ABSTRACT
The foundations of Derbyite foreign policy lay in the diplomacy of Viscount Castlereagh following the end of the Napoleonic War, the Earl of Liverpool's careful pragmatism, and George Canning's politics prior to his sudden death in 1827. Palmerston's policies during the 1830s, by contrast, appealed to 'public opinion' in the championing of liberal causes, constitutional freedoms, and challenges to repressive foreign regimes. As Colonial Secretary in Peel's Cabinet from 1841 to 1845, Derby actively supported Aberdeen's foreign policy. Stanley strongly defended the Ashburton-Webster Treaty in 1842, settling the dispute between Britain and the United States over the Maine/New Brunswick boundary. The complex evolving 'Eastern Question' proved a far stiffer test for delineating British interests, involving more than differences over the presentation of policy. In the Treaty of San Stefano in March 1878, concluded between Russia and the Ottomans, a Pan-Slav settlement of t.
