A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [32]
The new Liberal cabinet had fifteen members, a substantial number by the standards of the day, and included a broad cross section of views and personalities, from the flamboyant and combative Duke of Argyll (Lord Privy Seal) to the intellectual and moderately inclined Sir George Cornewall Lewis (home secretary).2.5 The most surprising inclusion was William Gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer. Once hailed as the “rising hope of those stern unbending Tories,” Gladstone had initially refused to show any interest in joining the Liberal Party, staying away from Willis’s and voting with the Conservative government on June 10. What brought him into the fold was a case of mutual need. Gladstone could not bear the thought of four more years in the wilderness after his celebrated turn as chancellor from 1852 to 1855, and despite a personal antipathy toward him, Palmerston needed Gladstone’s reputation and proven abilities as chancellor to give weight to his administration. Gladstone was by far the best orator in the House of Commons, which made him a hazard outside government. Moreover, there was one topic on which they both agreed: neither wanted Russell to succeed in enacting further political reform. It was not the most promising of partnerships. Gladstone always joked that he never attended a cabinet meeting without a letter of resignation in his pocket, while Palmerston liked to claim that he kept the fires stoked for just such an event.2.6
In the matters of faith and the Church of England, Gladstone had few competitors. His rather ostentatious moral rectitude once led the Radical MP Henry Labouchere to complain that he did not object to Gladstone’s always having the ace of trumps up his sleeve, only to his pretense that God had put it there. If Seward was an enigma, Gladstone was a man of complex contradictions. In contrast to Palmerston and Russell, whose political principles remained consistent, Gladstone’s could and did change. He had begun his career as hostile to the abolition of slavery and cool on political reform. But the man who once said “I am a firm believer in the aristocratic principle—the rule of the best. I am an out-and-out inegalitarian” would develop a zeal for both causes during the 1860s, later becoming known as “the People’s William.”
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Seward was conscious that there was no place in British society for a man like him, a professional politician with neither land nor personal wealth to sustain him. “I would not be an aristocrat here,” he mused. “I could not be a plebeian.”13 He had received more kindness and respect from the English than he had ever expected, and never again would he feel abashed by Charles Sumner’s casual references to his aristocratic friends. But his success in London had been rather more mixed than Sumner’s.
Seward had failed to impress the assistant secretary at the American legation. Benjamin Moran had worked at the legation since 1853, starting as a temporary clerk and gradually moving up the ranks to assistant secretary in 1857. His wife died a few months after his promotion, leaving him to grieve in the basement of the legation, where, surrounded by mildewed records, broken lamps, and rusting trunks, he diligently copied out dispatches and reviewed documents. When the occasion arose, he also issued passports and performed minor services for American citizens. Moran was sympathetic to those who came begging for help, but his manner was a repellent combination of the insinuating and the supercilious. Although he could never understand why, every minister he served took pains to keep him in the basement and away from social functions. His diary became his best friend, a silent confidant with whom he could share his prejudices and disappointments. Moran yearned to be a popular man-about-town—a desire so entirely out of keeping with his manner and humble Pennsylvanian origins that if