In 1833 and 1834 the youthful queens Donna Maria of Portugal and Isabella of Spain were the representatives and the hope of the constitutional party in those countries—assailed and hard pressed by their absolutist kinsmen Don Miguel and Don Carlos. Palmerston conceived and executed the plan of a quadruple alliance of the constitutional states of the West to serve as a counterpoise to the northern alliance. A treaty for the pacifica tion of the Peninsula was signed in London on April 22, and, although the struggle was somewhat prolonged in Spain, it accomplished its object. But Louis Philippe was accused of secretly favouring the Carlists, and he positively refused to be a party to direct interference in Spain. The hesitation of the French court on this question was probably one of the causes of the extreme personal hostility Palmerston showed towards the king of the French down to the end of his life. Nevertheless, at this same time (June 1834) Palmerston wrote that "Paris is the pivot of my foreign policy." Thiers was at that time in office. Unfortunately differences with France increased in each succeed ing year ; and a constant but sterile rivalry was kept up, which ended in results humiliating and injurious to both nations.
In Near Eastern politics Palmerston had been from the begin ning a strenuous supporter of the claims of the Hellenes against the Turks and the execution of the Treaty of London. But from 183o the defence of the Ottoman Empire became one of the cardinal objects of his policy. He believed in the regenera tion of Turkey. His two principal aims were to prevent the establishment of Russia on the Bosporus and of France on the Nile, and he regarded the maintenance of the authority of the Porte as the chief barrier against both these aggressions. Towards Russia he was suspicious and hostile. He was a party to the publication of the "Portfolio" in 1834, and to the mis sion of the "Vixen" to force the blockade of Circassia about the same time. He regarded the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi which Russia extorted from the Porte in 1832, when she came to the relief of the sultan after the battle of Konieh, with great jealousy; and, when the power of Mehemet Ali in Egypt appeared to threaten the existence of the Ottoman dynasty, he effected a combination of all the powers, who signed the collective note of July 27, 1839, pledging them to maintain the in dependence and integrity of the Turkish Empire. On three former occasions, in 1833, 1835 and 1839, the Turkish policy of Palm erston had been overruled by the cabinet. But in 1840 Lord
Palmerston prevailed. France, though her ambassador had signed the collective note in the previous year, declined to be a party to measures of coercion against Mehemet Ali. Palmerston, irri tated at her Egyptian policy, flung himself into the arms of the northern powers, and the treaty of July 15, 1840 between England, Russia, Austria and Prussia, engaging to assist the sultan against Mehemet Ali, was signed in London without the knowledge or concurrence of France. This measure was not taken without strong opposition on the part of several members of the British cabinet. By now Palmerston was regarded as one of the most powerful statesmen of the age. At the same time, though acting with Russia in the Levant, the British government engaged in the affairs of Afghanistan to defeat her intrigues in Central Asia, and a contest with China was terminated by the conquest of Chusan, afterwards exchanged for the island of Hong-Kong. After the fall (1841) of the Melbourne administration Palm erston remained for five years out of office. The crisis was past, but the change which took place by the substitution of Guizot for Thiers in France, and of Aberdeen for Palmerston in England, was a fortunate event for the peace of the world. Palmerston distrusted France and believed that war between the two countries was sooner or later inevitable. Aberdeen and Guizot, by mutual confidence and friendly offices, entirely succeeded in restoring cordial understanding between the two governments, and the irri tation which Palmerston had inflamed gradually subsided. During the Peel administration Palmerston led a retired life, but he attacked with characteristic bitterness the Ashburton treaty with the United States, which closed successfully other questions he had long kept open. Palmerston approached questions of foreign policy with an amount of passion, of personal animosity, and im perious language which rendered him in the eyes of the queen and of his colleagues a dangerous minister. Lord John Russell's failure to form a ministry (Dec. 1845) was due to Grey's refusal to join a government in which Palmerston had the direction of foreign affairs. A few months later this difficulty was sur mounted; the Whigs returned to power, and Palmerston to the foreign office (July 1846), with a strong assurance that Lord John Russell should exercise a strict control over his proceedings. A few days sufficed to show how vain was this expectation. The French government regarded Palmerston's appointment as a sign of renewed hostility, and a despatch in which Palmerston had put forward the name of a Coburg prince as husband for the young queen of Spain, served as an excuse for a breach of the engagements entered into between Guizot and Aberdeen. The efforts of the British minister to defeat the French marriages of the Spanish princesses, by an appeal to the treaty of Utrecht and the other powers of Europe, were wholly unsuccessful; France won the game, though with no small loss of honourable reputation.