January 26th.—At Hatchford for three or four days. O'Connell's trial moves heavily along; nobody takes much interest in it, or expects any serious result from it. The Opposition mean to begin the session with an attack on the Government de rebus Hibernicis—rather dangerous warfare. Charles Buller wrote to O'Connell in his own name and Hawes's, asking him if anything could be done, and what. He wrote a very civil answer, saying he was happy to communicate with them, though it was quite useless; he could not give up Repeal, and England hated Ireland with too much intensity to render her real justice, especially John Russell, who was the bitterest enemy of the Catholic religion, his hatred to which he had proved on innumerable occasions. However, he said, he would never do anything to obstruct any practical results, if they were possible, and he would tell them how his influence might be annulled and his political power put an end to. He then told him some half-dozen, items of 'justice,' the principal one of which was the Church. He said that the Irish never would be satisfied as long as the Protestant Church stood in all its predominance amongst them, a badge of their servitude and oppression, hateful, offensive, and mortifying to the Irish people; that what they wanted was perfect religious equality, and this could only be obtained by sweeping away all Church establishments, and paying neither. The rest of his recommendations were pretty much the same as when he has been in the habit of holding forth in his speeches and writings. There was nothing new in his letter, and nothing to lay hold of; he passed over the real evils which weigh down the people, and their causes—poverty, hunger, nakedness, no employment, no capital flowing there to set them to work. We shall have plenty of wrangling and violence, but no good will come of it all. The Irish question is a mighty maze, it is a vast babel of conflicting opinions, and hostile passions and prejudices. In the great divisions of party there are innumerable sub-divisions upon all Irish matters; there are vast masses of opinions, jostling with other masses, intermingling in a confused conflict, not arranged in one compact body against another compact body, with one distinguishing banner over each; and out of all this confusion it is impossible to look for any satisfactory and reasonable solution of all the difficult questions that are afloat.
Opening of Parliament—State of Parties—The Duke of Wellington's health—The Duke's Correspondence with Lord Haddington—Constitution of the Judicial Committee—Debate on the state of Ireland—Lord Hertford's Will—A Pun of Jekyll's—Lord Melbourne—The Irish Church—The Privy Council Bill—Anecdote of Mr. Pitt's Peers—Cambridge—Lord Ellenborough's Recall—Lord Brougham's hostility—The Factory Bill—Lord Hardinge Governor-General of India—Lord Brougham on Lord Hertford's Case—The Emperor of Russia in London—Government Defeat on the Sugar Duties—Sir Robert Peel resolves to resign—The Opening of Letters at the Post Office—The Case of 'Running Rein'—Lord Brougham's Privy Council Bill—Summary of Events—The Tahiti Quarrel with France—The O'Connell Judgement—Lord Stanley goes to the Upper House.
London, February 2nd, 1844.—Parliament opened yesterday; as usual with a Speech saying nothing, the Government apparently pretty confident, and the Opposition bent on mischief.
February 8th.—The session has opened favourably enough for Ministers. The first night Peel made a decided speech, and he has taken a decided attitude. He declared that he did not mean to make any alteration at all in the present Corn Law, either as to duty or scale. This was such an agreeable announcement to his friends, that it put them at once into good humour, and they will now fight with him cordially and vigorously, and we shall at least have a clear line of demarcation, and good fair stand-up party contests. While he has made himself strong and his party united for the present, the Opposition have no unity of opinion, Howick and John Russell being evidently opposed to each other, and probably all of them entertaining all sorts of shades and gradations of opinion. Peel evidently means to give up the notion of appealing to the reason of the country, and the moderation which he hoped would help him through his juste milieu course, and thinks only of rallying the great Tory body round him, and exhibiting himself as the master of certain and willing majorities. As long as this Parliament lasts, it makes him as firm as a rock, after which, God knows what will happen. The Irish trials are almost over. O'Connell made a miserable speech; Sheil and Whiteside were very good, especially the latter. The episode of the Attorney-General's challenge came very opportunely for the first night's debate, and the Government stood by him gallantly, which they probably were right in doing, for no Government will be well and heartily served, unless it throws its shield over its people when they fall into difficulties.
