of people. Richmond decorated with flags.

CHAPTER X

1859-66

Since only political events in which Lady John was herself deeply
interested or those which affected her life through her husband's career
are here to the purpose, the other international difficulties with which
Lord John had to deal as Secretary for Foreign Affairs in this Government
may be quickly passed over. And for the same reason the domestic politics
of these years require only the briefest notice. Palmerston's Ministry
produced very little social legislation, and the fact that Lord John was at
the Foreign Office, while the Prime Minister led the Commons, increased the
legislative inactivity of a Government which, with Palmerston at its head,
would in any case have changed little in the country. Gladstone's budgets
and Cobden's Free-Trade Treaty with France were the important events.
Between 1860 and 1864 the taxation of the country was reduced by twelve
millions, the National Debt by eleven millions, and the nation's income
increased by twenty-seven millions, while foreign trade had risen in two
years by seventy-seven millions. These were the most splendid results a
Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever been able to show; but the changes by
which it had been achieved had been far from welcome to Palmerston himself.
It had required great resolution on Gladstone's part to carry the Prime
Minister with him.

Many comments have been made on the indifference which the country showed
to domestic reform during these years of Liberal Government; but it is not
very surprising. It is a familiar fact that when foreign affairs are
exciting the people are not eager about social or political reform, a fact
upon which Governments have always been able to count. And foreign affairs
had been very exciting. Under Lord John and Palmerston our own foreign
policy had been bold and peremptory; the policy of France was directed by
Napoleon, whose head, as Palmerston said, was as full of schemes as a
rabbit-warren is of rabbits; and the quarrel of 1852 between Prussia and
Denmark had arisen again in a far acuter form. It was, therefore, natural
that popular attention should be constantly turned abroad.

The deaths of those who linked Lady John with her childhood now came
quickly. Her father, Lord Minto, died a month after Lord John had taken
office. He had been ailing for some time.

LONDON.--PEMBROKE LODGE, _May_ 2, 1859

John at 7 a.m. to Huntingdon to p