forces, which would have crushed not only Palmerston, but his Cabinet, had he continued to resist them with blind oppugnancy. At the beginning of the year the Danes, acting on English advice, had withdrawn from Holstein, where Prussia and Austria had put in Federal execution on behalf of the Diet. Danish and German troops therefore faced each other on the Eider, which divided Sleswig from Holstein, and Europe waited with almost breathless excitement for the first shot that would kindle the far-darting flames of war. Councils of moderation had been pressed by Lord Russell on the Danish Government, but in vain. They were urged by Lord Wodehouse, who had been sent on a special mission to Copenhagen, to withdraw the Constitution of November which had provoked the intervention of Germany. His mission was a failure. Politicians at home and abroad were alarmed by an extraordinary essay known to be from the pen of Lord Robert Cecil, which appeared in the _Quarterly Review_, advocating war against Germany on behalf of Denmark, and it was supposed to represent the policy of the Tory Party. It, however, did not represent the views of Mr. Disraeli, who, in a confidential conversation with Count Vitzthum, disowned it, and as for Lord Derby, he had no well-defined views on the subject. Had it been otherwise, Lord Palmerston could have easily frightened his Cabinet into war. “Any doubt,” writes Count Vitzthum, “as to the validity of the Treaty of 1852 offended so deeply the _amour propre_ of the Prime Minister that he was capable of going any lengths. The plan which he devised, to save his work, was to attack with one portion of the British ironclad fleet the North Sea and Baltic coasts of Germany, and with another portion, Trieste and Venice, to support with English gold Mazzini and Garibaldi in Italy, and Kossuth in Hungary, and thus kindle a general conflagration.”[180] This might have been Palmerston’s plan at the beginning of the year. A few week’s reflection, however, toned it down, for in a private letter to Lord Russell, dated the 13th of February, it seems that, though his _animus_ against Germany had not abated, he was of opinion that “it would be best for us to wait a while before taking any strong step; though,” he adds, “it is very useful to remind the Austrians and the Prussians privately of the danger they were running at home.”[181] A few days after that, in a private letter to the Duke of Somerset, Palmerston’s plan is found to be still further modified, but this time in a mischievous direction. It now took the form of sending the Fleet to Danish waters, with orders to prevent the Germans from attacking Zealand and Copenhagen.[182] Every word spoken and every line written on the Sleswig-Holstein Question by Palmerston and Russell at this juncture, deluded the Danes into the belief that the British Government were prepared to defend by force of arms the integrity of Denmark as a British interest. But for this delusion Denmark would not