February 9th.—As everything is interesting that relates to the Duke of Wellington, it is so to hear the observations of those whose situation enables them to watch the descending course of this great luminary. Nobody has such opportunities as my brother. I was telling him yesterday what Lord Wharncliffe had said to me, that it was pleasant to see the extraordinary deference and attention which are shown to him by his colleagues at the Cabinet. He always sits in the same place, and each person who has anything to say or any subject to bring forward invariably goes and sits next to him, to enable him to hear better the material part of what is going forward, and the greatest respect is evinced to his opinions on all subjects. He told me that this was also very apparent in the correspondence of his colleagues, who addressed him in the most deferential manner, and often expressed their readiness to give up propositions which did not meet with his concurrence. But he said that he grew more and more irritable, and often expressed himself even to his colleagues with an asperity which was matter of great regret to him (Algernon Greville), and that frequently he felt the strongest desire to alter and soften the tone of his letters, but that this was quite impossible: nobody ever dared say anything to him, he could not, and it would be useless if he did, as it was not an accidental ebullition, but proceeded from the increased and increasing irritability of his mind. He instanced two cases lately, one of a letter to Sir Robert Peel, and another to Lord Haddington, not on very material subjects, but in which a tone of ruffled temper and something like pique was apparent, very unlike his old disposition. The only person who sees his letters is Arbuthnot, who never ventures to object, or to criticise them; and if he did, Algy much doubts whether the Duke would take the trouble to alter what he has once written. However, he is a wonder, be his infirmities what they may.
February 11th.—Yesterday Algy showed me the Duke's correspondence with Haddington,75 which is a terrible rigmarole, lengthy, angry, mistaken, and altogether sadly demonstrative of a falling off in his great mind. The subject is so insignificant that it would be waste of time to say a word on it, if it were not for the interest which attaches to the great man to whom it relates. Admiral Parker wrote a warm panegyric on his nephew, Captain Wellesley, which he wound up by saying, he spoke cautiously and reservedly (or some such expression) for fear his motives should be misunderstood. The sentence was an awkward one, but the sense was clear, and could only mean that he was afraid it might be thought he praised the nephew in order to pay court to the uncle, and therefore he in reality said rather less than more than he deserved. The Duke chose to take it in an exactly opposite sense, and insisted that it could only mean that he was so obnoxious that even his relative was not to receive his just meed of praise—a thing not only quite improbable and absurd, but absolutely unmeaning. On this he descanted very angrily, and then went off on his own services, and that he never asked for anything for any of his belongings, and a great deal of very pitiful balderdash. Haddington seems to have tombé de son haut, at getting this extraordinary ebullition, and wrote back what he meant to be a soother, assuring the Duke that he had never thought of taking it in that sense, far from it, and he added all that was respectful and obliging of himself and his nephew, as well as what was reasonable and true; but the old hero's blood was up, he had got his head the wrong way, and the devil would not get it right again. He insisted on his own version of the Admiral's letter, declared nobody could possibly read it in any other sense (nobody could possibly see it in his), and fired back another sulky broadside upon the First Lord of the Admiralty.
The night before last Brougham came down to the House of Lords and announced a bill which he is going to bring in to amend! the working of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or, as he called it, to 'remedy its imperfections.' Yesterday Wharncliffe gave me the history of this transaction, which, if he is allowed successfully to carry on, will be one of the most impudent jobs that ever was perpetrated, and assuredly the Government must be strong which can afford to be a consenting party to it. In the state of incessant activity he has long been in he has, it seems, an ardent longing to do something for himself. Money I do not believe he cares about, though probably not averse to be well furnished with the means of feasting his numerous clients, and the noble, honourable, learned and fashionable friends with whom he cultivates or affects intimacies in all ranks and all parties; but he wants some distinction, and something which at least may give him the air of having authority somewhere and a kind of official right to be still more meddling and intrusive and dictatorial than he already is. Who knows, too, whether his excursive mind does not look to the possibility of his making any official or quasi-official situation a stepping-stone to the Woolsack, under certain circumstances or contingencies, which may glimmer to his mind's eye in the distant future? Be this as it may he has been pestering the Chancellor to make him Vice-President of the Judicial Committee. The Chancellor, who is very anxious to retain him in his service, has already committed himself to an opinion expressed in the House of Lords that it would be a good thing to give the Judicial Committee a vice-president (i.e. a judicial head), and he has also said that those who come and work there ought to be paid for their services, and without such pay nobody ought to be required or expected to attend. This last dictum was purely selfish and to excuse himself from giving his own services during the many years he was out of office and doing nothing. When the Judicial Committee was first constituted Brougham intended to make a job of it, and framed several provisions accordingly; but meeting with some resistance (which I contrived to spirit