The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3) / A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852

February 27th, 1838

It is difficult to conceive a greater quantity of folly crammed into a short space of time than has been displayed by all parties in the last three or four days, and which reached the climax last night in the House of Commons. It began with O’Connell’s speech at the ‘Crown and Anchor,’ when he denounced the perjury of the Tory Election Committees in such terms as he usually employs. To recommend moderate language to O’Connell would, however, be about as reasonable as to advise him to drop his brogue; but as he had ample notice that the matter was coming before the House of Commons, he might have been persuaded, and there should have been somewhere sense and prudence enough to persuade him, to soften his tone, and to make one of those explanations, partly exculpatory and partly apologetic, which are always accepted as a sufficient atonement for rash and violent language; instead of which he brazened it out, and then John Russell came to his rescue in that foolish and unbecoming notice of his which compromised his dignity, committed his party,[9] and complicated all the difficulties in which the House itself was placed. The fools of his party (and on both sides they predominate in noise and numbers) vociferously cheered this ill-judged sally, and lauded it as a fine spirited retort. Not so, however, the more prudent of his friends, who perceived the dilemma in which he had placed himself. Nobody in the meantime had any clear notion of what would be done, what motions would be made or withdrawn, and how the whole thing was to end. But as the debate promised a great deal of personality, it was exceedingly attractive, and 517 members[10] went down to the House. Lord Maidstone moved that O’Connell’s speech was a scandalous libel, and Lord Howick moved the order of the day. O’Connell made a very good speech and then retired; John Russell spoke on one side, and Peel and Follett on the other, and on the division the Tories carried the question by nine: 263 to 254. They were of course in a state of uproarious triumph; the Government people exceedingly mortified, and the tail in a frenzy. The scene which ensued appears to have been something like that which a meeting of Bedlam or Billingsgate might produce. All was uproar, gesticulation, and confusion. The Irishmen started up one after another and proclaimed their participation in O’Connell’s sentiments, and claimed to be joined in his condemnation. They were all the more furious when they found that the conquerors only meant to have him reprimanded by the Speaker, and that there was no chance of his or their being sent to Newgate or the Tower. At last ‘le combat finit faute de combattants,’ for John Russell and his colleagues first, and subsequently Peel and his followers, severally made their exits something like rival potentates and their trains in a tragedy, and when the bellowers found nobody left to bellow to, they too were obliged to move off.

In the House of Lords there had been an early, but very smart skirmish between Melbourne and Lyndhurst,[11] in which LORD LYNDHURST AND LORD MELBOURNE. the former drew a contrast between what would have been the conduct of the Duke (who was absent) and that of Lyndhurst, and said that the Duke was a man of honour and a gentleman in a tone which implied that Lyndhurst was neither. Brougham stepped in and aggravated matters as much as he could by joining Lyndhurst and taunting Melbourne; but when Lyndhurst rose again to call Melbourne to account for his expressions, Brougham held him down with friendly violence, and (as he asseverates) was entirely the cause of preventing a fight between them, first by not letting Lyndhurst proceed to extremities,[12] and next by giving Melbourne time for reflection. However this may be, when Lyndhurst asked him, ‘if he meant to say he was not a man of honour,’ Melbourne made as ample a retractation of the offensive expressions as Lyndhurst could desire, and there the matter ended, not certainly much to the credit or satisfaction of the Ministers in either House. I think, however, that the Opposition have obtained a very mischievous and inconvenient triumph, and that they would have done much better to leave the question alone. O’Connell and John Russell made better speeches than Peel and Follett, and the latter seemed to be oppressed by a consciousness of the narrow, vindictive, and merely party, if not personal grounds on which the question was raised. They have dragged the House of Commons into a vote, which, if it acts consistently, it ought to follow up by an indiscriminate exercise of its authority and resentment upon all the writers and speakers who have denounced the Committee system, and they have procured a resolution declaratory of that being libellous and scandalous which the public universally believes, and every member of the House well knows to be true.

