; relations of, with
Castlereagh, refusal to go to
the Congress of Vienna, 195 ;
correspondence of, with Aber-
corn, 195, 196 sqq. , with
Castlereagh, 195-6 ; property
inherited by, from his father-
in-law (1818), his life and
guests there, 199 ; on its
associations for him, 200 ; let-
INDEX
299
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, contd.
ters from, to his wife, on the
difficulties of reaching Haddo,
on his improvements there
(1821), and on the visit of
George IV. to Edinburgh
(1822), 201 sqq. ; tower built
by, 204; called "a Jacobin,"
214, 215 ; Bill of, concerning
Scottish entails (1825), 213-14 ;
letter from, to his son, on join-
ing the Pitt Club, Cambridge,
214-15 ; increasing friendship
of, with Wellington (1822-28),
215 ; seat in Canning's Cabinet
refused by, 215 ; becomes Chan-
cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,
215
1828-30. At the Foreign Office
in the Wellington Ministry,
195, 215, 2l6sqq., 274
Dispute over Portuguese Succes-
sion, letter from, to Barbecue,
stating his views, 245-6
Events of his Ministry. The
Russo-Turkish War, 215 sqq. ;
accused of Turkish sympathies,
216, and, later, of Russian
sympathies, 217 ; Russian
aggression feared by, 217;
action of, on renewed blockade
of the Dardanelles, 223 sqq. ;
correspondence of, with Wel-
lington, on the Russo-Turkish
War, 219, 226-7, 231, 232 sqq.,
240, witli Heytesbury on the
same, 217-19, 21 9 sqq., 224 sqq.,
232, 233, 236, on the Treaty
of Adrianople, 2378 ; despatch
from, to Cowley at Vienna, on
proposed negotiation for Russo-
Turkish Peace, and on Greek
independence (Dec. 1828),
227 sqq. ; correspondence of,
with his brother (the Ambas-
sador to the Porte) on the
same, 237, 239-40, and on the
independence of Greece (1830),
240, 242-3 ; on his distrust of
Russia and on the state of
Turkey (1830), 239; Princes
considered desirable by, for
the Greek throne, 241, 242,
244
French Algiers Expedition, des-
patches and correspondence
on, with Metternich, Cowley,
Stuart de Rothesay, and
Polignac, 248, 249 sqq.
French Revolution of 1830,
246 sqq., 254 sqq., despatches
and correspondence on, with
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, contd.
Stuart de Rothesay, 254 sqq.,
on the arrival in England of
Charles X., 259-60; corre-
spondence with Wellington, on
Lord Marcus Hill's account of
events in Paris in July, 1830,
256 sqq. ; despatch from, to
English Ambassadors, on the
French July revolution and
its effects on Allied policy,
260 sqq.
The Revolt of Belgium from
Union with Holland (1830),
265 sqq. ; despatches and corre-
spondence on, with Wellington,
265-6, 269, 273-4, 280, with
Bagot, 266-7, 268-9, 271 sqq.,
271, 276, 282-4, 285, 291-2,
with Stuart de Rothesay,
269-71, 274-6, 280-2, with
Sir R. Gordon, 277 sqq.,
with Heytesbury, 287-8, with
Falck, in reply to a request
for military succour, on British
observation of Treaty engage-
ments and on the presence of
France at the Conference, 288-
9 ; on venue for Conference on
the Netherlands, correspond-
ence with the French Ambas-
sador (Oct. 1830), 286, 289;
Bagot'a farewell letters, on fall
of the Wellington Government,
294-5
Aberdeen, Earls of, family of, history of,
2 sqq.
Aberdeen, "Haddo's raid" on, 3
Aberdeenshire in 1805, 4th Earl's im-
provements, 23-4, 25 sqq.
Act introduced by 4th Earl, concerning
Entail, 213
Addington, , 48
Adelaide, Queen Dowager, at Stanmore,
199, 200
Adrianople, Russian Forces at (1830),
236, 237. Treaty of, see that head
JEgean Islands, 23
Agriculture, in Aberdeenshire, 1805, 4th
Earl's improvement in, 21 xqq.
Aix-la-Chapelle, protocols of, 247, 261
Albania, 23
Albany, Countess of, 22-3
Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, 81,
103 ; and the command of the
Allied Annies, 84-5, 93 ; Allied
irruption into Southern France
urged by (1813), 95 ; 4th Earl's
characterisation of, 100 ; as wearer
of the Garter, 103 ; on the coming
Peace (Oct. 1813), 107 ; beaii gestc
of, as to Zamose, 108 ; at Chem-
300
INDEX
Alexander I., contd.
nitz, 113 ; at Comotan, 115 ; entry
of, into Frankfort (Nov. 1813),
133 ; intimacy of Wilson with,
144, and wishes concerning, 145 ;
at Frankfort, 150 ; and the Treaty
of General Alliance, 163, 164,
167-8 ; appreciation of, for 4th
Earl, 166~ 172 ; and Nesselrode,
172 ; scheme of, for making
Bernadotte Emperor of France,
176-7 ; master-stroke of(1816), 195
Alfieri, 22-3
Algiers, French Expedition against
(1830), British action regarding,
248 sqq.
