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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2009

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Introduction
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Camden Fourth Series , Volume 23: The Letters of the Third Viscount Palmerston to Laurence and Elizabeth Sulivan 1804–1863 , July 1979 , pp. 1 - 27
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Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1979

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References

1 Another sister, Mary, born 15 Jan. 1789, did not survive infancy, succumbing to the after effects of inoculation against smallpox on 17 May 1791. The second Viscount's first wife had died on 1 June 1769, a few days after giving birth to a stillborn child. (Connell, pp. 94, 165, 195, 206 and 213.) It is extraordinary that, over fifty years later, Debrett should have been permitted to go on recording Elizabeth as this child, ‘born 16 May 1769’.

2 B.P., G.C./TE nos. 137–372. There are also a few detached items in B.P.W.

3 Many of the more interesting passages in those letters have been omitted from The Letters of Lady Palmerton, edited by T. Lever, 1957, and from In Whig Society 1775–1818, 1921Google Scholar, and Lady Palmerston and Her Times, 1922Google Scholar, edited by Mabell, Countess of Airlie. The dates in both cases are also unreliable. The originals in B.P.W. are now freely accessible; others, in the Lamb Papers in the British Library (Add. MSS. 45546–56 and 45911), will remain closed until 1980.

4 Sir George Leveson Gower and I. Palmer, eds., Hary-O. The Letters of Lady Harriet Cavendish, 1796–1809, 1940, p. 307.Google Scholar

5 Ashley, i. 10, n. 1.

6 Bulwer & Ashley, i. 367–83; cf. B.P./D no. 26.

7 B.P./D nos. 3–24.

8 B.P.W. nos. 1989 and 1988. There are also a notebook of memoranda concerning his visit to Ireland in 1826 (B.P./D no. 25) and two very dull journals of a journey from London to Edinburgh in the autumn of 1800 and a tour of the Highlands in the early summer of 1803 (B.P.W. nos. 1943 and 1945).

9 Fraser's Magazine, lxxvii, 11 1865.Google Scholar

10 Undated correspondence, c. 1870, between Henry Bulwer, Abraham Hayward and Palmerston's heir, William Cowper-Temple, B.P.W.

11 ‘Journal of Tour in France Italy & Swizzerland in 1816’, B.P.W.

12 ‘Journal Historical and Political Commenced June 1806’, B.P./D no. 1; ‘Journal from Mar. 1828’, B.P./D no. 2.

13 Bulwer & Ashley, i. 24 note.

14 Undated correspondence, c. 1870, B.P.W.

15 Bulwer & Ashley, i. p. x.

16 Palmerston to 12th Earl of Westmorland, 18 Oct. 1859, Westmorland Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University.

17 Henry Temple to the 2nd Viscount Palmerston, 13 June 1800, B.P.W.

18 Bulwer's informant may possibly have been correct in identifying one of Palmerston's fags at Harrow as a son of Earl Poulett (Bulwer & Ashley, i. p. x); but it was certainly Lord Bolton's son in Edinburgh. Curiously neither Orde-Powlett nor Hare is mentioned by Sydney Smith's biographers though the facts are clearly stated in Henry Temple's letters to his father of 22 Mar. and 6 Nov. 1801, B.P.W. See also Smith Letters, i. 67, n. 2.Google Scholar

19 At a ‘hoppin’ to celebrate the birthday of his first daughter, Sydney Smith revealed to Palmerston why, in the search to give her a less commonplace name than Mary or Sarah, he had called her ‘Saba’ from a reference in Psalm 72: it brought to mind, Smith said, ‘Arabian valleys, and cinnamon groves, and palm trees’. (Palmerston to Frances Temple, 2 Feb. 1803, B.P.W.; cf. Smith Letters, i. 61.)Google Scholar

20 Palmerston to his mother, 26 Oct. 1803, B.P.W. He also mentioned Lord Altamont (1788–1845: succeeded Palmerston's neighbour in Ireland as 2nd Marquess of Sligo in 1809). But Altamont was a student of Jesus and unless he made an unrecorded migration must merely have been visiting St John's when Palmerston arrived.