up Lord Lansdowne to make), and finding that if there was any patronage the disposal of it would not be allotted to him (then Chancellor), he became indifferent on that score, and no provision was made for the payment of any members of the committee not deriving emoluments from other sources. For many years accordingly the clause which empowered the Queen to appoint certain persons who had not held judicial offices in England to be members was not acted upon at all. By arrangements made from time to time a quorum was always secured consisting of persons either in office or holding judicial pensions. These arrangements were not free from difficulties and objections, still with a little trouble and occasional obstacles the business went on pretty well; latterly, however, in consequence of certain new duties which have been imposed on the Common Law judges, we have in great measure lost the services of those of the judges who are members of our Court. On the other hand, as soon as Campbell relinquished the Great Seal in Ireland, he consented to be appointed a judge in the Privy Council (though having no pension), and he has ever since attended as a volunteer, punctually, generously, and efficiently. His aid has been the principal support of the Court, and it has lately obtained the equally important aid of Pemberton Leigh, who was made a Privy Councillor when he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall on the express condition of his sitting in the Judicial Committee, which he declared his readiness to do, and he was appointed accordingly. There never was any question of Pemberton's receiving a salary; indeed, if it had been contemplated that whoever was named to the vacant seat in the Judicial Committee should be paid, Peel would probably have looked for some man to whom the salary would have been an object, and to whom it would have been an object to him to give it, instead of throwing away a lucrative office on one who is so rich that he has no occasion for it. However, Brougham was resolved to get himself made Vice-President, which is, in fact, President of this Court; but he was aware that it would be by no means palatable to some of the other members, especially Campbell, and probably Pemberton, that he should put himself over their heads, and as there is not the slightest occasion for any such change, and no reason to believe that either of the two volunteers desires or expects any salary, the matter was not very easy. Still he made such a bother about it that the Chancellor had a meeting with Lord Wharncliffe, the Duke, and Peel, to consider of it. The Duke said if there was any honorary appointment which would gratify him, and which they could, not improperly, confer on him, he thought, considering the way he worked for them, it would be as well to let him have it; but they agreed that they could not propose anything in the way of emolument, and at last it was settled that he should be made Vice-President. It occurred to them, however, that as the Judicial Committee was a Parliamentary creation it was not quite certain that the Queen had power to make the appointment, and that it would be right to consult the Attorney and Solicitor-General thereupon. The law officers said they would not assert that the Queen had not the power, but as it was in the nature of a change they thought it would be safer to do it by Act of Parliament. The Ministers therefore told Brougham they could not do it, and they declined bringing in any Bill; on which he said, with some reflexions on their want of spirit, that he would himself bring in a Bill, and accordingly he gave this notice the other night. I have not yet seen the Bill, and I don't know whether he has communicated with any of his colleagues on the subject, and in what light they regard the matter; but I am exceedingly desirous of defeating such a job, as it appears to be, if I can, and most assuredly I will endeavour to do so.
February 15th.—Nothing could exceed the satisfaction of the Government at the result of the trial at Dublin, which, after all the blunders and accidents, ended very well indeed for them, and far better than they ever expected.76 The unanimity of the judges they scarcely hoped for; then the jury were unanimous and determined, and yet considerate, and not violent. The poor devils were locked up, without any necessity, from Saturday night till Monday morning, for there would have been no risk in taking the verdict on Sunday. The Chief Justice's charge was more like an advocate's speech than a judicial charge, stronger by far than any of our judges would have thought of delivering. This verdict arrived very opportunely for the debate which began on Monday, and was a heavy blow and discouragement to the Opposition. Most people regard it with satisfaction and think it will do a world of good. The agitation which has been suspended will not now be renewed. The notion of O'Connell's infallibility which had got hold of the people has been destroyed, and the Irish have seen that the Government is resolved to put the law in force, and that the law is able to smite those who violate it. The display of talent on this trial appears to have excited general admiration. Mr. Justice Burton said that he remembered the days of Ireland's forensic eminence, of Flood and his contemporaries, but that he had never seen such ability displayed as upon this trial. The speeches of Sheil and Whiteside, and the summing-up of the Solicitor-General, have been the most admired.
Lord John Russell opened the debate in a speech three and a half hours long, the greater part of which was very good.77 His attack upon Lyndhurst was imprudent, unfair, and in bad taste, and his notice of Bradshaw pitiful. Graham made a very good speech in reply to him. The most important circumstance in these speeches was the respective declarations of the speakers about the Irish Church. John Russell went further, and spoke more decisively than he had ever done before, and declared for a complete equality between Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians; Graham, that he would not consent to touch the Protestant or endow the Catholic Church.