Allemagne, V (Stael), 4th Earl on, 176
Allied Armies, round Teplitz (1813), 99 ;
prospects of, 108 sqq. ; prisoners
taken by, at Leipsic, 128, 130
Conference on the dissolution of the
Union of the Netherlands sug-
gested (1830), 281-2
Observance of Swiss neutrality (1814),
177
Plans of Campaign (1813), 109, 142-3,
150-1
Policy after the French July revolution,
4th Earl on, 262-3
During the Belgian revolution
(1830), 284, 285
Reply to Napoleon's Peace proposals
after Leipsic, 125
Sovereigns in 1813-14, 4th Earl's em-
bassy to, 69 sqq. ; mutual attitude
of, and of their armies, 84 sqq.,
93, 106; H.Q. of, at Frankfort
(1813), 135, 150
Successes (1814), 179
Allies, the, appointment by, of Pleni-
potentiaries, desired by the
Hague, to whom to refer modifica-
tions in the Fundamental Law,
286-7
Treaty obligations of, as to the Kingdom
of the Netherlands, 270, 271, 274,
277, 281
Altenburgh, 120, 122
Althorp, Viscount (3rd Earl Spencer),
12
Amiens, 18
Anapa, 232
Anjou, Charles of, and his descendants,
175
Anne, Grand Duchess, marriage of
(1816), 195
Antwerp, in 1830, 267, 276, 285, 289 ;
fall of, 291-2 ; protocol re objected
to, by the King of the Nether-
lands, 293
Arbuthnot, Sir William, Bt., Provost of
Edinburgh, knighting of, 211-12
Argyll, 6th Duke of, 209
Argyll House, 190, 194
Asia, Russian penetration in, British
attitude to, 232
Asia Minor, 4th Earl's travels in, 23
Aspern, Battle of, 115
Athens, 4th Earl's excavations at, 23,
65
Atholl, 2nd Duke of, 9
Attrition, use of, by Schwartzenberg,
109-10
Augereau, Wrede's operations against,
118
Austria, position of, in 1813, 72; Allied
support to, 73-4 ; the Allies joined
by (1813), 74, 86, 101, 179;
Metternich on the alliance, 99;
4th Earl on zeal shown, 113 ;
operations of (1813), 84, 85, 101 ;
attitude of, to Bavaria, Poland
and Saxony, 86, 93 ; attitude of,
to person of Napoleon I., Metter-
nich on, 97-8 ; Balance of power
desired by, 99, 101 ; mediation
of (1813), accepted by Great
Britain but acceptance kept secret,
90, later made known to Metter-
nich, 104-8 ; Peace aims of (1813),
97-8 ; views of, on Italy (1813),
101-2 ; policy of, as to German
Confederation, 110-11 ; action of,
in regard to Bavaria, tribute to,
by 4th Earl, 118-19 ; troops of,
placed under the Bavarian General,
Wrede, 118 ; decision of, to recover
the Tyrol, Voralberg and Unter
Thai, advantages to Allies, 119 ;
Prussia, and Russia, request from,
that 4th Earl be made British
Plenipotentiary in all Allied
affairs, 139 ; wisdom of action of,
in Bavaria and Wurtemburg, 157 ;
desire of, for peace (1828;, 218 ;
views on the Levant inquired into,
219 ; and England, concern of,
for tranquillity of Europe, 4th
Earl on (1829), 236 ; attitude of,
in 1828, Nicholas I. on, 221-3 ;
influence of, to secure Russo-
Turkish Peace urged by 4th Earl,
228 sqq. ; view in, on French
Algiers expedition (1830), 252 ;
Charles X. 's wish to live in, 259.
Austrian Archdukes, a visit from, feared,
196
BADEN, Grand Duke of, 150 ; popularity
of, and of the Grand Duchess,
182
Baden, and the Confederation of the
Rhine, 130; attitude of, iu 1813,
158
INDEX
301
Bagot, Sir Charles, Ambassador at the
Hague, on the troubles in the
Netherlands (1830), the froutier
question, etc., 266 sqq. ; letter to,
from 4th Earl on the same and
on foreign interference, 271-2 ;
further despatches from, on the
same, and on the entry of the
Prince of Orange into Brussels,
272-3, on the state of affairs in
September, 1830, 276, 277, on a
visit from the Prince of Orange
and his inquiry into what Great
Britain could or would do, 277 ;
on financial confusion after the
secession of Belgium (1830), 282;
letter to, from 4th Earl on affairs
after the secession of Belgium,
282-4 ; letter from, to the same,
on his conversation with Verstolk
(Oct. 1830), 284-5 ; Dutch appeal
through, for military aid and the
Duke of Wellington's vigorous
reply (Oct. 1830), 289-91 ; on the
fall of Antwerp, and the power-
lessness of Holland, 291-2; on
the Protocol of the Conference
of London (1830), 293 ; farewell
letter of, to 4th Earl, 294-5
Baird, General Sir David, 10
Baird, William, of Newbyth, 10
Balance of Forces, Allied and French
(Oct. 1813), 109
Balance of Power, Austrian efforts to-
wards, 99, 101, British attempts
to secure, 71-2, 238
Baltic Sea, 75 ; 4th Earl's stormy pas-
sage of (1813), 76 ; winter con-
ditions of, 96
Bankers, Parisian, and the July revolu-
tion, 257
Barbecue, M. , letter to, from 4th Earl,
on the Portuguese Succession,
245-6
Barclay de Tolly, Field-Marshal, Order
conferred on, 84-5, after insub-
ordination, 85 ; 4th Earl on, 100
Barnet, 4th Earl's early school at, 2
Baronscourt, trees planted at, 66
Bassano, Maret, Duke of, and Peace
proposals (1813), 138, 162, 163
Bathurst, Countess, 152
Bathurst, 3rd Earl, 152, 177, 197, and
Greek independence, 240
Bautzen, Battle of, 122, 179
Bavaria, King of, letter to, from Francis I.
on the desired Alliance, 101 ; at
Frankfort, 150, 155
Bavaria, Austrian plan of advance on,
85 ; hopes of gaining, to the Alli-
ance, 86, 93, 100-1, 109 ; acces-
sion of secured, 117, 135-6, 154,
Bavaria, contd.
