The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 3) / A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV

Lyndhurst dined here the day before yesterday. Finding I knew all that had passed about the negotiations for a Tory Government in the middle of the Reform question, he told me his story, which differs very little from that which Arbuthnot had told me at Downham, and fully corroborates his account of the duplicity of Peel and the extraordinary conduct of Lyndhurst himself. He said that as soon as he had left the King he went to the Duke, who said he must go directly to Peel. Peel refused to join. The Duke desired him to go back to Peel, and propose to him to be Prime Minister and manage everything himself. Peel still declined, on which he went to Baring. Baring begged he might consult LYNDHURST AND MANNERS SUTTON. Peel, which was granted. He came back, said he would take office, but that they must invite Manners Sutton also. They did so, and Sutton refused. Vesey Fitzgerald, however, suggested to Lyndhurst that if they proposed to Sutton to be Prime Minister perhaps he would accept. Another conversation ensued with Sutton, and a meeting was fixed at Apsley House on the Sunday. In the meantime Lyndhurst went down to the King and told him what had taken place, adding that Sutton would not do, and that the Duke alone could form a Government. At Apsley House Sutton talked for three hours, and such infernal nonsense that Lyndhurst was ready to go mad; nor would he decide. They pressed him to say if he would take office or not. He said he must wait till the next morning. They said, ‘It must be very early, then.’ In the morning he put off deciding (on some frivolous pretext) till the afternoon. He went to the House of Commons without having given any answer. The famous debate ensued, and the whole game was up.

All this tallies with the other account, only he did not say that Peel had desired Baring to insist on Sutton, and had advised Sutton to take no place but the highest, nor that he had without the Duke’s knowledge offered Sutton that post, and concealed from Sutton his subsequent opinion of his incapacity and determination that he should not have it. I asked Lyndhurst how he managed with Sutton, and whether he had not come to Apsley House with the impression on his mind that he was to be Premier. He said that ‘he had evaded that question with Sutton’—that is, all parties were deceived, while the Duke, who meant to act nobly, suffered all the blame. He showed great disregard of personal interests and selfish views, but I shall always think his error was enormous. It is remarkable that this story is so little known.

They had a dinner and dancing the night before last at the Pavilion for New Year’s Day; and the King danced a country dance with Lord Amelius Beauclerc, an old Admiral.

London, January 11th, 1833

Came to town with Alvanley the day before yesterday. Howe plucked up courage, spoke to the King and Queen, and settled Denbigh’s appointment,[4] though not without resistance on the part of their Majesties. Lord Grey came down, and was very well received by both. At the commerce table the King sat by him, and was full of jokes; called him continually ‘Lord Howe,’ to the great amusement of the bystanders and of Lord Grey himself. Munster came down and was reconciled, condescending moyennant a douceur of 2,500ℓ. to accept the Constableship of the Round Tower. The stories of the King are uncommonly ridiculous. He told Madame de Ludolf, who had been Ambassadress at Constantinople, that he desired she would recommend Lady Ponsonby to all her friends there, and she might tell them she was the daughter of one of his late brother’s sultanas (Lady Jersey). His Majesty insisted on Lord Stafford’s taking the title of Sutherland, and ordered Gower to send him an express to say so. One day at dinner he asked the Duke of Devonshire ‘where he meant to be buried!’

I received a few days ago at Brighton the draft of a Bill of Brougham’s for transferring the jurisdiction of the Delegates to the Privy Council, or rather for creating a new Court and sinking the Privy Council in it. Lord Lansdowne sent it to me, and desired me to send him my opinion upon it. I showed it to Stephen, and returned it to Lord Lansdowne with some criticisms in which Stephen and I had agreed. It is a very bungling piece of work, and one which Lord Lansdowne ought not to consent to, the object evidently being to make a Court of which Brougham shall be at the head, and to transfer to it much of the authority of the Crown, Parliament, and Privy Council; all from his ambitious and insatiable desire of personal aggrandisement. I have no doubt he is playing a deep game, and paving the way for his own accession to power, striving to obtain popularity and influence with the King; that he will succeed to a great degree, and for a certain time, is probable. Manners STATE OF THE TORY PARTY. Sutton is to be again Speaker. Althorp wrote him a very flummery letter, and he accepted. The Government wants to be out of the scrape they are in between Abercromby and Littleton, and Sutton wants his peerage. Everything seems prosperous here; the Government is strong, the House of Commons is thought respectable on the whole and safe, trade is brisk, funds rising, money plentiful, confidence reviving, Tories sulky.