21 A Portion of the Journal Kept by Thomas Raikes, Esq. from 1831 to 1847, 1856–1857, ii. 115Google Scholar (but Raikes confuses the family relationships).

22 Palmerston to Elizabeth Temple, 11 Feb. 1804, B.P.W.

23 Blackburn to Palmerston, 13 Mar. 1806, B.P.W.; Reminiscences of Henry Angela, 1830, ii. 162.

24 Palmerston to Frances Temple, 10 Nov. 1804, B.P.W.

25 MacDonagh, M., The Viceroy's Post-Bag. Correspondence Hitherto Unpublished of the Earl of Hardwifke First Lord Lieutenant of Ireland after the Union, 1904, pp. 49 and 203–6.Google Scholar

26 C. K. Sharpe to his sister, 11 Feb. 1803, Allardyce, A., ed., Letters from, and to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., 1838, i. 158Google Scholar (Sir George Shee the elder is confused with his son in the footnote).

27 The correspondence of George Shee, jnr, with his father makes it clear there were frequent disagreements about money. In a letter of 6 Feb. 1803 he explained: ‘My acquaintance is not very extensive I admit, but then my intimacies are comparatively numerous, & of them a great majority are remarkable either for rank or abilities’. His ‘nominal’ income was, at £300 per annum, at least £50, and in two cases as much as £100, less than his colleagues'. He also insisted that while their expenses might be £100 more than those of pensioners, fellow-commoners did not study any less hard. Their expensively bought privileges, on the other hand, he had complained in another letter of 25 Mar. 1802, were sometimes under attack. One privilege had been that of not being obliged to attend college chapel more than four times a week. But two or three years earlier the number had been increased to five at a poorly attended meeting of the fellows and more recently ‘a newly appointed Dean [Daniel Bayley], a man most notorious and disliked in the College (even among the Fellows) from officiousness & desire of innovations’ had obtained an increase to seven for fellow-commoners and four for noblemen. Since there was no change for pensioners this meant a comparative, as well as an absolute reduction in the privileges of others and the noblemen had successfully resisted the change. The best the fellow-commoners could secure, however, was a short postponement and afterwards an unofficial understanding that absences would be excused more frequently than in the past. (Shee Papers; cf. Francis, G. H., ed., Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, 1852, p. 264.)Google Scholar

28 Sutherland, L. S., The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, Oxford, 1952Google Scholar, passim, and especially pp. 50, 58–63, 192, 284 and 349; Namier, & Brooke, , iii. 508–11Google Scholar; Alumni Cantab.; Lady Minto to Minto, 30 Mar. 1812, Minto Papers IE/41; Laurence Sulivan, jnr, to Sir Henry Fitzherbert, 10 May 1844, Fitzherbert Papers; Dugald Stewart to [Stephen Sulivan], 9 Dec. 1799, S.P.; Ashburton to Palmerston, 10 Nov.1803, B.P.W.

29 Palmerston, to Temple, Elizabeth, 11 02 1804, B.P.W.Google Scholar

30 Palmerston to his mother, 15 Nov. 1803, B.P.W.

31 Connell, , pp. 258–9.Google Scholar

32 The diary of J. C. Hobhouse, 26 Jan. 1832, Broughton Papers, Add. MS. 56556; Stratford Canning, i. 25 and 27–8.Google Scholar

37 Pryme, p. 117.Google Scholar

34 Dominick Browne (afterwards 1st Baron Oranmore and Browne: 1787–1860) in a letter to Palmerston on 16 May 1855 (B.P., G.C./OR no. 1) recalled his student days in such a manner as strongly to suggest that he was not only a member of Palmerston's ‘set’ but probably also of the Fusty. However he was not admitted a fellow-commoner at St John's until July 1806 and he talks distinctly in his letter of being an undergraduate there when Palmerston was a graduate. He was really a contemporary of William Temple whom he recollects as a member along with Palmerston, the 1st Earl of Ellenborough and Michael Bruce.

