EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...

first, but the time will come when you will see that we were right in
urging you not to delay any longer the signature of the treaty. 114
Palmerston's distrust of Leopold intensified after the marriage of Leopold’s nephew,
Albert, to Victoria in 1840. Palmerston feared an increasing threat to Britain from not
only Leopold and Stockmar’s Germanic influence but from Albert as well. 115 Leopold
would continue to feel that Palmerston forced his diplomacy on other countries and he
warned Victoria that it would eventually harm both he and England.
But Palmerston likes to put his foot on their necks! Now, no
statesman must triumph over an enemy that is not quite dead, because
people forget a real loss, a real misfortune, but they won’t forget an
insult. Napoleon made great mistakes that way; he hated Prussia, insulted
it on all occasions, but still left it alive. The consequence was that in
1813 they rose to a man in Prussia, even children and women took arms,
because they had been treated with contempt and insulted. 116
Leopold continued to run at cross purposes with Palmerston until the end of
their lives. 117 Palmerston first and foremost stood for a strong and resolute Britain. His
England was the most powerful nation on earth, and he knew it. Leopold was a German
who was king of Belgium; nation and king were very insecure. The apogee of Leopold's
influence on Victoria, and thereby England, was the marriage of his nephew Albert to
Victoria in 1840.
114
Victoria to Leopold, 9 April 1839, in Arthur Benson, Letters of Queen Victoria, 3 vols.
(London: J. Murray, 1908), 1:151.
115
Jasper Godwin Ridley, Lord Palmerston (New York: Dutton, 1971). 3-5 & 21.
116
Benson, 1:233.
117
Palmerston died on October 18, 1865. Leopold died on December 10, 1865.
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