February 28th, 1838

I met Lyndhurst yesterday, and had a few minutes’ conversation with him. He told me, as I had conjectured, that Peel was extremely annoyed at all these proceedings. I said, ‘Why then, did not he stop them?’ ‘Because the great misfortune of our party is that he won’t communicate with anybody.’ So that this most inexpedient discussion was forced on by the precipitation and indiscretion of two or three men, against the convictions and the wishes of the wise and the moderate of all parties; and when a few words of prudence and conciliation might have stopped the whole proceeding, pride, or obstinacy, or awkwardness prevented those words being uttered. The only real consequence will be that public attention will be attracted to the Committee system, people will think a great deal about what they scarcely regarded before, and the characters of public men will suffer. If the vote of the House of Commons means anything, it means that these Committees are honourably and fairly conducted, and it will be compelled to follow up this vote by reforming them on the specific ground of enormous and intolerable abuses, the existence of which their vote will have denied; and all these results, the self-stultification of the House, and the damage to the moral reputation of its members, are brought about in order that the Tory geese may cackle, and that men like Jemmy Bradshaw and Sir John Tyrrell may wave their hats and their crutches in triumph.[13] It is curious enough that the Ministers had no notion the Tories really meant to press this matter. John Russell went down (Le Marchant told me so) fully sensible of his own folly on Friday night, resolved to drop his motion about the Bishop, and convinced that, as it was the interest, so it would be the determination, of the leading Tories to quash the discussion.

March 1st, 1838

Another night (Tuesday) was wasted in a fresh discussion, brought on by a motion of Pendarves’s to let the matter drop. In the morning Lord Howick told me LORD BROUGHAM COURTS THE TORIES. that the Ministers did not mean to say or do anything more, and that their only object now was to put an end to the business as quickly as possible. But John Russell, who is as little communicative on one side as Peel is on the other, had in the meantime, and without consulting anybody, desired Pendarves to make this useless and abortive motion. This Le Marchant told me yesterday morning, adding how annoyed they all were at it. Yesterday the Speaker delivered the reprimand, and they all admitted that it was extremely well done. O’Connell made a violent speech in reply, but clever.

March 4th, 1838

Brougham again in the House of Lords on Friday night. He attacked Pechell and Codrington for having attacked him[14] because he had abused the Navy in his Slavery speech, and was very violent, tedious, and verbose. He informed the House that he had written a remonstrance to the Speaker for not having called the two sailors to order, and he treated them with great contumely and abuse in his speech. Lyndhurst[15] made him very wroth by asking him ‘if he had any right to write to the Speaker,’ and Melbourne made a short, but very good reply, reminding him that, as he had chosen to publish his speech in the shape of a pamphlet, it was no breach of privilege to comment on its contents. He made a great splutter, but got the worst of this bout. In the meantime he continues to be the great meteor of the day; he has emerged from his seclusion, and is shining a mighty luminary among the Tory ignes minores. The Conservatives are so charmed with him, that they court his society with the liveliest demonstrations of regard, and he meets their advances more than half way. They are very naturally delighted with his unrivalled agreeableness, and they are not sorry to pat him on the back as a flagellifer of the Ministers; but though they talk with expressions of regret of his having radicalised himself, and he would probably, if he saw an opening, try to wriggle himself out of Radicalism and into Toryism, they will take care, in the event of their return to office, not to let such a firebrand in amongst them. He calls his last Anti-slavery speech his περὶ στεφάνου, for he thinks it his greatest effort, and it was such an oration as no other man could have delivered. The Bishop of Exeter spoke for two hours and a half the other night on Catholic oaths, but the whole bench of Bishops, except Llandaff, stayed away, to mark their disapprobation of his agitation on the subject.

Nobody knows what the Tories are going to do on Molesworth’s motion on Tuesday;[16] they have kept an ominous silence, and it is believed that the great body of them are eagerly pressing for a division against the Government, while the leaders want to restrain them, and not meddle with the question. Care, however, has been taken, to abstain from any expression of opinion or declaration of intention, and they are all ordered to be at their posts. The Whigs would desire nothing better, end as it might, than that the Tories should support Molesworth’s motion, or move an amendment upon it, which might bring about the concurrence with themselves of the mover and the few Liberals (some say seven, some eleven) who will vote with him.