January 17th, 1833

The Government don’t know what to do about the embargo on the Dutch ships. Soon after they had laid it on they made a second order allowing ships with perishable goods to go free; and thinking the whole thing would be soon over, they desired this might be construed indulgently, and accordingly many ships were suffered to pass (with goods more or less perishing) under that order. Now that the King of Holland continues obstinate they want to squeeze him, and to construe the order strictly. There have been many consultations what to do, whether they should make another order rescinding the last or execute the former more strictly. Both are liable to objections. The first will appear like a cruel proceeding and evidence of uncertainty of purpose; the last will show a capricious variation in the practice of the Privy Council, with which the matter rests. Their wise heads were to be put together last night to settle this knotty point.

Wharncliffe showed me a paper he has written, in which, after briefly recapitulating the present state of the Tory party and the condition of the new Parliament (particularly as to the mode in which it was elected, or rather under what influence), he proceeds to point out what ought to be the course for the Tories to adopt. It is moderate and becoming enough, and he has imparted it to the Duke of Wellington, who concurs in his view. I wonder, however, that he is not sick of writing papers and imparting views, after all that passed last year, after his fruitless attempts, his false moves, and the treatment he received at the hands of the Tories; but he seems to have forgotten or forgiven everything, and is disposed to wriggle himself back amongst the party upon any terms. He acknowledges one thing fully, and that is the desperate and woebegone condition of the party itself, and the impossibility of their doing anything now as a party.

Lord Lansdowne received very complacently my criticisms on Brougham’s Bill, and has acknowledged since he came to town that it would not do at all as it now stands. The King has been delighting the Whigs, and making himself more ridiculous and contemptible by the most extravagant civilities to the new Peers—that is, to Western and about Lord Stafford. He now appears to be very fond of his Ministers.

January 19th, 1833

I have at last succeeded in stimulating Lord Lansdowne to something like resistance (or rather the promise of it) to Brougham’s Bill. I have proved to him that his dignity and his interest will both be compromised by this Bill, which intends to make the Chancellor President of the Court, and ergo of the Council, and to give him all the patronage there will be. Against these proposals he kicks; at least he is restive, and shows symptoms of kicking, though he will very likely be still again. I sent the Bill to Stephen, who instantly and currente calamo drew up a series of objections to it, as comprehensive and acute as all his productions are, and last night I sent it to Leach (who hates the Chancellor), and he has returned it to me with a strong condemnatory reply. Stephen having told me that Howick would be too happy to oppose this Bill, on account of the influence it would have on Colonial matters, particularly about Canada, I took it to him, but he declined interfering, though he concurred in Stephen’s remarks.

January 22nd, 1833

Dined with Talleyrand the day before yesterday. Nobody there but his attachés. After dinner he told me about his first residence in England, and his acquaintance with Fox and Pitt. He always talks in a kind of affectionate tone about the former, and is now meditating a visit to Mrs. Fox at St. Anne’s Hill, where he may see her surrounded with the busts, pictures, and recollections of her husband. He delights to dwell on the simplicity, gaiety, VISIT TO HARTWELL. childishness, and profoundness of Fox. I asked him if he had ever known Pitt. He said that Pitt came to Rheims to learn French, and he was there at the same time on a visit to the Archbishop, his uncle (whom I remember at Hartwell,[5] a very old prelate with the tic-douloureux), and that he and Pitt lived together for nearly six weeks, reciprocally teaching each other French and English. After Chauvelin had superseded him, and that he and Chauvelin had disagreed, he went to live near Epsom (at Juniper Hall) with Madame de Staël; afterwards they came to London, and in the meantime Pitt had got into the hands of the émigrés, who persuaded him to send Talleyrand away, and accordingly he received orders to quit England in twenty-four hours. He embarked on board a vessel for America, but was detained in the river off Greenwich. Dundas sent to him, and asked him to come and stay with him while the ship was detained, but he said he would not set his foot on English ground again, and remained three weeks on board the ship in the river. It is strange to hear M. de Talleyrand talk at seventy-eight. He opens the stores of his memory and pours forth a stream on any subject connected with his past life. Nothing seems to have escaped from that great treasury of bygone events.

January 24th, 1833

I have at last made Lord Lansdowne ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. fire a shot at the Chancellor about this Bill. He has written him a letter, in which he has embodied Stephen’s objections and some of his own (as he says, for I did not see the letter). The Chancellor will be very angry, for he can’t endure contradiction, and he has a prodigious contempt for the Lord President, whom he calls ‘Mother Elizabeth.’ He probably arrives at the sobriquet through Petty, Betty, and so on.

Dined with Talleyrand yesterday; Pozzo, who said little and seemed low; Talleyrand talked after dinner, said that Cardinal Fleury was one of the greatest Ministers who ever governed France, and that justice had never been done him; he had maintained peace for twenty years, and acquired Lorraine for France. He said this à propos of the library he formed or left, or whatever he did in that line, at Paris. He told me he goes very often to the British Museum, and has lately made them a present of a book.

