Lord Palmerston-anecdotes

Lord Palmerston,Henry Temple,3rd Viscount(1774-1865)
In 1816 while in charge of the War Office, he came under criticism from the radical MP’s for keeping a standing army even after the threat of Bonaparte was long past.Some of the Tories also sided with them and demanded that the military costs should be drastically reduced. Palmerston reminded them that the Army always became unpopular after every war was over and told them the story of the soldiers who marched out of London against the Jacobites in 1745.
“There goes our brave guards!”there go the pillars of the State.” Cried the people.
“Aye,”said one of the veterans,”but when we have licked the enemy the cry will be.’there go the caterpillars of the State.”
96.
In keeping with many aristocrats of his time he was arrogant and had a condescending attitude towards trading class. He kept the tradesmen to whom he owed waiting for months before he settled their bills. One butcher who suffered on account of his social position, once  forced his way into Palmerston’s presence and insisted on immediate satisfaction. Palmerston wrote out a check for that amount and then putting on a glove in the presence of the butler, picked up the pen as if it were a defiled object and threw it out of the window.
97.
As a Foreign Secretary he did not endear himself to the clerks at the Foreign Office and he was nicknamed by them as’Protocol Palmerston’. None dared calling him to his face. During the confusion caused by a fire at the FO while people panicked one clerk opened the door in which Palmerston was waiting and called out,”Take care the Protocols!” Before a furious Palmerston could take a goodlook at him he ran down the stairs and made good of his escape.
98.
His arrogance and self importance was such even no less worthy a person as Tallerand the French ambassador was made to wait for two hours. One minister while cooling his heels in his anteroom on an afternoon consoled himself reading the whole of Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’.
99.
Because of his weak eyes Palmerston insisted his subordinates write out documents as large as he did himself. He was very stickler for the size. One clerk ventured to play a joke on his chief and once wrote the document in letters unusually larger than the norm. But Palmerston not to be outdone made comments on it thus: ‘ The writer of this paper would write an excellent hand if he wrote a little larger.’
(Lord Palmerston- Sir. Jasper Ridley-Pub: Constable&Co,London)
compiler:benny