March 6th, 1838

Great interest yesterday to know the result of the meeting at Peel’s, when it was to be settled what course should be taken to-night. There were meetings at both Peel’s and John Russell’s. The decision of the Tories was deferred till Stanley’s arrival in town, who had been detained by illness at Knowsley. In the morning there was a meeting of the Privy Council about municipal charters, when John Russell and Poulett Thomson told me they did not expect the Tories would give them battle; but if there was a division, they thought Government would carry it by 20, a great majority in these days.

March 8th, 1838

LORD BROUGHAM’S ANTI-SLAVERY SPEECH. Sandon moved the amendment on Tuesday night, but so well had the Tories kept their secret that nobody knew what they were going to do till he got up in the House. As there were above 200 present at the meeting, and nearly 300 must have been in the secret, their discretion was marvellous. I was convinced that no amendment would be moved, and was completely mistaken. The debate on Tuesday was moderate; Labouchere spoke well, Stanley middling, but he was not in force physically. Last night they divided at half-past two, and there was a majority of 29: all things considered, a great one, and which sets the Government on its legs for the present. Fourteen of the Conservatives were absent from illness or the death of relations, so that the strength of the party really amounts to 300 if it would all be mustered. There must always be some casualties, and probably there were some likewise on the other side.

On Tuesday night Brougham made another great Slavery speech in the House of Lords, as usual, very long, eloquent, powerful; but his case overstated, too highly wrought, and too artificial. It was upon the Order in Council by which coolies were brought into Antigua from India. He made out a case of real or probable abuse and injustice, and his complaint was that the Government had not sufficiently guarded against the contingency by regulations accompanying the Order. He was followed by several of the Tory Lords; but the Duke of Wellington refused to support him, provided Melbourne would agree to adopt certain rules which he proposed as a security against future abuses, in which case he said he would move the previous question. Melbourne agreed, and the Duke moved it. As he and the bulk of his followers joined with the Government, they had a large majority, but Ellenborough, Lyndhurst, Wharncliffe, the Bishop of Exeter, and a few more, voted with Brougham, and the whole party would have been very glad to do so if the Duke would have let them. Brougham was exceedingly disconcerted, and threw out all sorts of baits to catch the Duke’s vote and support, but did not succeed, and he said that the Duke had again stepped in to save the Government. The ‘Times’ yesterday morning made a very sulky allusion to what they consider his ill-timed moderation; but he will not be a party to anything that has the semblance of faction, and to worrying and bullying the Government merely to show the power or to have the pleasure of doing so. In the present instance, although Melbourne gave way to the Duke (as he could not do less), it so happens that the Government would have been in a majority of three or four if the Duke had divided against them, for the Tories had taken no pains to bring their people down, and Brougham’s great orations are not so attractive to the Lords as they are popular with the public. He will certainly gain a great deal of reputation and popularity by his agitation of the Anti-slavery question, for it is a favourite topic in the country. Wharncliffe told me he walked away with him from the House after the debate on Tuesday, and some young men who had been below the bar saluted him as he went by with ‘Bravo, Brougham!’

March 9th, 1838

At the Council yesterday everybody was very merry and grinning from ear to ear, mightily elated with their victory, or perhaps rather their escape the night before, and at having got such a timely reprieve. The division has given them a new lease, but whether it will prove a long or a short one depends upon a thousand contingencies. The violent Tories were sulky and disappointed, though in the course of Wednesday they began to find out that Government would have a better division than either party had anticipated. I had been strongly of opinion that Peel would not fight the battle, and I thought it would be bad policy in him to do so; but any opinion contrary to his must be entertained with diffidence, so able as he is, and so versed in parliamentary and party tactics; and in order to form a correct judgement of the course which it was expedient for him to adopt, it was necessary to know both his own views as to office at the present moment and the disposition of the party he leads.

