Napoleon
at a reply we had then recently given to a proposal of his for an
European conference or congress.(90) We all thought that his plan
was wholly needless and would in all likelihood lead to mischief.
So we declined it in perfect good faith and without implying by
our refusal any difference of policy in the particular matter.

Throughout the session of 1864 the attention of the country was fixed upon
this question whether England should or should not take part in the war
between Germany and Denmark. The week before the time arrived for the
minister to announce the decision of the cabinet, it became clear that
public opinion in the great English centres would run decisively for
non-intervention. Some of the steadiest supporters of government in
parliament boldly told the party whips that if war against Germany were
proposed, they would vote against it. The cabinet met. Palmerston and Lord
Russell were for war, even though it would be war single-handed. Little
support came to them. The Queen was strongly against them. They bemoaned
to one another the timidity of their colleagues, and half-mournfully
contrasted the convenient ciphers that filled the cabinets of Pitt and
Peel, with the number of able men with independent opinions in their own
administration. The prime minister, as I have heard from one who was
present, held his head down while the talk proceeded, and then at last
looking up said in a neutral voice, "I think the cabinet is against war."
Here is Mr. Gladstone's record:--

_May 7, '64._--Cabinet. The war "party" as it might be called--Lord
Palmerston, Lord Russell, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and the
chancellor (Lord Westbury). All went well. _June 11._--Cabinet.
Very stiff on the Danish question, but went well. _June
24._--Cabinet. A grave issue well discussed. _June 25._--Cabinet. We
divided, and came to a tolerable, not the best, conclusion.

It seems almost incredible that a cabinet of rational men could have
debated for ten minutes the question of going to war with Prussia and
Austria, when they knew that twenty thousand men were the largest force
that we could have put into the field when war began, though moderate
additions might have been made as time went on--not, however, without
hazardous denudation of India, where the memories of the mutiny were still
fresh. The Emperor of the French in fact had good reason for fearing that
he would be left in