Well might Lord Palmerston complain of such behaviour as embarrassing.  It was crippling.  It furnished the Opposition with unanswerable arguments.  “Here,” they could say, “is the second man in your Cabinet, in his own estimation the first, knowing all that you know, and he says ’that an inquiry by the House is essential.  How then can you deny or dispute it?’” In a foot-note he adds, “Lord John offered to withdraw his resignation if the Duke of Newcastle would retire [from the War Office] in favour of Palmerston.  It had been settled before Christmas between Lord Aberdeen and the Duke that this change should be made.  But no one else was aware of the arrangement, and Lord Aberdeen, though he had assented to it, declined to carry it out as the result of a bargain with Lord John.”

Now both these versions leave out an important fact in the private history of the Aberdeen Cabinet.  Lord John had on two occasions at least, subsequent to giving way upon the question of the Reform Bill, tried to resign.  Only the entreaties of the Queen and his colleagues had induced him to remain in the Ministry; and then, it was understood, only until some striking success of arms should make his resignation of less consequence to them.  But Sevastopol did not fall, and Lord John hung on, urging in the meantime, emphatically and repeatedly, that the efficiency of the war administration must be increased, that the control must be transferred from the hands of the two Secretaries of War to the most vigorous Minister, Palmerston.  At the Cabinet meeting of December 6th, Lord John desisted from pressing this particular change, owing to Palmerston having written to him that he thought there were “no broad and distinct grounds” for removing the Duke of Newcastle, and confined himself, after criticizing the general conduct of the war, to announcing his intention of resigning in any case after Christmas.  When it was objected that such an announcement was inconsistent with his remaining leader of the House of Commons till then, he offered to resign at once.  He would have gladly done so had they not implored him to remain.  On December 30th he drew up a memorandum of his criticisms upon the conduct of the war; and on January 3rd he wrote to Lord Aberdeen:  “Nothing can be less satisfactory than the result of the recent Cabinets.  Unless you will direct measures for yourself, I see no hope for the efficient prosecution of the war...."[44]

[44] For a full account of these incidents the reader must be referred to Sir Spencer Walpole’s “Life of Lord John Russell,” chap. xxv.