I had no communication with any of the Tories before SIR ROBERT PEEL’S TACTICS. the division, but yesterday I saw George Dawson, Peel’s brother-in-law, and Francis Egerton. From them I learnt, what I had all along supposed to be the case, that Peel was driven with extreme reluctance into fighting this battle; that it was difficult to take no part in the discussion raised by Molesworth’s inconvenient resolution, and that he was continually urged and pressed by his followers to attack the Government, they persisting in the notion that the Ministers might be driven out, and always complaining that the moderation of the Duke and the backwardness of Peel alone kept them in their places. The discontent and clamour were so loud and continued that it became absolutely necessary for Peel, if he meant to keep the party together, to gratify their impatience for action, and he accordingly concocted this amendment in such terms as should make it impossible for the Radicals to concur in it, it being his especial care to avoid the semblance of any union, even momentary, between the Tories and them. Peel certainly never expected to beat the Government, nor did he wish it. There can be no doubt that he saw clearly all the results that would follow his defeat, and thought them on the whole desirable. These results are, that there is an end for the present of any question of the stability of the Government. Peel has complied with the wishes of his party, and has demonstrated to them that they cannot turn the Government out, which will have the effect of moderating their impatience and induce them for the future to acquiesce in his managing matters according to his own discretion. On the other hand, he has exhibited a force of 317 Conservatives[17] in the House of Commons, not only by far the most numerous Opposition that ever was arrayed against a Government, but possessing the peculiar advantage of being united in principle—a compact, cemented body, all animated with one spirit, and not a mass composed of different elements and merely allied and conjoined in hostility to the Government. The relative strength of the two parties has been manifested by this division, and the Government have a majority of twenty votes, which, as their people attend better than the others, may be considered equal to a working majority of thirty.

This is sufficient to enable them to go on, but the majority consists of a combination of heterogeneous materials: of O’Connell and the Irish members, of Radicals and Whigs of various shades and degrees of opinions, all with a disposition, greater or less, but with different (and often opposite and inconsistent) views and objects, to support the present Government, and containing in itself all the seeds of dissolution from the variety and incompatibility of its component elements. But while this division has given present security to the Government, it has also made a display of Conservative power which will render it impossible for the Whigs to conduct the Government on any but Conservative principles; and while, on the one hand, Peel can say to the violent Tories that they have seen the impotence of their efforts, and ought to be convinced that by firmness and moderation they may do anything, but by violence nothing, on the other, Melbourne and John Russell may equally admonish the Radicals of the manifest impossibility of carrying out their principles in the teeth of such a Conservative party, besides the resistance that would be offered by all the Conservative leaven which is largely mixed up in the composition of their own. Thus there is a reasonable expectation that from the balance of party power moderate counsels may prevail, and that Conservative principle may extend and consolidate its influence.

The Queen was very nervous at the possibility there seemed to be that the Ministers might be beaten, for Lord John Russell had told her that he could not count upon a majority of more than fifteen, and she looked yesterday as cheerful as anybody else around her. With regard to the measure on the part of the Tories and the case of Canada, they were wholly unjustifiable in moving such a vote of censure, and there is nothing in the case (however in its details objections may be urged against Lord Glenelg’s conduct) to demand so A DINNER AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE. strong a proceeding. The best speeches were Sir George Grey’s on one side, and Peel’s on the other. The casualties in the division were, on the whole, unfavourable to the Tories; fifteen of their people were unavoidably absent, not above half as many of the Government. They contrived to delay the report of the Belfast Committee, unseating both the sitting members, till yesterday morning, by which means the Government got both their votes in the division; and one of them being paired off with Lord Ramsay, who was not there, the pair cancelled by the call of the House, this alone made a difference of five votes.

March 11th, 1838

I dined yesterday at the Palace, much to my surprise, for I had no expectation of an invitation. There was a very numerous party:—the Hanoverian Minister Baron Münchhausen, Lord and Lady Grey, the Chancellor, the Roseberys, Ossulston, Mahon, &c. We assembled in the round room next the gallery, and just before the dinner was ready the Queen entered with the Duchess of Kent, preceded by the Chamberlain, and followed by her six ladies. She shook hands with the women, and made a sweeping bow to the men, and directly went in to dinner, conducted by Münchhausen, who sat next to her, and Lord Conyngham on the other side. The dinner was like any other great dinner. After the eating was over, the Queen’s health was given by Cavendish, who sat at one end of the table, and everybody got up to drink it: a vile, vulgar custom, and, however proper it may be to drink her health elsewhere, it is bad taste to have it given by her own officer at her own table, which, in fact, is the only private table it is ever drunk at. However, this has been customary in the two last reigns. George III. never dined but with his family, never had guests, or a dinner party.

