Conservative foreign policy

The documents

The Derby governments of 1852, 1858–1859, and 1866–1868

The second Disraeli government

For individuals mentioned in more than one document, an asterisk * at first appearance denotes an entry in the biographical appendix. Biographical details are supplied for other individuals as and when they appear.

Together with Lord Cowley's* despatches, I send you a note I have just received from the Queen.* I have told Her Majesty that I agree in her opinions, but fear we cannot effectively interfere as Austria is acting in concert with France, Russia will not recognise Switzerland, & Prussia will make no objection. We are to have another Council on Friday at 3 – in case you have any business to be done there. [. . .]

As I am anxious both from friendship & gratitude to be as useful to you as possible at the F.O. I remind you how indispensible [sic] it is that you shd give me a good working U[nder]. Sec[retary]. who can both write & speak & above all that he shd be in the H[ouse] of C[ommons]. — If the Premier is there as Palmerston was, he knows all the business of the F.O. as well as the Sec[retary] of State because it all passes under his eye, but it is impossible to cram a Chancellor of the Exchequer with ready answers or even with the bearing, of a case wh may have gone thro’ a dozen phases — Stanley was perfection & of course I cannot expect to get so clever a fellow, but it is very important that he shd be what & where I point out.

I have for some time intended to write to you on a subject wh the possible political crisis now impending renders more urgent — It relates to the state of my health wh wd make it impossible for me to take my old office wh is not only a very laborious & responsible one, but unlike others never allows of repose at any hour of the day — My nervous system is not what it was, & suffers at once from overexertion of mind —

L[yons]'s meagre & frigid letter, enclosed, is another instance of the infelicitous judgment [sic] of our diplomatists[.]

It may almost rank with Cowley[’]s letter to Malmesbury about the Hubner outrage.

Pray, may I ask you, did you receive any telegram of the fall of the French Ministry? I did not: had I not been dining, en famille, with Lionel Rothschild I shd. have known nothing. His telegram arrived while we were at dinner. This shd be looked after.

Entries are ordered alphabetically according to the name most commonly used in the correspondence in this volume. If individuals' roles changed during the four Conservative administrations covered, the month in which the change took place (where known) has been listed. The biographies are not intended to be comprehensive guides to individual lives, but to contextualize roles during the particular administrations considered.