179 ; independence of, and re-
nunciation by, of the Confedera-
tion of the Rhine, 119 ; wisdom
shown by Austrian conduct to-
wards, 157, 158
Bavaria, Otho of, chosen King of Greece,
244
Bavarian territory and acquisitions,
agreement on (1813), 119
Bayard, Chevalier, statue of, 21
Beauvale, Lord, later, 2nd Viscount Mel-
bourne, 79 n., a? actor, 34
Bedford, 6th Duke of, 48, 202
Belgian Provinces, offer of, to France in
1830, 269
Belgium, Revolution of (1830), Treaty
problems caused by, 247 ; course
and events of, 265 sqq., 290;
French influence suspected, 266,
267, 272, 284, 285, 292 ; revolting
towns in, 290 ; Union with Hol-
land dissolved (Sept. 1830), 277,
281
Bellegarde, Marshall, 144, 145 ; objective
of (1814), 150-1
Benevente, Princess of, and her guests,
188
Benkendorff, General, 226
Benningsen, General, 95 ; operations of,
in 1813, 103-4, 106, and suc-
cesses of, 112, 113 ; at Teplitz,
108, 109
Bensizlea, 103
Bently Priory, see Stanmore
Berlin, French advance on (1813), 76
sqq.
Bernadotte, Charles, Crown Prince
(Prince Royal) of Sweden, 81,
138, 150, 154, 156, 162, 188 ;
operations of, in 1813, 73, 76-8,
80, 123-4, 143 ; popularity of, 75 ;
character of, 152, 160 ; scheme of
Alexander I. to make Emperor of
France, 176-7
Berri, S. A. R. , Due de, letter from, offer-
ing co-operation to Wellington
(1813), 95, Metternich's view on,
98, difficulties caused by (1814),
187
Berry Pomeroy, Vale of, 130
Berthier, Peace urged by, on Napoleon,
105
Bertrand, made prisoner, 124
Binning, Lord (Earl of Haddington), 12,
43<2r^. 1, 211
Black Forest, the, 175-6, 183-4
Blandford, Marquess of, 43
Bliicher, General, 78, 84, 112, 124 ; part
assigned to, in campaign of 1813-
14, 150 ; Wilson's intimacy with,
144
302
INDEX
Bolingbroke, Lord, speeches of, Pitt on,
51
Bonaparte, Joseph, 18
Books, 4th Earl's interest in, 197
Bordeaux, Due de, 257
Bosphorus, forts on, 219 ; free passage of,
Russian demand for (1829), 234
Boulogne, Nelson's bombardment of, 17
Bourbon Princes of France, embarrass-
ment due to (1814), 179, 187
Bo wood, a visit to, Ward on, 170
Brandias, 80
Brazil, Crown of, succession to, Portu-
guese dispute on, 4th Earl's non-
intervention view on, 245-6
Bremerkhe, 166
Breslau, 4th Earl at, 78-9
Bridal, The, of Triermain (Scott), 4th
Earl's comments on, 134
Bride, The, of Abijdos (Byron), 171
Bristol, 5th Earl of, 50
British Fleet, Sir R. Gordon's plans for
(1830), 236
Bruges, '267
Brussels, disturbance at (1830), 265-6,
267, 268, 275, 278 ; entry into,
of the Prince of Orange (1830),
272-3 ; attack on, of the Prince
of Orange, failure of, results of,
277
Buccleugh, 4th Duke of, 55, 57
Buonaparte, Josephine, 15, 182
Burghersh, Lord, 144
Burgherah- Wilson affair, share in, of 4th
Earl, 144 sqq.
Byron, Lord, poems by, 171
CALAIS to Paris, 4th Earl's journey iu
1802, 16*77.
Calton Hill, Edinburgh, 202 ; view from,
207
Cambridge, H.R.H. Adolphus -Frederick,
Duke of, 44
Cambridge University, 4th Earl at, 13
sqq., and, later, his desire to
represent, 43, 44 ; his son at,
214-215
Candidates for the throne of Greece,
241-2
Canning, George, 48, 50, 51, 57, 59, 62;
mot of, onSidmouth, 49 ; Ministry
of, 4th Earl invited to join (1827),
215
Canova, 51, 52
Capo d'Istrias, Count, and Prince Leopold
of Saxe-Coburg, 243-4
Carlsruhe, 4th Earl at (1813), 180, 181-2
Caroline Bonaparte, wife of Joachim
Murat, Queen of Naples, 91
Cassilis, 6th Earl of, 49
Castlereagh, Viscount, 43-44, 50, 51,
62; 4th Earl sent by, as special
Castlereagh, Viscount, contd.
Envoy to the Allies (1813-
14), 69 sqq. ', correspondence of,
with 4th Earl in 1813, on the
Austrian declaration, 82-3, after
the entry into Frankfort, 137, on
the negotiations at Frankfort,
139 sg<7.~, 145 it??., 153 sqq., 162
sqq. , on Wilson and Burghersh,
144-5, on Napoleon's reply to
St. Aignan's mission and on the
Treaty of General Aliauce, 162
sqq. ; despatch to, containing
Napoleon's Peace offers, story of,
126-7; 4th Earl's Peace views
approved by, 139 ; efforts of, to
retain 4th Earl as Ambassador,
156, 165, 166, 172, 173 sqq. ;
decision of, to go to Frankfort,
176 ; and the Chatillon Con-
ference, 185-6 ; later relations
of, with 4th Earl, 195 ; letter
from, on European affairs (1814),
195; death of (1822), 209
Castlereagh, Viscountess, suppers of, in
Paris, 188
Cathcart, 1st Earl, Ambassador at St.
Petersburg, 70, 81, 82, 90, 113,
147, 148, 156; views of, contrary
to those of 4th Earl (1813-14),
136, 138 ; 4th Earl's estimate of,
137 ; and the Treaty of General
Alliance, 164, 167 ; and the Con-
ference of Chatillon, 185
Catherine, Grand Duchess of Russia, 109
Catholic Question, dissolution due to
(1807), 61, 62; effects of, on the
AVelliugton Ministry (1830), 279
Caulaincourt, Due de Vicenza (Colin-
court), at Prague, 102 ; desire of,
for Peace and powers entrusted
to, 186
Change of Government and General
Election of 1807, letters on, 62
sqq.