The Queen sat for some time at table, talking away very merrily to her neighbours, and the men remained about a quarter of an hour after the ladies. When we went into the drawing-room, and huddled about the door in the sort of half-shy, half-awkward way people do, the Queen advanced to meet us, and spoke to everybody in succession, and if everybody’s ‘palaver’ was as deeply interesting as mine, it would have been worth while to have had Gurney to take it down in short-hand. The words of kings and queens are precious, but it would be hardly fair to record a Royal after-dinner colloquy.... After a few insignificant questions and answers,—gracious smile and inclination of head on part of Queen, profound bow on mine, she turned again to Lord Grey. Directly after I was (to my satisfaction) deposited at the whist table to make up the Duchess of Kent’s party, and all the rest of the company were arranged about a large round table (the Queen on the sofa by it), where they passed about an hour and a half in what was probably the smallest possible talk, interrupted and enlivened, however, by some songs which Lord Ossulston sang. We had plenty of instrumental music during and after dinner. To form an opinion or the slightest notion of her real character and capacity from such a formal affair as this, is manifestly impossible. Nobody expects from her any clever, amusing, or interesting talk, above all no stranger can expect it. She is very civil to everybody, and there is more of frankness, cordiality, and good-humour in her manner than of dignity. She looks and speaks cheerfully: there was nothing to criticise, nothing particularly to admire. The whole thing seemed to be dull, perhaps unavoidably so, but still so dull that it is a marvel how anybody can like such a life. This was an unusually large party, and therefore more than usually dull and formal; but it is much the same sort of thing every day. Melbourne was not there, which I regretted, as I had some curiosity to see Her Majesty and her Minister together. I had a few words with Lord Grey, and soon found that the Government are in no very good odour with him. He talked disparagingly of them, and said, in reference to the recent debate, that ‘he thought Peel could not have done otherwise than he did.’

March 17th, 1838

Went to the Royal Institution last night in hopes of hearing Faraday lecture, but the lecture was given by Mr. Pereira upon crystals, a subject of which he appeared to be master, to judge by his facility and fluency; MEN OF SCIENCE. but the whole of it was unintelligible to me. Met Dr. Buckland and talked to him for an hour, and he introduced me to Mr. Wheatstone, the inventor of the electric telegraph, of the progress in which he gave us an account. I wish I had turned my attention to these things and sought occupation and amusement in them long ago. I am satisfied that, apart from all considerations of utility, or even of profit, they afford a very pregnant source of pleasure and gratification. There is a cheerfulness, an activity, an appearance of satisfaction in the conversation and demeanour of scientific men that conveys a lively notion of the pleasure they derive from their pursuits. I feel ashamed to go among such people when I compare their lives with my own, their knowledge with my ignorance, their brisk and active intellects with my dull and sluggish mind, become sluggish and feeble for want of exercise and use.

March 20th, 1838

Met Croker on Sunday, who came to speak to me about the picture of the Queen’s First Council on her accession which Wilkie is painting. He is much scandalised because the Lord Mayor is introduced, which he ought not to be, and Croker apprehends that future Mayors will found upon the evidence of this picture claims to be present at the Councils of future sovereigns on similar occasions. I wrote to Lord Lansdowne about it and told him that it so happens that I caused the Lord Mayor to be ejected, who was lingering on in the room after the Proclamation had been read.[18]

It is a very trite observation, that no two people are more different than the same man at different periods of his life, and this was illustrated by an anecdote Lord Holland told us of Tom Grenville last night—Tom Grenville, so mild, so refined, adorned with such an amiable, venerable, and decorous old age. After Lord Keppel’s acquittal there were riots, and his enthusiastic friends with a zealous mob attacked the houses of his enemies; among others they assaulted the Admiralty, the chiefs of which were obnoxious for their supposed ill-usage of him. The Admiralty was taken by storm, and Tom Grenville was the second man who entered at the breach!

March 23rd, 1838

On Wednesday I attended a Levée and Council. The Queen was magnificently dressed, and looked better than I ever saw her. Her complexion is clear and has the brightness of youth; the expression of her eyes is agreeable. Her manner is graceful and dignified and with perfect self-possession. I remarked how very civil she was to Brougham, for she spoke to him as much as to anybody. He was in high good-humour after it.

