R. H. Gretton

Source.—The Life of Lord Palmerston, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, vol. i., p. 239.
(London: 1876.)

Lord Palmerston to Sir George Grey (Home Secretary).
October 1, 1850.

Koller[2] is very reasonable about the Haynau affair.... I told Koller that it is much better that no prosecution should take place, because the defence of the accused would necessarily be a minute recapitulation of all the barbarities committed by Haynau in Italy and Hungary, and that would be more injurious to him and to Austria than any verdict obtained against the draymen could be satisfactory.

I must own that I think Haynau’s coming here, without rhyme or reason, so soon after his Italian and Hungarian exploits, was a wanton insult to the people of this country, whose opinion of him had been so loudly proclaimed at public meetings and in all the newspapers. But the draymen were wrong in the particular course they adopted. Instead of striking him, which, however, by Koller’s account, they did not do much, they ought to have tossed him in a blanket, rolled him in the kennel, and then sent him home in a cab, paying his fare to the hotel.