was exactly because the party with which Mr. Gladstone was allied had
made itself the supporter of established governments throughout Europe,
that in his eyes that party became specially responsible for not passing
by in silence any course of conduct, even in a foreign country,
flagrantly at variance with right.[246] And what was there, when at last
they arrived, in Prince Schwarzenberg's idle dissertations and
recriminations, winding up with a still more idle sentence about
bringing the charges under the notice of the Neapolitan government, that
should induce Mr. Gladstone to abandon his purpose? He had something
else to think of than the scandal to the reactionaries of Europe. 'I
wish it were in your power,' he writes to Lacaita in May, 'to assure any
of those directly interested, in my name, that I am not unfaithful to
them, and will use every means in my power; feeble they are, and I
lament it; but God is strong and is just and good; and the issue is in
His hands.' That is what he was thinking of. When he talked of 'the
sacred purposes of humanity' it was not artificial claptrap in a
protocol.[247]

'When I consider,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Aberdeen, 'that Prince
Schwarzenberg really knew the state of things at Naples well enough
independently of me, and then ask myself why did he wait seven weeks
before acknowledging a letter relating to the intense sufferings of
human beings which were going on day by day and hour by hour, while his
people were concocting all that trash about Frost and Ernest Jones and
O'Brien, I cannot say that I think the spirit of the letter was
creditable to him, or very promising as regards these people.' The
Neapolitan government entered the field with a formal reply point by
point, and Mr. Gladstone met them with a point by point rejoinder. The
matter did not rest there. Soon after his arrival at home, he had had
some conversation with John Russell, Palmerston, and other members of
the government. They were much interested and not at all incredulous.
Lord Palmerston's brother kept him too well informed about the state of
things there for him to be sceptical. 'Gladstone and Molesworth,' wrote
Palmerston, 'say that they were wrong last year in their attacks on my
foreign policy, but they did not know the truth.'[248] Lord Palmerston
directed copies of Mr. Gladstone's Letters to be sent to the British
representatives in all the courts of Europe, with instructions to give a
copy to each g