Yesterday we had a Judicial Committee, with a great judicial attendance: the Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst, Brougham, the Vice-Chancellor, Lord Abinger, Lord Langdale, and Tom Erskine, with the Lord President. It was to consider a petition of certain apprentices in British Guiana, who wanted to stay execution of the judgement of a Court there. Glenelg had it referred to the Privy Council Committee in order to shift the responsibility from himself. He expected that Brougham would get hold of the case and make a clatter about it; but at the Board Brougham treated it purely upon legal grounds, and was adverse to the prayer of the petition.

They had come (i.e., the Chancellor, Lyndhurst, and Brougham) from the House of Lords, where they had been reversing Lyndhurst’s famous judgement in ‘Small v. Attwood.’ Lyndhurst was very hoarse, having just made a long speech in support of his former judgement; but the Chancellor and Devon had spoken against, and Brougham was prepared to side with them. Sic transit gloria! It was this judgement which was so lauded and admired at the time, and upon which, more than upon any other, or even upon the THE QUEEN’S ATTACHMENT TO WILLIAM IV. general tenor of his decisions, Lyndhurst’s great judicial fame was based; and now it turns out that, although it was admirable in the execution, it was bad in point of law.[19]

March 25th, 1838

Lady Cowper told me yesterday that the Queen said to Lord Melbourne, ‘the first thing which had convinced her he was worthy of her confidence was his conduct in the disputes at Kensington last year about her proposed allowance,’ in which, though he knew that the King’s life was closing, he had taken his part. She considered this to be a proof of his honesty and determination to do what he thought right. Though she took no part, and never declared herself, it is evident that she, in her heart, sided with the King on that occasion. It is difficult to attribute to timidity that command over herself and passive obedience which she showed in her whole conduct up to the moment when she learnt that she was Queen; and from that instant, as if inspired with the genius and the spirit of Sixtus V., she at once asserted her dignity and her will. She now evinces in all she does an attachment to the memory of her uncle, and it is not to be doubted that, in the disputes which took place between him and her mother, her secret sympathies were with the King; and in that celebrated scene at Windsor, when the King made so fierce an attack upon the Duchess’s advisers, and expressed his earnest hope that he might live to see the majority of his niece, Victoria must have inwardly rejoiced at the expression of sentiments so accordant with her own. Her attentions and cordiality to Queen Adelaide, her bounty and civility to the King’s children, and the disgrace of Conroy, amply prove what her sentiments have all along been.

March 27th, 1838

Went yesterday to sit to Wilkie for the picture of the Queen’s First Council. The likenesses are generally pretty good, but it is a very unfaithful representation of what actually took place. It was, of course, impossible to preserve all the details without sacrificing the effect, but the picture has some glaring improprieties, which diminish its interest, and deprive it of all value as an historical piece. There were ninety-seven Privy Councillors present on the occasion, and among them most of the conspicuous men of the time. He has introduced as many figures as he well could, but has made a strange selection, admitting very ordinary men, such as Lord Burghersh and Lord Salisbury, while Brougham and Stanley do not find places. He told me that great anxiety prevailed to be put into this picture, and many pressing applications had been made; and as only vain and silly men would make them, and importunity generally prevails to a great extent, it ends in the sacrifice of the picture by substituting these undistinguished intruders in place of the celebrated persons who are so much better entitled to be there. Then he has painted the Lord Mayor of London and the Attorney-General, who, not being Privy Councillors, could not be present when the Queen was sitting in Council; but they both entreated to be put in the picture, and each asserted that he was actually present. Yesterday I remonstrated with Wilkie, who had no good reason to give; indeed, none, except that they both said they were present, and that the Attorney had described to him what passed. The fact was this: when the Lords assemble they order the Queen to be proclaimed, and when the Proclamation is read the doors are thrown open, and everybody is admitted. The Lord Mayor came in together with several Common Councilmen and a multitude of other persons. When this is over they are all obliged to retire, and I called out from the head of the table that ‘everybody except Privy Councillors would have the goodness to retire.’ WILKIE’S PICTURE OF THE FIRST COUNCIL. It was necessary to clear the room before Her Majesty could hold her Privy Council. The people did retire, slowly and lingeringly, and some time afterwards, espying the fur and scarlet of the Lord Mayor, I requested somebody (I forget whom) to tell him he must retire, and he did leave the room. Shortly after the Queen entered, and the business of the Council commenced. The impossibility of getting the summonses to two hundred and twenty Privy Councillors conveyed in time caused the greatest irregularity in the arrivals, and the door was continually opened to admit fresh comers. In such a scene of bustle and confusion, and in a room so crowded, it is extremely probable that the Lord Mayor and the Attorney-General smuggled themselves back into the apartment, and that they were (very improperly) spectators of what passed; but that forms no reason why they should be represented in an historical picture as actors in a ceremonial with which they had, and could have, no concern. Wilkie was very anxious to have Lord Conyngham in the picture, but both he and Albert Conyngham decided that it would be improper, because not only he was not present, but according to etiquette could not be present, as it was his duty to remain in constant attendance upon the body of the late King up to the moment of his breaking his wand over his coffin.