35 Palmerston to his mother, 1 Nov. 1804, B.P.W.

36 For the ‘Alfred Set’, see Goderich, pp. 30–3. But the identification of the Marquess Wellesley as a member is surely an error. The Marquess belonged to the wrong House of Parliament and the wrong generation. Goulburn's unpublished autobiography (Goulburn Papers, Surrey County Record Office, Kingston-upon-Thames) seems rather to say ‘Mr Wellesley’. The Marquess's eldest, illegitimate son, Richard Wellesley (c. 1787–1831) was returned M.P. for Queenborough on 1 June 1810. Sir George Shee, 1st Bart, was ‘co-manager’ of the Alfred (Lord Hertford to Shee, May 1811, Shee Papers).Google Scholar

37 Sulivan to Palmerston, 20 Feb. 1805, S.P. William Douglas, the son of James Douglas of Orchardton, Kirkcudbrightshire, was admitted to the Edinburgh Speculative on 28 Feb. 1804 and to Trinity on 12 Oct. 1804. But it is doubted that he ever resided at Cambridge. He was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 20 June 1806 and later became a member of the Scottish Faculty of Advocates. (Alumni Cantab.; History of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh from its Institution in MDCCLXIV, Edinburgh, 1845, p. 235.)Google Scholar

38 Palmerston, to Malmesbury, , 19 11 1805Google Scholar, Malmesbury Papers.

39 Palmerston to Frances Temple, 7 Nov. 1805, B.P.W.

40 B.P.W.

41 Stratford Canning, i. 28Google Scholar. The other members mentioned are Pollock and Charles James Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of London.

42 Hobhouse's Diary, 29 May 1847, Broughton Papers, Add. MS. 43750.

43 ‘Edinburgh 1800. H. Temple. Essays on various Subjects Historical & Political written between the years 1800 & 1806 at Edinr & Cambridge & read in debating Societies’, B.P.W. The titles and dates, amplified where possible from Palmerston's family correspondence, are:

In Edinburgh:

A Vindication of Mary Queen of Scotland, [19] Dec. 1800

On the Comparative Advantages and Happiness of a Savage and Civilized Life, Jan. 1801

On Public and Private Education, Jan. 1801

On Cowry's Conspiracy, 14 Mar. 1801

On the Advantages derived from the invention of Printing, Mar. 1801

In Cambridge:

On the Probability of Europe Relapsing into Barbarism, [22] Feb. 1804

On the Policy of opening the East Indian Trade, [31] Oct. 1804

On the Policy of Transferring the Portugueze Government to the Brazils, [1 or 8] May 1805

On the Political Character of Cardinal Fleury, Oct. 1805

On the Disadvantages Resulting to Great Britain from the loss of her North American Colonies, Mar. 1806

44 Blackburn, to Palmerston, , 13 03 1806, B.P.W.Google Scholar

45 According to Teignmouth, i. 47, one of the others also had a nickname, ‘the Anticarnalist’, because one member had been expelled for ‘a flagrant act of immorality’.

46 Hare, A. J. C., Memorials of a Quiet Life. 1870, i. 148–9 and 168–71Google Scholar; Palmerston to his mother, 16, 23 and 28 Nov. 1804, B.P.W.

47 Wright, i. 203–4, claims to have denounced the Union to Wood.

48 Bulwer, & Ashley, , i. 367–8.Google Scholar

49 Bulwer, & Ashley, , i. 367–70Google Scholar; Malmesbury Papers.

60 1 Hansard, xxiii. 707Google Scholar (22 June 1812), and xxiv. 971–6 (1 Mar. 1813).