January 26th, 1833

It seems that the Government project (or perhaps only the fact that they have one) about West Indian emancipation has got wind, and the West Indians are of course in a state of great alarm. They believe that it will be announced, whatever it is to be, in the King’s Speech, though I doubt there being anything but a vague intention expressed in it. Of all political feelings and passions—and such this rage for emancipation is, rather than a consideration of interest—it has always struck me as the most extraordinary and remarkable. There can be no doubt that a great many of the Abolitionists are actuated by very pure motives; they have been shocked at the cruelties which have been and still are very often practised towards slaves, their minds are imbued with the horrors they have read and heard of, and they have an invincible conviction that the state of slavery under any form is repugnant to the spirit of the English Constitution and the Christian religion, and that it is a stain upon the national character which ought to be wiped away. These people, generally speaking, are very ignorant concerning all the various difficulties which beset the question; their notions are superficial; they pity the slaves, whom they regard as injured innocents, and they hate their masters, whom they treat as criminal barbarians. Others are animated in this cause purely by ambition, and by finding that it is a capital subject to talk upon, and a cheap and easy species of benevolence; others have satisfied themselves that slavery is a mistaken system, that the cruelty of it is altogether gratuitous, and that free labour will answer the purpose as well or better, and get rid of the odium; and thousands more have mixed feelings and opinions, compounded of some or all of the above in various degrees and proportions, according to the bent of individual character; but there are some persons among the most zealous and able of the Abolitionists who avail themselves of the passions and the ignorance of the people to carry this point, while they carefully conceal their own sentiments as to the result of the experiment. I say some because, though I only know (of my own knowledge) of one, from the sagacity of the man and the conformity of his opinions with those of others on this and other topics, I have no doubt that there are many who view the matter in the same light. I allude to Henry Taylor,[6] who rules half the West Indies in the Colonial Office, though with an invisible sceptre. Talking over the matter the other day, he said that he was well aware of the consequences of emancipation both to the negroes and the planters. The estates of the latter would not be cultivated; it would be impossible, for want of labour; the negroes would not work—no inducement would be sufficient to make them; they wanted to be free merely that they might be idle. They would, on being emancipated, possess themselves of ground, the fertility of which in those regions is so great that very trifling labour will be sufficient to provide them with the means of existence, and they will thus relapse rapidly into a state of barbarism; they will resume the habits of their African brethren, but, he thinks, without the ferocity and savageness which distinguish the latter. Of HENRY TAYLOR ON ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. course the germs of civilisation and religion which have been sown among them in their servile state will be speedily obliterated; if not, as man must either rise or fall in the moral scale, they will acquire strength, with it power, and as certainly the desire of using that power for the amelioration of their condition. The island (for Jamaica may be taken for example, as it was in our conversation) would not long be tenable for whites; indeed, it is difficult to conceive how any planters could remain there when their property was no longer cultivable, even though the emancipated negroes should become as harmless and gentle as the ancient Mexicans. Notwithstanding this view of the matter, in which my friend has the sagacity to perceive some of the probable consequences of the measure, though (he admits) with much uncertainty as to its operation, influenced as it must be by circumstances and accidents, he is for emancipating at once. ‘Fiat justitia ruat cœlum’—that is, I do not know that he is for immediate, unconditional emancipation; I believe not, but he is for doing the deed; whether he goes before or lags after the Government I do not at this moment know. He is, too, a high-principled man, full of moral sensibility and of a grave, reflecting, philosophical character, and neither a visionary in religion nor in politics, only of a somewhat austere and uncompromising turn of mind, and with some of the positiveness of a theorist who has a lofty opinion of his own capacity, and has never undergone that discipline of the world, that tumbling and tossing and jostling, which beget modesty and diffidence and prudence, from the necessity which they inculcate of constant compromises with antagonist interests and hostile passions. But what is the upshot of all this? Why, that in the midst of the uproar and confusion, the smoke and the dust of the controversy, one may believe that one sees a glimmering of the real futurity in the case—and that is a long series of troubles and a wide scene of ruin.

January 30th, 1833

The intentions of Government with regard to the West Indies (or rather that they have intentions of a nature very fatal to that interest) having got wind, the consternation of the West India body is great. A deputation, headed by Sir Alexander Grant, waited upon Lords Grey and Goderich the other day, and put certain questions to them, stating that the prevalence of reports, some of which had appeared in the newspapers, had greatly alarmed them, and they wished to ascertain if any of them had been authorised by Government. Lord Grey said ‘certainly not; the Government had authorised nothing.’ They asked if he would reappoint the Committees. He would give no pledge as to this, but they discussed the propriety of so doing, he seeming indisposed. To all their questions he gave vague answers, refusing to communicate anything except this, that nothing was decided, but a plan was under the consideration of the Cabinet in which the interests of all parties were consulted. He added that he could not pledge himself to give any previous intimation of the intentions of Government to the West India body, nor to disclose the measure at all until it was proposed to Parliament. There are in the meantime no end of reports of the nature and extent of the proposed measure, and no end to the projects and opinions of those who are interested.