Chantilly, in 1802, 18
Charles, Archduke, military skill of, 20
Charles Edward * Stewart (the Young
Pretender), 10, 205 ; widow of,
22-3
Charles I., 4
Charles II., 5
Charles X. , King of France, 227 ; deposi-
tion of, and exile, 247, problem
of future residence for, 256, re-
ception of, in England, 258, 259,
at Holyrocd, 254, 260; Government
of, 4th Earl's disapproval of, 248 ;
his ignorance of the state of affairs
in July, 1830, 256, 258; Ordi-
nances of, effects of, 247, 257, 258,
260, 262
INDEX
303
Chasserond, General, and his forces at
Maestricht (1830), 292
Chatillon, see Conference of
Chemnitz, Allied Sovereigns at, 113,
120; cannonade near (1813), 121
Clam-Collorado, Corps of, 112
Clanwilliam, 3rd Earl of, 201
Coalitions, 4th Earl on, 47, 151
Cockburn, Admiral Sir George, 258&ft.
Code Napoleon, the, 21
Colincourt, sec Caulaincoart
Collorado, , 94, 109
Comotan, Allied H.Q. at (1813), 104
sqq., 108, 111
Comotan-Marienburg-Zwickau-Geraline,
Allied advance by (1813), 108
Conde, statue of, 20
Confederation of the Rhine, 110 ; alter-
native to, 4th Earl on, 111;
renounced by Bavaria, 119 ; dis-
solution of, 130, 136
Conference of Chatillon (1814), prelimi-
nary difficulties 'smoothed by 4th
Earl, 185-6
Conference on the Netherlands, question
of venue for (Oct. 1830), 286-7,
289, held in London, 291, 292
sqq., and the ejections of the
King of the Netherlands, ib.
Congress of Vienna (1814), 196; 4th
Earl's refusal to attend, 195 ; and
Turkish independence, 229
Constantine, Grand Duke, 103
Constantinople, 62, 217, 221, 222, 225;
4th Earl's visit to, 23 ; Russian
approach to (1829), 4th Earl on,
233 sqq. , resolute attitude at
(1829), 234; British Ambassador
at, see Gordon, Sir Robert
Consumption, treatment of, early nine-
teenth century, 193-4
Corfu, 23
Cornwallis, Marquess of, 15, 18
Cossacks, 80, 100 ; enormities of, in
Saxony (181&), 120, 122
Courtesy and Care essential in Diplo-
macy, 4th Earl on, 178-9
Cowley, Lord, Ambassador at Vienna
(1828), 248, 252; 4th Earl's des-
patch to, on proposed Peace
between Russia and Turkey (1828),
227 sqq. ; despatches from (Aug.
1829), on Russian success and
terms offered to the Turks, 234-5,
on Austrian opinion on the
French Algiers Expedition (1830),
252-3
Crimean War, 65 ; British sympathy
during, for Turkey, 217
Crosseu, an upset near, 78
Crown Prince, sec Bernadotte
Cuxhaven, 166
DALKYMPLE, Sir John, 9
Dalrymple of Stair, Sir James, 6
Dante, early edition of, owned by 4th
Earl, 14
d'Arblay, Madame (Fanny Burney), 171
Dardanelles, the, Russian blockade of
(1828-9), 217, comments on, of
Nicholas I., 220-1 ; British action
in regard to, 217, 236, 238; free
passage of, Russian demand for
(1829), 234
Darmstadt, 180
De Bilke, Baron, Swedish Minister, 121
Degrees granted to noblemen without
examination (circa 1805), 33
de Grey, Lord, 12
de la Rochefoucauld, Comte, on youth
doing all, in 1830, 294-5
Delessert, Odier, 257
Denmark, 156; submission of (1814),
136
De Officiis of Cicero, early edition owned
by 4th Earl, 14
Dermbach, the "road " to, 127
Dessau Marienbad, Allied forces strung
out between (1813), 111
Devonshire, 6th Duke and Duchess of,
152
Devonshire House, a dinner at, 49
Diebitsch, General, 226, 233
Diplomatic Secrecy, difficulty in main-
taining, 104-5
Directory, the, fall of, 19
Divided Command, evils of, 83 sqq.
Docteroff, General, 108, 109
Doncaster Races, 202
Douglas, Lord, 62, 64
Dresden, Allied attack on (1813), failure
of, 80, 85, 86 ; Murat at, 86, 91-
2 ; French forces in, 108 ; Napo-
leon's departure from, 112-13 ;
capitulation of, 158-9
Dresden Teplitz Road Peterswalde,
French troops along (1813), 108,
1 09 ; Benningsen's advance along,
112
Drummond, , British Ambassador to
the Porte, 23
Drummond, , British Ambassador in
Sicily, 64-5
Dudley and Ward, 4th Viscount, at the
Foreign Office, 215
Dugald, , 171
Dumont, , 170-1
Dundas, Henry, see Melville, Viscount
Dundas, Lady Jane, see Melville, Vis-
countess
Dundas, R., 50, 51
Duudas, Robert, later, 2nd Viscount
Melville, 63
Dundas, William, Lord Clerk Register,
49^71., 50
304
INDEX
Duroc, death of, and Napoleon I., 114
D*quesue, the Great, statue of, 21
Dutchappeals for military succour (1830),
288, 289, Wellington's reply,
289-91 ; objections to London as
venue for the Conference of Oct.
1830, 289, towns suggested as
venue for Conference of Pleni-
potentiaries (1830), 287
EDGEWORTH, Maria, 171
Edinburgh, beauty of, 206
Execution at, of Sir John Gordon, 4,
7; George IV. 's reception at
(1822), 4th Earl's accounts of,
205 sqq.