51 Bulwer, & Ashley, , i. 171.Google Scholar

52 Holland, Lady to Grey, , 10 01 1817Google Scholar, Grey Papers.

53 Mrs Sulivan to William Temple, 16 June 1826, B.P.W.

54 ‘Minute of a Conversation between Lord Palmerston on the part of Lord Clive, & the Hon. H. G. Bennet on the part of Mr Charlton at Lord P.'s house in Stanhope Street on Sunday, 29 June 1823’ and draft of Clive to Charlton, 3 May 1829, B.P.W. The bitter rivalry, however, persisted: see Duncombe, T. H., The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, 1868, i. 368–70.Google Scholar

55 The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1891, ii. 181Google Scholar; Arbuthnot Journal, ii. 389Google Scholar; Longford, E., Wellington. Pillar of State, 1972, p. 223Google Scholar (though she confuses Clive with his father).

56 Palmerston to W. Temple, 4 and 21 Aug. 1818, B.P., G.C./TE nos. 160 and 161; Mrs Sulivan to W. Temple, 16 June 1826, B.P.W. See also Bruce, I., The Nun of Lebanon. The Love Affair of Lady Hester Stanhope and Michael Bruce, 1951Google Scholar, and Lavallette Bruce, His Adventures and Intrigues Before and After Waterloo, 1953.Google Scholar

57 Palmerston's diary, 16 Aug., 13–25 Sept. 1819, B.P./D no. 4.

58 Barnwell, P. J., Visits and Despatches (Mauritius, 1598–1948)Google Scholar, Port Louis, 1948, pp. 241–3; Greville Memoirs, iii. 75 (26 08 1834)Google Scholar; John Reddie to Brougham, 21 Feb. 1834, 28 April 1835 and 21 Jan. and 5 and 16 Mar. 1836, Melbourne to Brougham, 6 and 23 Jan. 1836, and Sefton to Brougham, 2 and 11 Sept. and 6 Nov. 1836, Brougham Papers; J. Jeremie, Recent Events at Mauritius, 1835.

59 Shee to his father, 15 Feb. 1803, Shee Papers.

60 Viscountess Enfield, ed., Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville, [1st series], 1883, p. 23.Google Scholar

61 Parkes, J. and Merivale, H., Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis, 1867, ii. 137–50Google Scholar, and Spencer, A., ed., Memoirs of William Hickey, n.d., ii. 159.Google Scholar

62 Palmerston to William Temple, 15 Nov. 1845, B.P., G.C./TE no. 310.

63 Hobhouse's diary, 4 Jan. 1833, Broughton Papers, Add. MS. 56557.

64 There is in Add. MSS. 59782–3 a small exercise book endorsed ‘Account by Laurence Sulivan of his public service in the War Office written in 1857 or 1851’. In fact it is dated 17 Jan. 1851 and was evidently a draft or copy of a narrative he had enclosed with a letter to his chief, Fox Maule, intimating that he wished to retire. In it he claims that from the time of his appointment as Junior Superintendent in 1811 his ‘most zealous endeavours were from that moment exerted to silt the whole system to the bottom. I very soon became convinced that it was calculated to perpetuate every mischief which it professed to remedy.’ Palmerston resisted, ‘strongly deprecating any present change’. However, having gained by his new position ‘a thorough insight’ of how bad things really were and being better placed therefore to combat ‘the inveterate prejudices of those who had been brought up in a vicious school’, he eventually pre vailed upon Palmerston to give the matter his ‘deliberate attention’ and in 1813 finally to put a stop to the practice of the three superintendents acting as a virtually independent board. Thenceforth, Sulivan claimed, it was he who put all suggestions for improvements to Palmerston and kept a close watch over their application after his brother-in-law had gone, though incurring in the process a good deal of ‘unfair opposition’ while others claimed the credit.