I dined at Lord Bathurst’s yesterday, and sat next to Lord Ellenborough, who said that he was convinced the best thing the proprietors could do would be to agree instantly to stop their orders, which he believes would compel Government to arrest their course. I am not enough acquainted with the subject to judge how far they might operate, but I doubt it, or that in the temper of the people of this country, or rather of those zealots who represent it, and with the disposition of this Government to yield to every popular cry, the fear of any consequences would prevent their going on. It would, I believe, only give them and the House of Commons a pretext for refusing them pecuniary compensation. I was much amused with a piece of vanity of Ellenborough’s. We were talking of the war between the Turks and the Egyptians, and the resources of Egypt, &c., when he said, ‘If I had RUSSIA AND TURKEY. continued at the Board of Control I would have had Egypt, got at it from the Red Sea; I had already ordered the formation of a corps of Arab guides!’

February 1st, 1833

The Reformed Parliament opened heavily (on Tuesday), as Government think satisfactorily. Cobbett took his seat on the Treasury Bench, and spoke three times, though the last time nobody would stay to hear him. He was very twaddling, and said but one good thing, when he called O’Connell the member for Ireland.

Saw Madame de Lieven the day before yesterday, who fired a tirade against Government; she vowed that nobody ever had been treated with such personal incivility as Lieven, ‘des injures, des reproches,’ that Cobbett, Hunt, and all the blackguards in England could not use more offensive language; whatever event was coming was imputed to Russia—Belgium, Portugal, Turkey, ‘tout était la Russie et les intrigues de la Russie;’ that she foresaw they should be driven away from England. With reference to the war in Asia Minor, she said the Sultan had applied to the Emperor for assistance, ‘et qu’il l’aurait, et que le Sultan n’avait pas un meilleur ami que lui,’ that the Egyptians would advance no farther, and a great deal more of complaint at the injustice evinced towards them and on their political innocence. In the evening I told all this to Mellish of the Foreign Office, who knows everything about foreign affairs, and he said it was all a lie, that Russia had offered her assistance, which the Sultan had refused, and she was, in fact, intriguing and making mischief in every Court in Europe. George Villiers writes me word that she has been for months past endeavouring to get up a war anywhere, and that this Turkish business is more likely than anything to bring one about.[7]

February 2nd, 1833

Dinner at Lord Lansdowne’s for the Sheriffs; soon over and not particularly disagreeable, though I hate dining with the Ministers; had some conversation with Goderich about Jamaica; he says Mulgrave has done very well there, perhaps rather too vigorously, that the dissolution of the Assembly under all circumstances is questionable, but he must be supported; he hopes nothing from another assembly, nor does Mulgrave, who says that they are incorrigible. The fact is their conduct paralyses the exertions of their friends here, if, indeed, they have any friends who would make any exertions.

February 4th, 1833

At Court for the King’s Speech and the appointment of Sheriffs. Lord Munster and Lord Denbigh were sworn Privy Councillors. The West Indians have taken such an attitude of desperation that the Government is somewhat alarmed, and seems disposed to pause at the adoption of its abolitionary measures. George Hibbert told me last night that if they were driven to extremities there was nothing they were not ready to do, and that there would be another panic if Government did not take care, and so Rothschild had told them.

I dined with Madame de Lieven yesterday, who is in the agonies of doubt about her remaining here. It turns upon this: Stratford Canning has been appointed Ambassador at St. Petersburg, and the Emperor will not receive him. Palmerston is indignant, and will not send anybody else. If the Emperor persists, we shall only have a Chargé d’Affaires at his Court, and in that case he will not leave an Ambassador at ours. There seems to be at present no way out of the quarrel. Stratford Canning’s mission to Madrid cannot last for ever, and when it is over the point must be decided.

The people of Jamaica have presented a petition to the King (I don’t know exactly in what shape, or how got up), praying to be released from their allegiance. Goderich told me that it was very insolent. Mulgrave’s recent coup de théâtre is severely condemned. Nothing can save these unhappy colonies, for all parties vie with each other in violence and folly—the people here and the people there, the Government here and the Government there.

February 10th, 1833

DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS. After four days’ debate in the House of Commons (quite unprecedented, I believe) the Address was carried by a large majority.[8] Opinions are of course very various upon the state of the House and the character of the discussion. The anti-Reformers, with a sort of melancholy triumph, boast that their worst expectations have been fulfilled. The Government were during the first day or two very serious, and though on the whole they think they have reason to be satisfied, they cannot help seeing that they have in fact very little power of managing the House. Everybody agrees that the aspect of the House of Commons was very different—the number of strange faces; the swagger of O’Connell, walking about incessantly, and making signs to, or talking with, his followers in various parts; the Tories few and scattered; Peel no longer surrounded with a stout band of supporters, but pushed from his usual seat, which is occupied by Cobbett, O’Connell, and the Radicals; he is gone up nearer to the Speaker.