Yesterday Brougham spoke for four hours and a half in the House of Lords, upon the appeal of ‘Small v. Attwood,’ concurring with the Chancellor in reversing Lyndhurst’s judgement, and evidently bent upon making a display of judicial eloquence which should eclipse that of Lyndhurst himself. This judgement has made a great sensation in the world, especially in the commercial world. I met the Vice-Chancellor, who had come from the House of Lords, and who told me of Brougham’s speech, and the final decree; he said he really knew nothing of the case, but from what he heard he was inclined to believe the reversal was right. Lyndhurst, however, persists in the correctness of his own judgement.

March 30th, 1838

Lord Eliot’s motion about Spain came to a ridiculous end on Wednesday. When the debate was resumed at five o’clock very few people were present; they were chattering and making a noise; nobody heard the Speaker when he put the question; and so they divided 72 to 60, the Ministers (or Minister, for none was present but John Russell) not knowing on which side there would be a majority. The Tories were very angry, and wanted to renew the discussion in another form, but after a little wrangle this project dropped. It was a foolish, useless motion, and deserved no better end.

On Wednesday afternoon I found Downing Street thronged with rival deputations of West Indians and Quakers, which had both been with Melbourne. Out of Brougham’s flaming speeches on Anti-slavery a tempest has arisen, which threatens the West Indians with sudden and unforeseen ruin in the shape of immediate emancipation.[20] It is always easy to get up anti-slavery petitions and to excite a benevolent indignation against slavery in any shape, and Brougham has laid hold of this easy mode of inflaming the public mind in his usual daring, unscrupulous, reckless style, pouring forth a flood of eloquent falsehoods and misrepresentations which he knows will be much more effective than any plain matter-of-fact statements that can be urged on the other side. The West Indians had no notion they were in any danger, and were reposing under the shade of Government protection and in undoubting reliance upon the inviolability of the great arrangement, when they find themselves overtaken all at once with the new question of immediate emancipation which has sprung up into instantaneous life and strength. Their terror is accordingly great. They went to Melbourne, who said he agreed with them, and that the Government was determined to support them, and so they might tell their people, but that he could not promise them to make it so much a Government question as to resign if they were beat upon it. The leaders of the Opposition BIRTHDAY REFLEXIONS. equally took their part, but the question is whether the tails will not beat the heads. I never remember before to have seen any question on which so much uncertainty prevailed as to individual votes. More than one half the members of the House doubted, and probably are at this moment doubting, how they shall vote. The petitions are innumerable, and men are disposed to gratify their constituents by voting as they please on this question, not caring a fig either for the slaves or the West Indians, and reconciling it to their consciences to despoil the latter by assuming that they were overpaid with the twenty millions they got by the Emancipation Act.

April 2nd, 1838

My birthday. Another year has stolen over me, and finds me, I fear, little better or wiser than at the end of the last. How we wince at our reflexions and still go on in the same courses! how we resolve and break our resolutions! It is a common error to wish we could recall the past and be young again, and swear what things we would do if another opportunity was offered us. All vanity, folly, and falsehood. We should do just the same as before, because we do actually do the same; we linger over and regret the past instead of setting manfully to work to improve the future; we waste present time in vague and useless regrets, and abandon ourselves to inaction in despair instead of gathering up what yet remains of life, and finding a compensation, however inadequate, in resolute industry for our losses. I wonder if anybody has ever done this. Many after damaging their health have become prudent and careful in restoring their shattered constitutions; many more have been extravagant and careless, and ended by being parsimonious and prudent, and so the first have grown strong and the second rich; but has anybody thoroughly wasted his time, frittered away his understanding, weakened the powers of judgement and memory, and let his mind be bare and empty as the shelves of an unfurnished bookcase, and afterwards become diligent, thoughtful, reflective, a hater of idleness, and, what is worse, of indolence, and habitually addicted to worthy and useful pursuits? I do not think I can call to mind any instance of such a reformation.