65 Quoted by Morse, R. E., ‘Money or Merit? The Early Development of a Modern Officer Promotion Process in the British Army, 1815–1830’, unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis, 1978, p. 239.Google Scholar

66 Michael Foveaux (1762–1832) had entered the War Office in 1783 when Gen. Fitzpatrick (1747–1813) was Secretary at War for the first time; Joseph Foveaux senr (ob. 1 Jan. 1814) in 1806 when Fitzpatrick was again Secretary at War, even though he was too old and ill to perform his duties of office-keeper and paid a substitute out of the considerable perquisites. Lt Col. Joseph Foveaux jnr (1765–1846), the controversial Lt-Governor of Norfolk Island, was evidently the younger son. The Australian Dictionary of Biography (i. 407–9) records that he was reputedly the son of a French cook employed in the household of the Earl of Upper Ossory and suggests that his very rapid promotion as a soldier in New South Wales must have been due to the influence of a powerful patron in England. Fitzpatrick was the Earl's younger brother. Possibly Michael and Joseph jnr were the natural children of the Earl or his brother who were both great philanderers.

67 ‘C. Pritchard’ to [?Althorp], 20 Mar. 1832, Broughton Papers, Add. MS. 47226.

68 Lady Malmesbury to Minto, 15 Sept. 1811, Minto Papers IE/67.

69 Home, J. A., ed., Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton, [first series], Edinburgh, 1901, pp. 184–5, 189–90 and 195Google Scholar; Bourke, A., ed., Correspondence of Mr Joseph Jekyll, 1894, p. 151.Google Scholar

70 Lady Malmesbury to Minto, 21 Dec. 1811, Minto Papers IE/67.

71 Lady Malmesbury to Minto, 15 Sept. 1811, Minto Papers IE/67, and Lady Minto to Minto, 28 Nov. 1811 and 30 Mar. 1812, Minto Papers IE/40 and 41.

72 Palmerston to William Temple, 19 Jan. 1842, B.P., G.C/TE no. 295.

73 Palmerston to William Temple, 25 June and 8 Oct. 1833, Bulwer & Ashley, ii. 164 and 173, 25 Feb. and 15 Mar. 1842, B.P., G.C./TE nos. 296 and 297, and 22 Mar. 1842, Bulwer & Ashley, iii. 101.

74 Palmerston to William Temple, 28 Mar., 18 July, 12 Aug. and 1 Sept. 1842, B.P., G.C./TE nos. 299, 301, 302 and 303.

75 Stephen Sulivan to Palmerston, 30 Nov. 1845, B.P., G.C./SU no. 71; Palmerston to William Temple, 15 Nov. 1845, B.P., G.C./TE no. 310.

76 Stephen Sulivan to Palmerston, 4 April, and Sulivan, Laurence to Palmerston, , 15 04 1849Google Scholar, B.P., G.C./TE no. 81.

77 Currie, B. W., Recollections, Letters and JournalsGoogle Scholar, privately printed, Roehampton,1901, i. 315 and 317–18, and ii. xcvi.

78 Palmerston to William Temple, 15 Feb. 1850, B.P., G.C./TE no. 333.

79 Palmerston to William Temple, 3 April 1853, B.P., G.C./TE no. 353.

80 Palmerston to William Temple, 12 June 1855, B.P., G.C./TE no. 358.

81 Add. MSS. 59782–3 and P.R.O., F.O. 61/171–81; William Evans to Palmerston, 28 Dec. 1858, B.P., G.C./EV no. 64; P.R.O., PROB. 11/2260 f. 850.

82 Add. MSS. 59782–3.

83 Other portions of the family papers, notably those concerning the Sulivans' Indian interests in the eighteenth century, have found their way by private transfer or public auction into the Bodleian, the India Office Library or private collections. Much of the nineteenth-century material seems to have been long ago destroyed, but an appreciable quantity, including a few scraps derived from Palmerston's elder sister and her husband, was retained as an autograph collection.

84 There is also a considerable correspondence, preserved in B.P.W., with both his sisters during their earlier, unmarried years.

85 Shee, to Palmerston, , 3 07 1809Google Scholar, B.P., G.C./SH no. 81.