He had stood alone, as was his
nature. Like Gladstone, he had thought himself right.
In the end, Russell entangled himself in a hopeless ball of
admissions, denials, contradictions, and resentments which led
even his old colleagues to drop his defence, as they dropped
Gladstone's; but this was not enough for the student of diplomacy
who had made a certain theory his law of life, and wanted to hold
Russell up against himself; to show that he had foresight and
persistence of which he was unaware. The effort became hopeless
when the biography in 1889 published papers which upset all that
Henry Adams had taken for diplomatic education; yet he sat down
once more, when past sixty years old, to see whether he could
unravel the skein.
Of the obstinate effort to bring about an armed intervention,
on the lines marked out by Russell's letter to Palmerston from
Gotha, 17 September, 1862, nothing could be said beyond
Gladstone's plea in excuse for his speech in pursuance of the
same effort, that it was "the most singular and palpable error,"
"the least excusable," "a mistake of incredible grossness," which
passed defence; but while Gladstone threw himself on the mercy of
the public for his speech, he attempted no excuse for Lord
Russell who led him into the "incredible grossness" of announcing
the Foreign Secretary's intent.
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