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he wrote to the earl. "I wanted to say how much I have to thank you for your handsome conduct, and for your friendly and energetic exertions in removing the difficulties which I at first experienced in my endeavour to reconstitute the government in such a manner as to combine in it all the strength which, in the circumstances of the moment, it was possible to bring together. I well know, that without your assistance that most desirable and important combination could not have been effected." The queen also warmly thanked him for his kind and disinterested assistance.

Palmerston went to work in his usual prompt and vigorous fashion, and with that kind of easy gaiety which distinguished him. "I think our government will do very well," he says in the letter to his brother, already quoted. "I am backed by the general opinion of the whole country, and I have no reason to complain of the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the court. As Aberdeen has become an impossibility I am for the moment l'inévitable. We are sending John Russell to negotiate at Vienna. This will serve as a proof to show we are in earnest in our wish for peace, and in our determination to have sufficiently satisfactory terms." He then goes on to say what must be demanded of the Emperor Nicholas, in whose sincerity he has no great faith, "though it is said he is much pressed by many around him to make peace as soon as he can."

Palmerston had the inestimable support of public confidence; but he had also the important advantage of having succeeded to power at a time when it had begun to be known what were the real needs of the army, and when provisions were being made to supply them. He set himself at once to work to remedy the evils of which complaints had been made; and soon a sanitary commission under Dr. Sutherland, Dr. Gavin, and Mr. Rawlinson were sent out, and, as we have seen, began to improve the hospitals, the camp, and the harbour. "They will of course be opposed and thwarted by the medical officers, by the men who have charge of the port arrangements, and by those who have the cleaning of the camp," he wrote to Lord Raglan.

"Their mission will be ridiculed, and their recommendations set aside unless enforced by the peremptory exercise of your authority. But that authority I must request you to exert in the most peremptory manner for the immediate and exact carrying into execution whatever changes of arrangement they may recommend. . . . It is scarcely to be expected that officers, whether military or medical, whose time is wholly occupied by the pressing business of each day, should be able to give their attention or their time to the matters to which these commissioners have for many years devoted their action and their thoughts."

...

With a remarkable grasp even of minor details, and with a promptitude of action which went far to justify Lord John's obstinate recommendations of his earlier appointment to a post of responsible power, Palmerston directed the various modes of provision and relief, and he was ably seconded by Lord Panmure, who had accepted the office of secretary of war, which was thereafter to be amalgamated with that of secretary of state for the war department. The reappointment of Mr. Gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer gave real strength to the government. Mr. Sidney Herbert was colonial secretary, and the Duke of Argyll lord privy-seal. Earl Granville became lord-president of the council; Sir George Grey, home secretary; Sir C. Wood took the board of control; Lord Cranworth was lord-chancellor; Mr. Cardwell, Indian secretary; the Earl of Carlisle, Lordlieutenant of Ireland; Mr. Horsman, Irish secretary; Sir James Graham, first lord of the admiralty; and Sir B. Hall took the control of woods and forests. It will be seen that the new ministry had been formed not so much by a change of men as by a redisposition of some of the offices. The coalition cards had, so to speak, been shuffled; but there was little change, except that Lord Palmerston had become the head of the government, and the Duke of Newcastle had been superseded by Lord Panmure. The latter appointment, however, was an important one.

Lord Panmure, who was better known as Mr. Fox Maule, had been minister of war during the six years of the Russell administration, and had