Edinburgh Review, Macintosh's articles
in, 171
Eger, the, 115
Elbe, Line of the, held by Napoleon
(1813), 93, 101 ; Allied aims on,
109
Eldon, Earl of, 62
Ellenborough, Lord, 50 ; and Greek
independence, 240
Ellis, C., 50
English literature, 4th Earl on, 183
Public opinion, Metternich's sensitive-
ness to, 155
Entail, Scottish system of, 4th Earl on
his Bill concerning (1825), 213-14
Ephesus, 23
Erfurth, Allied advance on (1813), 108 ;
French troops directed on, 109
Erskine, ,61
Robert, 61
Erzerourn, Russian capture of (1829), 235
Etruria, King of, 16
Europe, instability in (1828-30), 216;
Nicholas I. on, 222
Peace of, Treaties securing, broken by
Russian declaration of war on
Turkey, 218
FALCK, Baron A. R., Dutch Minister
for Foreign Affairs (1830), 266;
Note from, demanding assistance,
283 &n. ; on the venue for the
Conference, 287 ; 4th Earl's letter
to, on British observance of Treaty
obligations, and on French share
in the Conference, 288-9
Farquhar, Sir Walter, 39
Fife, 4th Earl of, 209
Fitzpatrick, , 48
Fitzwilliam, 2nd Earl of, 48
Flanders, leaders from, of the Bt l<.'ian
revolution (1830), methods of,
268-9 ; the two, revolt of, see
Belgium, revolution
Flaxman, John, 51, 52
Fletcher, William, 9
Forbes, William, of Tolquhen, 3
Foreign Policy in 1806, 59
Formartine, 4th Earl's tower at, 204
Fort Lillo on the Scheldt, 293
Forth Ferry, crossing of, 203
Fox, Charles James, 44, 47, 48, 50, 52
Fox, Mrs. G., 202
France, State of, in 1802, 4th Earl's
Notes on, 15 sqq., ; Royalism in,
15, 16 ; Military Character of the
Government, 20-1 ; and Russia in
1806, 59 ; Boundaries of, to be
secured by Peace (1813), 71;
Powerof, reduction of Alliedefforts
towards (1813) 71-2, 73, 83 sqq.,
passim ; Glory and Patriotism of,
the obstacle to Peace in 1813, 105,
136 ; Frontiers of, natural, 4th
Earl's views on, 136, 139, 140,
those unfortified, 142 ; Limits of,
compatible with Secure Peace,
in 4th Earl's view (1814), 136 ;
Route of Schwartzenberg's pro-
posed invasion of (1813-14), 142 ;
Plunder of, restoration of, Ward
on, 169-70, 4th Earl's view, 189 ;
Bourbon partisans in, 4th Earl on
(1814), 179 ; after the Restora-
tion, 4th Earl on, 187 sqq. ; antici-
pated attitude of, to Russo-
Turkish War, (1828), 218 ; atti-
tude of, to Russian blockade of the
Dardanelles (1828), 224 ; after
the July revolution, applicability
to of existing Treaties, 261 sqq. ;
attitude of, to Brussels provisional
Government (1830), 281 ; Second
Chamber of, hereditary principle
threatened, 257, 262 ; and the
tricolour, 257, 262 ; suspected of
furthering the Belgian revolution
(1830), 266, 267, 272, 284, 285,
292; offer to. of the Belgian
provinces in 1830, declined by,
269
Francis I., Emperor of Austria, 80, 81,
82, 83, 95, 103 ; 4th Earl received
by (1813), 82; declaration of, on
joining the Allies, 82 ; attitude
of, to the person of Napoleon, 98 ;
4th Earl's estimate of, 100, 117,
153, 182, 187 ; letter from, to
King of Bavaria on the desired
Alliance, 101 ; moves of (Sept.-
Oct., 1813), 103, 115, 120, 121,
123, 124, 125 ; on the surrender
of Zarnose, 107 ; appreciation by,
of 4th Earl, 111, 116, 149, 152-3,
166, 167, 172, 184, and on
Napoleon, 113-14; popularity of,
in his home dominions, 117, and
in the Venetian provinces, 195 ;
INDEX
305
Francis I. contd.
Austrian troops placed by, under
Wrede, 118; Schwartzenberg
decorated by, on the field of
Lcipsic, 124; acclaimedatLeipsic,
125 ; reception of, at Fulda, 129 ;
entry of, into Frankfort, 131, 132,
133 ; and Sir R. Wilson, 145 ; at
Frankfort (1813), 150, 151 ; and
the capitulation of Dresden, 158-
-9 ; Orders bestowed by, on 4th
Earl, and on Wellington, 167 ;
attitude of, respectively to return
of the Bourbons and to Bern.i-
dotte's elevation as Emperor of
France, 177 ; and the Order of
the Garter, 195 ; Metternich's
boasts concerning (1828), 231 ;
on the Treaty of Adriauople, 237 ;
and Charles X. in exile, 259
Frankfort, 4th Earl's journey to
(1813), 77-8 ; Allied Entries
(1813), 130, 131, 132; H.Q. of
Allied Sovereigns (1813), 135,
150; notables at, 150; negotia-
tions at, on bases of Peace negotia-
tions, 137 sqq.
Frankfort to Chatillon (1814), 135-90
Frederick the Great, 225
Frederick William III., King of Prussia,
81, 103, 115, 176-7; 4th Earl's
estimate of, 100 ; at Teplitz, 103 ;
appreciation by, of 4th Earl, 149 ;
and Wilson, 'l46 ; at Frankfort
(1813), 150
French, the, in Tyrol and Noithprn Italy,
4th Earl's instructions concerning
(1813), 72 ; efforts against, 106,
and the same (1814), 144, 115,
150-1
French Advance on Prague, and on
Teplitz (1813), 94, 96, and retreat,
97
Army of the Pyrenees, contained by
Wellington (1813), 95
Candidate for the Greek throne (1830),
241
Charter, the, alterations in (1830),
258-9, 262
Expedition against Algiers and engage-
ments with Mehemet AH of
Egypt, British action concerning
(1830), 248 sqq. ; report on, from
British Minister, 255-6 ; success
of, 253 ;
Forces in motion (Oct. 1, 1813), 109
Government (1829), co-operation of,
in Eastern European affairs in-
vited, and the response, 234-5
Influence on Belgian revolution, sus-
pected, 266, 267, 272, 284, 285, 292
Nation as distinct from French
VOL. I
French contd.