The whole debate turned upon Ireland. O’Connell pronounced a violent but powerful philippic, which Stanley answered very well. Macaulay made one of his brilliant speeches the second night, and Peel spoke the third. It was not possible to make a more dexterous and judicious speech than he did; for finding himself in a very uncomfortable position, he at once placed himself in a good one, and acknowledging that his situation was altogether different from what it had been, he contrived to transfer to himself personally much of the weight and authority which he previously held as the organ and head of a great and powerful party. He pronounced an eulogium of Stanley, declared that his confidence in Government was not augmented, but that he would support them if they would support law and order. The Government were extremely pleased at his speech, though I think not without a secret misgiving that they are likely to be more in his power than is pleasant. But the benefit resulting from the whole is that the Radicals all opposed the Government, while Peel supported them; so that we may hope that a complete line of separation is drawn between the two former, and that the Government will really and boldly take the Conservative side. On the whole, perhaps, this bout may be deemed satisfactory.

February 14th, 1833

The night before last Althorp brought forward his plan of Irish Church Reform, with complete success. He did it well, and Stanley made a very brilliant speech. The House received it with almost unanimous applause, nobody opposing but Inglis and Goulburn, and Peel, in a very feeble speech, which scarcely deserves the name of opposition; it will be of great service to the Government. O’Connell lauded the measure up to the skies; but Sheil said he would bite his tongue off with vexation the next morning for having done so, after he had slept upon it. It was clear that Peel, who is courting the House, and exerting all his dexterity to bring men’s minds round to him, saw the stream was too strong for him to go against it, so he made a sort of temporising, moderate, unmeaning speech, which will give him time to determine on his best course, and did not commit him. Poulett Thomson said to me yesterday that Peel’s prodigious superiority over everybody in the House was so evident, his talent for debate and thorough knowledge of Parliamentary tactics, gained by twenty years of experience, so commanding, that he must draw men’s minds to him, and that he was evidently playing that game, throwing over the ultra-Tories and ingratiating himself with the House and the country. He, in fact, means to open a house to all comers, and make himself necessary and indispensable. Under that placid exterior he conceals, I believe, a boundless ambition, and hatred and jealousy lurk under his professions of esteem and political attachment. His is one of those contradictory characters, containing in it so much of mixed good and evil, that it is difficult to strike an accurate balance between the two, and the acts of his political life are of a corresponding description, of questionable utility and merit, though always marked by great ability. It is very sure that he has been CHARACTER OF PEEL. the instrument of great good, or of enormous evil, and apparently more of the latter. He came into life the child and champion of a political system which has been for a long time crumbling to pieces; and if the perils which are produced by its fall are great, they are mainly attributable to the manner in which it was upheld by Peel, and to his want of sagacity, in a wrong estimate of his means of defence and of the force of the antagonist power with which he had to contend. The leading principles of his political conduct have been constantly erroneous, and his dexterity and ability in supporting them have only made the consequences of his errors more extensively pernicious. If we look back through the long course of Peel’s life, and enquire what have been the great political measures with which his name is particularly connected, we shall find, first, the return to cash payments, which almost everybody now agrees was a fatal mistake, though it would not be fair to visit him with extraordinary censure for a measure which was sanctioned by almost all the great financial authorities; secondly, opposition to Reform in Parliament and to religious emancipation of every kind, the maintenance of the exclusive system, and support, untouched and unconnected, of the Church, both English and Irish. His resistance to alterations on these heads was conducted with great ability, and for a long time with success; but he was endeavouring to uphold a system which was no longer supportable, and having imbibed in his career much of the liberal spirit of the age, he found himself in a state of no small perplexity between his old connections and his more enlarged propensities. Still he was chained down by the former, and consequently being beaten from all his positions, he was continually obliged to give way, but never did so till rather too late for his own credit and much too late for the interest at stake. Notwithstanding, therefore, the reputation he has acquired, the hold he has had of office, and is probably destined to have again, his political life has been a considerable failure, though not such an one as to render it more probable than not that his future life will be a failure too. He has hitherto been encumbered with embarrassing questions and an unmanageable party. Time has disposed of the first, and he is divorced from the last; if his great experience and talents have a fair field to act upon, he may yet, in spite of his selfish and unamiable character, be a distinguished and successful Minister.

CHAPTER XX.

