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CHAPTER IV. PALMERSTON FOREIGN SECRETARY, NOVEMBER, 1830, TO NOVEMBER, 1834. " X 7E here begin the record of that portion of Lord Palmerston's life which is of truth important to the English reader. In years, his life was more than half over. He was already forty-five, and had been in office for more than twenty years; but had he then died, he would have passed away as one of those unimportant statesmen whom, though they may do good work for their country, it is not worth their country's while to remember. But though he was forty-five, Lord Palmerston's period of importance was yet to begin, and to be continued during thirty-five additional years of uninterrupted labour. Lord Balling, in the short preface which he has prefixed to his unfinished life of Lord Palmerston, speaks as follows of the condition of England at this time in reference to the political state of Europe. "That period begins with a certain struggle against the resistance of the northern Cabinets to any change in the affairs of Europe; and a struggle at the same time against that reactionary spirit sprung from the Revolution of 1830 in France, which wished to change everything." The writer means to imply that England was anxious to stand between the despotism of Russia, Prussia, and Austria,and the democratic tendencies of France. In this he describes accurately the position which Lord Palmerston took as the exponent of English foreign politics, and which from the first to the last he maintained with a consistency which it has been given to few men to achieve, whose concern in the matter has lasted so long, and whose influence has been so great. Throughout his career it was his object to repress the personal powerof the occupants of thrones; but at the same time so to repress that power as to give no inc...