Government, Verstolk's anxieties
on (Oct. 1830), 284, 285
French Revolutions :
1789, 247, 262
1830, 216 ; results of, 246-7 ;
Algiers Expedition in relation to,
246, 253 ; 4th Earl on, 247,254-5,
262, 277-8
Frenchmen in arms in Belgium (Oct.
1830), 292
Frere, , 50
Freyberg, French troops at (1813), 108 ;
Allied Mission to (1814), 180
Fulda, horrors of the way to, 127-8 ;
reinstatement of its Prince-Bishop
demanded, 129
Fundamental Law, modification of,
appointment of Plenipotentiaries
to whom to refer this, desired by
the Hague (1830), 286-7
GARDE BOURGEOISIE, at Brussels (1830),
269, 273, 275, 277
Garde Communale, called out at Brussels
(1830), 265, 266
Garde Nationale of France, 255, 259,
262, 266
Cell, Sir William, letter from, on a
Statue of Pitt, 51 &n., 2
General Election of 1806, 55 sqq.
Genoa, 106
Gentz, Frederic von, 86 &">i., 155
George, Prince of Wales, 37, 49, 90 ; as
Prince Regent, 111 ; views of, on
Austria and the Imperial German
Crown, 89 ; approval expressed
by, of 4th Earl's part in Peace
negotiations (1813), 139, sec also
George IV.
George III., 15; on the death of Pitt,
44 ; alleged wish of, for a Regency,
58 ; attitude of, to Ministers
(1806), 60; and the Catholic
Question, 62-3
George IV., reception of, in Edinburgh
(1822), letters on, of the 4th
Earl to his wife, 205 sqq., High-
land Dress worn by, 208, 209 ; and
Nicholas I., 220, 4th Earl's com-
ment, 223 ; and the Treaty of
Adrianople, 237 ; recognition by,
of Louis-Philippe, 264; popularity
of, 279
German Dominions, British (1813), 111,
restitution of, Secret Article re,
in Russo-Prussian Treaty, 90-1
Independence, Austrian desire for, 90,
101
Influence in newly-independent Greece,
244
People, 4th Earl on, 176, 182-3
306 INDEX
w
Germany, 4th Earl's journeys in (1813-
14), 76 sqq.
Imperial Crown of, resumption of, by
Austria, Metternich on, 87-8
Two new Confederations of, proposed
by Stein (1813), 110, 111
Insurrections in (1830), 278
North, Friends of Virtue in, danger
from, 110
Ghent, 267, 276
Giaour, The (Byron), 171
Giesshubel, French driven from (1813),
112
Gight, Castle of, death of Lord Haddo
at, 1-2
Glatz, 80
Glenorchy, Viscountess, 211
Gloucester frigate, wreck of, 6
Gordon, Admiral the Hon. John, 11
Admiral the Hon. William, 11
Colonel the Hon. Charles, Black
Watch, 11 ; at sea in youth, 35
Duchess of, 48, 53
2nd Duke of, 10
4th Duke of, 206
Family, of Haddo, 3, 4, 5
John, Lord, direct ancestor of present
Earls of Aberdeen, 2
Lady, born Mary Forbes of Tolrjuhen,
3
Lady Alicia, 11, 46er?i.
Lady Alice, early death of, 66, 192,
194
Lady Caroline, early death of, 66, 192
Lady Jane, early death of, 66, 192,
194 ; letters to, of 4th Earl, 193
Lieut. -Colonel Sir Alexander, K.C.B.,
killed at Waterloo, 11, 35
Sir George, of Haddo, sec Aberdeen,
1st Earl of
Sir John, of Haddo, Royalist, raid by,
3, execution of, 4, fate of his
family, 3, 4 sqq.
Sir Robert, Ambassador to the Porte,
11, 72, 116, 152; as actor, 34;
action of, on arrival of UieRussians
atAdrianople(lS30), 236; on the
condition of Turkey (1829), 237 ;
correspondence of, with 4th Earl
ontheresultsofthe Rus.so-Turkish
War and on the independence of
Greece, 239-40, 242-3 ; 4th Earl's
letter to, on the revolutions in
France and the Netherlands,
affairs in Germany and Italy and
on the Catholic Question (1830),
277 sqq. ; warning sent via, to
Mehemet AH (1830), with effect,
248
Goulburn, , and Greek independence,
240
Gourdou, BertranJ de, 2
Gotteuburgh, 74
Grant, , 62
Great Britain, Austrian alliance with
(1813), 82, 87; balance of power
striven for by, 71-2, 238 ; German
dominions of, 111, Restoration of,
Secret Article in Russo-Prussian
Treaty on (1813), 90-1 ; objects
of, in the Continental War (1813),
88-9 ; readiness of, to treat for
Peace (1813), 89; interest of, in
independence of Turkey, bases of,
229, 233, 243; action of, con-
cerning the blockade of the
Dardanelles (1828-30), 217, 236,
238 ; engagements of, towards the
House of Braganza, 246 ; aid of,
desired by the House of Orange
in 1830, 268, 277, 283, 285,
289 sqq.
Greece, 4th Earl's travels in (1802-4),
23 ; future of, Wellington on
(1828), 227; affairs of, desired
settlement of (1828), 230, 231,
Russian Peace terms concerning
(1829), 234, 4th Earl's view on,
238-9
Independence of (1830) and extension
of, 4th Earl's proposals on, the
former secured, 241 ; the candi-
dates for the throne and the choice
of a king, 241 sqq. ; constitu-
tion for, 244 ; Treaty confirming,
Austrian attitude to, 230
Greek Insurgents in the Morea (1828),
British popular sympathy with,
216
Treaty, the, Austrian attitude to,
230
Grenville, Lord, and his Cabinet (1806),
47-8, 49, 52, 56, 57
Grey, 1st Earl, 48
2nd Earl, 144
Guelfs and Ghibellines, 175
Gurney, Hudson, letters to, from 4th
Earl. 26, on Sicilian affairs, 67-8 ;
4th Earl called "Jacobin" by,
214
Gwydyr, Lady, 207
Gwydyr, 2nd Lord, 209
HADDINGTON, Charles Hamilton, 8th
Earl of, 43 n. 2
Haddo, George, Lord, father of 4th Earl,
death of, 1-2, 10, 11
George, Lord, son of 4th Earl, letter to,
on joining the Pitt Ciub, Cam-
bridge, 214-15
Gordons of, descent of, 2
Lady, born Baird, mother of 4th Earl,
1, 10, 11 ; death of, 2
Haddo House, archives, 10 ; 4th Earl's
INDEX
307
Haddo House contd.