Appointment of Sir Stratford Canning to the Russian Embassy — Cause of the Refusal — Slavery in the West Indies — The Reformed Parliament — Duke of Wellington’s View of Affairs — The Coercion Bill — The Privy Council Bill — Lord Durham made an Earl — Mr. Stanley Secretary for the Colonies — The Russians go to the Assistance of the Porte — Lord Goderich has the Privy Seal, an Earldom, and the Garter — Embarrassments of the Government — The Appeal of Drax v. Grosvenor at the Privy Council — Hobhouse defeated in Westminster — Bill for Negro Emancipation — The Russians on the Bosphorus — Mr. Littleton Chief Secretary for Ireland — Respect shown to the Duke of Wellington — Moral of a ‘Book on the Derby’ — The Oaks — A Betting Incident — Ascot — Government beaten in the Lords on Foreign Policy — Vote of Confidence in the Commons — Drax v. Grosvenor decided — Lord Eldon’s Last Judgment — His Character — Duke of Wellington as Leader of Opposition — West India Affairs — Irish Church Bill — Appropriation Clause — A Fancy Bazaar — The King writes to the Bishops — Local Court Bill — Mirabeau.

February 16th, 1833

Madame de Lieven gave me an account (the day before yesterday) of the quarrel between the two Courts about Stratford Canning. When the present Ministry came in, Nesselrode wrote to Madame de Lieven and desired her to beg that Lord Heytesbury might be left there—‘Conservez-nous Heytesbury.’ She asked Palmerston and Lord Grey, and they both promised her he should stay. Some time after he asked to be recalled. She wrote word to Nesselrode, and told him that either Adair or Canning would succeed him. He replied, ‘Don’t let it be Canning; he is a most impracticable man, soupçonneux, pointilleux, défiant;’ that he had been personally uncivil to the Emperor when he was Grand Duke; in short the plain truth was they would not receive him, and it was therefore desirable somebody, anybody, else should be sent. She told this to Palmerston, and he engaged that Stratford Canning should not be named. Nothing more was done till some time ago, when to her astonishment Palmerston told her that he was going to send Canning to St. Petersburg. She remonstrated, urged all the objections of her Court, his own engagement, but in vain; the discussions between them grew bitter; Palmerston would not give way, and Canning was one day to her horror gazetted. As might have been expected, Nesselrode positively refused to receive him. Durham, who in the meantime had been to Russia and bien comblé with civilities, promised that Canning should not go there, trusting he had sufficient influence to prevent it; and since he has been at home it is one of the things he has been most violent and bitter about, because Palmerston will not retract this nomination, and he has the mortification of finding in this instance his own want of power. However, as there have been no discussions on it lately, the Princess still hopes it may blow over, and that some other mission may be found for Canning. At all events it appears a most curious piece of diplomacy to insist upon thrusting upon a Court a man personally obnoxious to the Sovereign and his Minister, and not the best way of preserving harmonious relations or obtaining political advantages. She says, however (and with all her anger she is no bad judge), that Palmerston ‘est un très-petit esprit—lourd, obstiné,’ &c., and she is astonished how Lady C. with her finesse can be so taken with him.

Lady Cowper has since told me that Madame de Lieven has been to blame in all this business, that Palmerston was provoked with her interference, that her temper had got the better of her, and she had thought to carry it with a high hand, having been used to have her own way, and that he had thought both she and her Court wanted to be taken down a peg; that she had told Nesselrode she could prevent this appointment, and, what had done more harm than anything, she had appealed to Grey against Palmerston, and employed Durham to make a great clamour about it. All this made Palmerston angry, and determined him to punish her, who he thought had meddled more than she ought, and had made the matter personally embarrassing and disagreeable to him.

LORD GREY’S COERCION BILL. Last night Lord Grey introduced his coercive measures in an excellent speech, though there are some people who doubt his being able to carry them through the House of Commons. If he can’t, he goes of course; and what next? The measures are sufficiently strong, it must be owned—a consommé of insurrection-gagging Acts, suspension of Habeas Corpus, martial law, and one or two other little hards and sharps.[1]

London, February 22nd, 1833

Dined yesterday with Fortunatus Dwarris, who was counsel to the Board of Health; one of those dinners that people in that class of society put themselves in an agony to give, and generally their guests in as great an agony to partake of. There were Goulburn, Serjeant ditto and his wife, Stephen, &c. Goulburn mentioned a curious thing à propos of slavery. A slave ran away from his estate in Jamaica many years ago, and got to England. He (the man) called at his house when he was not at home, and Goulburn never could afterwards find out where he was. He remained in England, however, gaining his livelihood by some means, till after some years he returned to Jamaica and to the estate, and desired to be employed as a slave again.