I went to Newmarket on Saturday. Mutable as this climate is, the greatest variation I ever saw was between Friday and Sunday last. On Friday S.W. wind, balmy air like June, and the trees beginning to bud; on Sunday the ground was completely covered with snow, not a particle of any colour but white to be seen, a bitter N.E. wind, and so it continued till the sun melted away the thin coat of snow, which disappeared as suddenly as if it had been swept away.

The Ministers got a pretty good majority, all things considered, on Friday. Gladstone made a first-rate speech in defence of the planters, which places him in the front rank in the House of Commons, so Fazakerly told me; he converted or determined many adverse or doubtful votes, as did Sir George Grey the day before.

April 5th, 1838

Lord Charles Fitzroy, Vice-Chamberlain, who had voted against Government on the Negro question, was turned out for his vote, not angrily and violently, but it was signified to him that he must go, and yesterday he came to Buckingham House, where there was a Council, to resign his key. They could not do otherwise, for Peel had sent a message to Lord John Russell to know whether Government did mean in earnest to oppose this motion with all their force and influence, because, if they did, he would support them with as many of his friends as he could bring to their aid; and the reply was that such was their intention. After this they could not pass over such a vote in one of their own household.

The night before last Government had the narrowest possible escape of being beaten upon a motion of Lord Chandos’s about Lord Durham’s expenses.[21] They carried it by two, and that only because Lord Villiers (Durham’s first cousin, and whose brother is one of his aides-de-camp) VOTE ON LORD DURHAM’S EXPENSES. stayed away, together with Dawson Damer, from motives of personal friendship; Castlereagh, because Durham and Londonderry are knit together by the closest of all ties,—a community of coal interest; and one of the Hopes, because he is going with his regiment to Canada, and did not choose to incur the personal animosity of the great man there: but for these secessions the question would have been carried. Durham would probably have refused to go, and it is not impossible the Government might have resigned. Nobody expected this close division, and the Secretary of the Treasury was greatly to blame in not securing a larger attendance of the Government people and guarding against all chances. However, in these days a miss is as good as a mile, and such a division, which in former times would have been fatal to a Government, does not signify a straw, except as an additional exhibition of weakness and proof of their precarious tenure of office. Melbourne yesterday looked very grave upon it, and he had an unusually long audience of the Queen before the Council. Palmerston treated the matter with great levity. As generally happens, there is much to blame in the conduct of all parties. In the first place the Colonial Minister should have made some arrangement upon his own responsibility, and not have produced the ridiculous correspondence with Durham, and nobody ever before heard of a Minister asking a Governor what establishment he intended to have. Then Durham might as well have laid aside his ostentation and grandeur, and have shown a determination to apply himself manfully to the work entrusted to him without any desire for pomp and expense. He would have gone out more effectively, have acquired more reputation, and have avoided the odium and the ridicule which now in no small degree attach to his mission. On the other hand, the Opposition had no business to take the matter up in this way. In such a momentous affair it is immaterial whether there is a secretary more or less, and whether an establishment, which is only to exist for one year, costs 2,000ℓ. or 3,000ℓ. more or less, and to declare that the sum actually spent by Lord Gosford shall be the maximum of Lord Durham’s expenditure, is so manifestly absurd that it proves the pitiful and spiteful spirit in which the motion was conceived. Suppose they had succeeded, and that after such a vote Durham (as he well might) had resigned the appointment. This must have been an enormous embarrassment to the public service, incurred without any object of commensurate importance. It is not the least curious part of this matter that the Government were not at all sorry that the question of Durham’s expenses was mooted in the House of Commons in order that his extravagance might be checked; while the Opposition had no expectation, and probably no desire, to carry a vote upon it against the Ministers.