first visit to (1805), and impres-
sions on, 23 sqq., improvements
and tree-planting carried out by,
25 sqq., 52, 53, 54, 66, 196, 200,
203 ; impressions on, of 4th Earl's
first wife, 53-4 ; later attitude to,
of 4th Earl, 192-3, 200 ; attitude
of his second wife, 193 ; journey
to, fatigues of, 200, 4th Earl on,
201 sqq.
" Haddo's Raid," 3
Hague, the, trouble at (1830), 265-6
Hainault, 267
Hamburgh, 102
Hamilton, Lady Catharine, beauty of,
and marriage of, to 4th Earl, 37-8,
see also Aberdeen, Countess of
Lady Maria, 4th Earl's friendship
with, and letters to, on his wife's
death, 67 ; on his Embassy to the
Allies (1813), 72, 74 sqq., 96,
102-4, 115-17, 120 sqq., 127 sqq.,
151-3, 161-2, 166-7, 180 sqq.,
191 ; serious ill health of, as a
cause for 4th Earl's wish to go
home, 174-5 ; death of, as affect-
ing 4th Earl's second marriage,
191
Viscount, brother-in-law of 4th Earl,
death of, and consequences of,
190, 191
Viscountess, marriage of, to 4th Earl,
191 sqq., see also Aberdeen, Coun-
tess of, the second
Hamilton and Brandon, 10th Duke of,
at the Edinburgh reception of
George IV., 206, 209, 210, 212
Hanau, storming of (1813), Wrede
wounded at, and visited at, by
4th Earl, 128-9, 132
Hanover, 138, 201, 284 ; restoration of,
72 ; independence of, 160
Hanoverian dominions, see German
Hapsbnrg, House of, early possessions of,
175-6
Hardenberg, Prussian Chancellor, and
4th Earl, 138-9; 4th Earl's
estimate of, 160
Hardwicke, 3rd Earl of, 47
Harrow, 4th Earl educated at, 10, 12
Harrowby, Countess of, 152
Harrowby, 1st Earl of, 4th Earl's letters
to, during his Embassy to the
Allies, on life at Tcplit/, 99-100 ;
on a Treaty : the French Govern-
ment : the Due de Berri : Napo-
leon's falsity : Bernadotte ; on
affairs at Frankfort and bis retire-
ment, 172 sqq. ; on Castlereagh,
coming to H.Q. and on the
scheme for making Bernadotte
Harrowby, 1st Earl of contd.
Emperor of France ; on neutrality
of Switzerland ; on preference,
on effect of slight negligences,
176 sqq ; on 4th Earl's despatches,
169
Haughtiness, Lord Abercorn on, 71
Hawkesbury, Viscount, 43, 47, 51,57, 62
Heidelberg, 180 ; Castle of, great tun at,
181
Heligoland, 154, 166
Helsinburgh, towns seen from, 75
Helvetic and Batavian Republics, 22
Hesse-Darmstadt, Prince of, 130, 150
Hesse, Prince Philip of, 241, 244
Heytesbury, Lord, Ambassador at St.
Petersburg (1828-30), 4th Earl's
instructions to, 217, 218-19 ;
interview of, with Nicholas I.,
peaceful note in, 219 sqq. ; 4th
Earl's further instructions to,
on the Blockade of the Dar-
danelles (1828), 224 ; his des-
patch on the matter, 224-6 ;
on lack of system in Russian
Government, and Russian military
strength (1829), 232; 4th Earl's
instructions to (Aug. 1829), 233,
and private letter to, 236 ; 4th
Earl's despatch to, criticizing the
Treaty of Adrianople, 237 ; letter
to, from 4th Earl on affairs in the
Netherlands : the Conference :
Allied Unity, 287-8
High Street, Edinburgh, 210
Highland Chiefs and the reception of
George IV. in Edinburgh (1822),
205 sqq.
Hill, Lord Marcus, account given by,
of Paris, during the July revolu-
tion (1830), 256 sqq.
Hocheim, 148
Hohenzollern family, ancestral castle of,
176
Holland, 3rd Lord, 239
Holland (see also Netherlands), revolt
of (1813), 136 ; independence of
British attitude to (1813), 72,
139, 140 ; proposed Allied in
vasion of (1813), 143 ; affairs in
(Nov. 1813), 165 ; separation of,
from Belgium (1830), 277, 281 ;
Belgian revolution leading to,
165, 166, 167, 169, 216 ; problem
of, 4th Earl on, 273-4 ; Ward's
proposed trip to, with Byron,
171-2 ; fears of French invasion
of (1830), 284
Holloway, Miss, and the children's
letters, 153
Holyrood, Palace of, Charles X. in exile
at, 247, 260
308
INDEX
Hope, John, Dean of the Faculty of
Advocates, letter to, from 4th
Earl, on his Bill concerning
Entail (1825), 213-14
Howick, Viscount, 57
Humboldt, Baron von, Prussian Minister
to Vienna, 121, 123
Humboldt, Baron vou, the Traveller,
121
Hungarian force, joining Allied army,
101
Huntly, Marquess of, 53, 206
Huseiu III., Dey of Algiers (1818-30),
Huskisson, W., 215
IONIAN Islands, 241
Indemnity, demanded by Russia from
Turkey (1828-30), 222, 234
Irish Peerage, proposed assimilation to,
of the Scottish, 56
Italian Campaign, plans for, of Austria
(1813), 131, 144-5 sqq.