Stephen, who is one of the great apostles of emancipation, and who resigned a profession worth 3,000ℓ. a year at the Bar for a place of 1,500ℓ. in the Colonial Office, principally in order to advance that object, owned that he had never known so great a problem nor so difficult a question to settle. His notion is that compulsory labour may be substituted for slavery, and in some colonies (the new ones, as they are called—Demerara, &c.) he thinks it will not be difficult; in Jamaica he is doubtful, and admits that if this does not answer the slaves will relapse into barbarism, nor is he at all clear that any disorders and evils may not be produced by the effect of desperation on one side and disappointment on the other; still he does not hesitate to go on, but fully admitting the right of the proprietors to ample compensation, and the duty incumbent on the country to give it. If the sentiments of justice and benevolence with which he is actuated were common to all who profess the same opinions, or if the same sagacity and resource which he possesses were likely to be applied to the practical operation of the scheme, the evils which are dreaded and foreseen might be mitigated and avoided; but this is very far from the case, and the evils will, in all probability, more than overbalance the good which humanity aims at effecting; nor is it possible to view the settlement (as it is called, for all changes are settlements now-a-days) of this question without a misgiving that it will only produce some other great topic for public agitation, some great interest to be overturned or mighty change to be accomplished. The public appetite for discussion and legislation has been whetted and is insatiable; the millions of orators and legislators who have sprung up like mushrooms all over the kingdom, the bellowers, the chatterers, the knaves, and the dupes, who make such an universal hubbub, must be fed with fresh victims and sacrifices. The Catholic question was speedily followed by Reform in Parliament, and this has opened a door to anything.

In the meantime the Reformed Parliament has been sitting for a fortnight or so, and begins to manifest its character and pretensions. The first thing that strikes one is its inferiority in point of composition to preceding Houses of Commons, and the presumption, impertinence, and self-sufficiency of the new members. Formerly new ASPECT OF THE NEW HOUSE OF COMMONS. members appeared with some modesty and diffidence, and with some appearance of respect for the assembly into which they were admitted; these fellows behave themselves as if they had taken it by storm, and might riot in all the insolence of victory. There exists no party but that of the Government; the Irish act in a body under O’Connell to the number of about forty; the Radicals are scattered up and down without a leader, numerous, restless, turbulent, and bold—Hume, Cobbett, and a multitude such as Roebuck, Faithfull, Buckingham, Major Beauclerck, &c. (most of whom have totally failed in point of speaking)—bent upon doing all the mischief they can and incessantly active; the Tories without a head, frightened, angry, and sulky; Peel without a party, prudent, cautious, and dexterous, playing a deep waiting game of scrutiny and observation. The feelings of these various elements of party, rather than parties, may be thus summed up:—The Radicals are confident and sanguine; the Whigs uneasy; the Tories desponding; moderate men, who belong to no party, but support Government, serious, and not without alarm. There is, in fact, enough to justify alarm, for the Government has evidently no power over the House of Commons, and though it is probable that they will scramble through the session without sustaining any serious defeat, or being reduced to the necessity of any great sacrifice or compromise, they are conscious of their own want of authority and of that sort of command without which no Government has been hitherto deemed secure. The evil of this is that we are now reduced to the alternative of Lord Grey’s Government or none at all; and should he be defeated on any great measure, he must either abandon the country to its fate, or consent to carry on the Government upon the condition of a virtual transfer of the executive power to the House of Commons. If this comes to pass the game is up, for this House, like animals who have once tasted blood, if it ever exercises such a power as this, and finds a Minister consenting to hold office on such terms, will never rest till it has acquired all the authority of the Long Parliament and reduced that of the Crown to a mere cypher. It is curious, by-the-bye, that the example of the Long Parliament in a trivial matter has just been adopted, in the sittings of the House at twelve o’clock for the hearing of petitions.

February 27th, 1833

Laid up ever since that dinner at Dwarris’s with the gout. Frederick Fitzclarence has been compelled to resign the situation at the Tower which the King gave him; they found it very probable that the House of Commons would refuse to vote the pay of it—a trifle in itself, but indicative of the spirit of the times and the total want of consideration for the King. O’Connell made a speech of such violence at the Trades Union the other day—calling the House of Commons six hundred scoundrels—that there was a great deal of talk about taking it up in Parliament and proposing his expulsion, which, however, they have not had the folly to do. The Irish Bill was to come on last night. The sense of insecurity and uneasiness evidently increases; the Government assumes a high tone, but is not at all certain of its ability to pass the Coercive Bills unaltered, and yesterday there appeared an article in the ‘Times’ in a style of lofty reproof and severe admonition, which was no doubt as appalling as it was meant to be. This article made what is called a great sensation; always struggling, as this paper does, to take the lead of public opinion and watching all its turns and shifts with perpetual anxiety, it is at once regarded as undoubted evidence of its direction and dreaded for the influence which its powerful writing and extensive sale have placed in its hands. It is no small homage to the power of the press to see that an article like this makes as much noise as the declaration of a powerful Minister or a leader of Opposition could do in either House of Parliament.

