The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 3 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852Greville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 3 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901
The curtain has fallen on another act of the Spanish drama, Isturitz
having been civilly sent out of this country. The papers present a case
all to our advantage. Bulwer's despatch of May 30, in vindication of
himself, was very well done, and Palmerston's last note to Isturitz
excellent. The Spaniards have played their cards (not bad ones
originally) so miserably ill, that they have given the game to our
Foreign Office, though it is difficult to say what the stake is worth;
they are, however, like people who had a very good hand, but revoked at
a critical moment, and so lost the game. Bulwer and Palmerston are
triumphantly curvetting about, completely smashing their antagonists in
argument, partly because the latter are blunderers who have deceived
themselves and been misled by others, and partly because they cannot put
forth their true case and the reasons which have influenced them. They
know perfectly well that Palmerston and Bulwer have all along moved
heaven and earth to keep or drive Narvaez out of office, and Montpensier
out of Spain, while Sotomayor has put forward frivolous or unsustainable
pretexts for the violent and rash course they have adopted. Narvaez is
compelled to keep back the real case he had against Bulwer, and the
cause of his animosity towards him. He knows that Bulwer tried to
prevent his coming into power; that he was the life and soul, the leader
and director of the faction opposed to him, whom he instigated to adopt
the most violent measures. I read in Bulwer's own handwriting an account
of his proceedings and of the failure of his schemes. It was through
Serrano all this was to be done, but Serrano was under the influence of
his mother, and Narvaez of his doctor, and these were both corrupted by
the other side. This was the cause of failure. Then Serrano, as all the
world knows, was himself brought over, and he has since given to Narvaez
in writing a detailed account of his communication with Bulwer, and of
the conduct of the latter, but in which the Queen is so implicated and
compromised, that it is impossible for Narvaez to make any use of it.
This Guizot (who knows everything that passes at Madrid) told Reeve, and
I have no doubt it is true, because it corresponds with that letter of
Bulwer's which I myself saw. This is the secret history of the matter.
[Sidenote: AN IMPENDING CRISIS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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