Poetry, 4th Earl's knowledge of, 14
Republic, 22
Italy, 4th Earl's travels in, 22-3 ;
Austrian views on (1813), 101-2 ;
affairs in (Oct. 1813), 106-7 ;
French frontier towards, 140 ;
state of, in 1830, 278
JACKSON, , English Minister at Paris
(1801), 14
Jacobi, 164
"Jacobin," epithet applied to 4th Earl,
214, 215
Jacobin or Mediation Party (1814), 177
Jacobins, the, in 1802, 16, in 1830, 278
Jena, 125
Jersey, Charles X.'s wish to go to, 256
Johnson, Dr., on trees in Scotland, 25
Johnston, , 203
Johnstone, Mrs. Hope, 211
Jomini, 4th Earl's characterization of,
100
KELLIE, House of, siege of, 4
Kemble, the actor, 36
Keogh, , 61
Kicheloff, General, 226
King's College, Old Aberdeen, 5
Kinnoul, Countess of, 207
10th Earl of, 206
Klenan, and the capitulation of Dresden,
158
Knight, Payne, 36
Kuox, Rev. F., Minister of Tarves, on
Agriculture in that village (1772),
29-30
Konigiustadt, 80
LAFAYETTE, and Louis-Philippe, 257,
259
Lafitte, Maisons, 257
Lamb, Hon. Frederick, Secretary of 4th
Earl's Embassy to the Allies
(1813), 726^71., 79&n., 116, 152
Langeron's Corps, 109
Launes, devotion of, at Aspern, 115 ;
death of, Napoleon's brutal words
on, 115
Lansdowne, 4th Marquess of, at Bowood,
170-1
La Rothiere, Battle of, 186
Lascelles, Henry (2nd Earl of Harewood),
44&?i.
Latouche, Admiral, 17
Lauderdale, Duke of, 6, 48-9 ; mission
to Paris (1806), 52, 55
Laurence, , 197
Lauriston, made prisoner, 124
Laval, Duke of, and the French Algiers
Expedition, 250
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 36 ; as actor, 34 :
portrait by, of 4th Earl's first
wife, 37
Lebzeltern, Chevalier, 142, 164
Leipsic, Allied forces near (Oct. 1813),
111 ; horrors of, after the battle,
125
Battle of (Oct. 17, 1813), 4th Earl on,
121 sqq. ; Napoleon's Peace over-
ture under fire, and the 4th Earl's
magnanimous behaviour concern-
ing, 126-7 (see also Merfeldt) ;
Allied losses, 123, 124
L'Estocq, General, 77-8
Levant, travels in of the 4th Earl, 2n ;
unrest in (1828), 218
Leveson, Lord Francis, 209
Levesons, the, 152
Liege, 267, 268
Liege, Province of, revolt of (1830), 276
Lieven, Prince, 164 ; letter to, on the
Turkish indemnity and security
of future Treaties, 223 ; confidence
desired by (1829), 233
Princess de, 233
Liverpool, 2nd Earl of, 177
Lombardy, 106 ; Austrian forces in
(1830), 278
London, Treaty of General Alliance to he
signed in, by desire of Alexander
I., 163, but this objected to by
Castlereagh, 164
as venue for Conference on the
Netherlands, 286, French and
Dutch objections, 289, finally
decided upon, 291, 292
Louis XVI., 15
Louis XVIII., 189 ; and his Marshals,
187, 188 ; and Talleyrand, 279
Louis Philippe (Duke of Orleans), King
of the French, 288, 289 ; on the
Treaty of Adrianople, 237 ; acces-
INDEX
309
Louis Philippe contd.
sion of, 247, 257, effects of, on
Allied policy, 4th Earl on, 260
sqq. ; recognition of, tardy, 263,
286, by England, 4th Earl on,
264, 277-8 ; and French neutrality
towards the Netherlands (Oct.
1830), 280-1
Louvain, 267
Louvre, the, treasures of, 189
Lowenburgh, Battle of, 86
Lutterel, , 197
Lutzen, Battle of, 122, 179
Luxembourg, Marshall de, 21
Luxemburg, Grand Duchy of, exclusion
of, from Belgium (1830), 294
MxcGREGOR, The, and his clansmen,
in Edinburgh (1822), 207
Mackay, , 9
Mackenzie, Sir George, 6
Mackintosh, Sir James, 170, and his
writings, 171
Macleod, Miss, beauty of, 207
Mahiuoud II., Sultan of Turkey, and
the war with Russia (1828-30),
222-3, 228-9, 229-30, 234 ; Sir
K. Gordon's fears for (1830), 243
Malcolm, Admiral Sir P., 236
Malines, 285
Malta, 23
Mannheim, suggested as place for Peace
Congress (1813), 138, 162, 163
Maria da Gloria, Queen of Portugal,
British aid sought to establish
(1830), 4th Earl on, 245-6
Marie-Louise, Empress, 98, 114, 177 ;
on the difficulty of making Peace
(1813), 105
Marienberg, 115, 117, 130
Marmora, Sea of, 236
Mary, Queen of Scots, at Holyrood,
260
Mataniello, performance of, at Brussels,
265
Matchin, fortress of, fall of, 221
Mayence, tete du pont at, objective of
Wrede (1813), 118
Mecklenburg, Prince Charles of, 241
Mehemet Ali, Pacha of Egypt, contem-
plated French alliance with
(1830), 248
Meissen, French troops at (1813), 108
Melbourne, 1st Viscount, as actor, 34
Melville, 1st Viscount (Henry Dundas),
friendship of, with 4th Earl, 11
sqq., 45, 64, 65, 201, 205, 208,
212 ; correspondence of, with
4th Earl, on his going to Cam-
bridge, 12-13 ; on 4th Earl's
theatricals, 34-5 ; on Lady Aber-
deen, 38-9 ; on Pitt's illness, 39,
Melville, 1st Viscount contd.
and death, 40, 42 ; on General
Election of 1806 : Election of
Scottish Peers, 55-6, 57 sqq. ;
Impeachment and Trial of,39