Yesterday morning the Duke of Wellington came here upon some private business, after discussing which he entered upon the state of the country. I told him my view of the condition of the Government and of the House of Commons, and he said, ‘You have hit the two points that I have myself always felt so strongly about. I told Lord Grey so DUKE OF WELLINGTON’S VIEW OF AFFAIRS. long ago, and asked him at the time how he expected to be able to carry on the Government of the country, to which he never could give any answer, except that it would all do very well. However, things are not a bit worse than I always thought they would be. As they are, I mean to support the Government—support them in every way. The first thing I have to look to is to keep my house over my head, and the alternative is between this Government and none at all. I am therefore for supporting the Government, but then there is so much passion, and prejudice, and folly, and vindictive feeling, that it is very difficult to get others to do the same. I hear Peel had only fifty people with him the other night on some question, though they say that there are 150 of that party in the House of Commons. He thinks as ill of the whole thing as possible. [While I am writing Poodle Byng is come in, who tells me what happened last night. Althorp made a very bad speech and a wretched statement; other people spoke, pert and disagreeable, and the debate looked ill till Stanley rose and made one of the finest speeches that were ever heard, pounding O’Connell to dust and attacking him for his ‘six hundred scoundrels,’ from which he endeavoured to escape by a miserable and abortive explanation. Stanley seems to have set the whole thing to rights, like a great man.]

I told the Duke what Macaulay had said to Denison: ‘that if he had had to legislate, he would, instead of this Bill, have suspended the laws for five years in Ireland, given the Lord-Lieutenant’s proclamation the force of law, and got the Duke of Wellington to go there.’ He seemed very well pleased at this, and said, ‘Well, that is the way I governed the provinces on the Garonne in the south of France. I desired the mayors to go on administering the law of the land, and when they asked me in whose name criminal suits should be carried on (which were ordinarily in the name of the Emperor), and if they should be in the name of the King, I said no, that we were treating with the Emperor at Chatillon, and if they put forth the King they would be in a scrape; neither should it be in the Emperor’s name, because we did not acknowledge him, but in that of the Allied Powers.’ In this I think he was wrong (par parenthèse), for Napoleon was acknowledged by all the Powers but us, and we were treating with him, and if he permitted the civil authorities to administer the law as usual, he should have allowed them to administer it in the usual legal form. Their civil administration could not affect any political questions in the slightest degree.

March 4th, 1833

Sir Thomas Hardy told my brother he thought the King would certainly go mad; he was so excitable, loathing his Ministers, particularly Graham, and dying to go to war. He has some of the cunning of madmen, who fawn upon their keepers when looked at by them, and grin at them and shake their fists when their backs are turned; so he is extravagantly civil when his Ministers are with him, and exhibits every mark of aversion when they are away. Peel made an admirable speech on Friday night; they expect a great majority.

March 13th, 1833

The second reading of the Coercive Bill has passed by a great majority after a dull debate, and the other night Althorp deeply offended Peel and the Tories by hurrying on the Church Reform Bill. It was to be printed one day, and the second reading taken two days after. They asked a delay of four or five days, and Althorp refused. He did very wrong; he is either bullied or cajoled into almost anything the Radicals want of this sort, but he is stout against the Tories. The delay is required by decency, but it ought to have been enough that Peel and the others asked it for him to concede it. He ought to soften the asperities which must long survive the battles of last year as much as he can, and avoid shocking what he may consider the prejudices of the vanquished party. It was worse than impolitic; it was stupid and uncourteous, and missing an opportunity of being gracious which he ought to have seized.

I have been again worried with a new edition of Brougham’s Privy Council Bill,[2] and the difficulty of getting LORD BROUGHAM’S PRIVY COUNCIL BILL. Lord Lansdowne to do anything. This is the way Brougham goes to work:—He resolves to alter; he does not condescend to communicate with the Privy Council, or to consult those who are conversant with its practice, or who have been in the habit of administering justice there; he has not time to think of it himself; he tosses to one of his numerous employés (for he has people without end working for him) his rough notion, and tells him to put it into shape; the satellite goes to work, always keeping in view the increase of the dignity, authority, and patronage of the Chancellor, and careless of the Council, the King, and the usages of the Constitution. What is called the Bill is then, for form’s sake, handed over to the Lord President (Lord Lansdowne), with injunctions to let nobody see it, as if he was conspiring against the Council, secure that if he meets with no resistance but what is engendered by Lord Lansdowne’s opposition he may enact anything he pleases. Lord Lansdowne sends it to me (a long Act of Parliament), with a request that I will return it ‘by the bearer,’ with any remarks I may have to make on it. The end is that I am left, quantum impar, to fight this with the Chancellor.