February 17th.—The debate has moved on heavily. The most remarkable speeches have been Howick's, Sir George Grey's, Disraeli's, and Stanley's. Howick spoke out and declared at once he would make the Catholic the established religion of Ireland. Disraeli made a very clever speech, not saying so much, but implying it, and under the guise of compliment making an ingenious and amusing attack on Peel, Stanley, and Graham. Stanley's speech satisfied his people and elicited their cheers, one of his slashing harangues, and perhaps he gave a sufficient reply to John Russell; for the fact is, that such speeches as theirs are quite useless and unmeaning, do not advance the question, or tend in the slightest degree to a solution of the enormous difficulties of our position; for it cannot be denied that to whatever plan, or rather experiment, any man may lean, the difficulties of execution are such as to terrify and embarrass the clearest head and the boldest heart. The debate will last some days more, but what may be said of it is this, that it will be the commencement of a new war of principles. The Opposition, however, are still divided and subdivided into many shades of opinion, and nothing but the necessity of union for party purposes will bring about those mutual concessions, without which no union can be accomplished. There is a long interval still between Howick and John Russell. The fear is, that this new Catholic question will be met by a new 'No Popery' cry; though the Tory leaders will prevent this if they can, still it is clear that their declarations must draw them closer to the Church, and cement the alliance between them; whilst the Dissenters and the Scotch, however they may prefer a Whig connexion, will be pretty sure to join in opposition to the Catholics, and to anything like the establishment or endowment of the Catholic Church. Dundas told me to-day that hardly any Scotch Member could safely vote for a Catholic endowment.
February 22nd.—The debate is still going on. By far the most remarkable speech that has yet been made was Macaulay's—an essay perhaps it may be called, but still a brilliant oration, and the end of it, with his reply to Stanley and his appeal to Peel, admirable. He reserved himself for another occasion to speak about the Church, which meant that he was in dread of his constituents. Follett followed him, but disappointed everybody. Tuesday night was entirely occupied by Wilde, and last night by Smith, the Irish Attorney-General, both very able. Wilde was supposed to have made a very damaging assault on the trial and its incidents, to a great part of which Smith replied very successfully, and his speech was very well received. I met Lady Palmerston at dinner on Tuesday, and asked her if Palmerston was going to speak. She said he would not if he could help it. After dinner I talked to her about the strange condition of the question, when she said that 'everybody was agreed.' I said I thought no two people were agreed and pointed out how John Russell said one thing, Howick another, and so of all the rest, none seeming to have any fixed opinion what should be done, though all insisted that something must. She said John Russell had better not have said what he did, and they did not mind what Howick said, that Palmerston agreed with the Government, and that, in fact, their plan (of giving glebes to the Catholic clergy) was his, and that he had not only suggested it, but had acted on it as far as the law permitted. Peel is certainly acting very shrewdly in letting this debate go on as long as anybody chooses to continue it, for quot homines, tot sententiæ, and nothing can better excuse the Government for not adopting some decisive measures than the manifestation of such a chaos of sentiment and opinion as the opposite benches afford. Stanley's speech a few nights ago, which was delivered in his best style, and much praised by his adherents, is severely censured by all but his adherents. It seems to have exhibited all that acrimony and disposition to bigotry which it is so desirable to get rid of, and though it may have been exhilarating to the spirits of his friends, it was much less suitable to his station, and less adapted to the great purposes of Government than Graham's.
All day yesterday I was listening to law in the Privy Council. Follett made a very able reply in the appeal of Croker against Lord Hertford. After which the Court proceeded to discuss the judgement. There were two points: one, whether Lord Hertford's codicil confirming all former codicils made good those which were not properly attested; the other, whether the will having been executed at Milan, and being good according to the lex loci, it was good here. If the first point was decided in favour of the appellant, the second would not arise, so they agreed to begin by considering the first. Dr. Lushington, Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce, Baron Parke, and Lord Campbell concurred with the judgement; Abinger, Denman, and Brougham were against it; Tindal, who heard the first part of the case but not the last, was not there. After a great deal of talk they agreed to meet again and reconsider the case. They held the second point to be very difficult, but very little passed about it. Nothing can exemplify more the objection there would be to the Judges in our Court giving their opinions seriatim than this case. It would be very unsatisfactory to have so close a division made public; if Tindal should incline to the side of Brougham, Denman, and Co., I see that Knight Bruce will go over to them in all probability, and turn the scale the other way. In that case, if the Judges were to deliver their opinions, it is abundantly probable that the arguments of the minority would appear the soundest law, and it would be a curious anomaly that such a case would be decided by the casting vote of a man whose real opinion was at variance with that which he would have to express. The parties had better have tossed up for the money at first.
The other day (ut misceam dulcia utilibus) Bobus Smith gave us at dinner at Lady Holland's a good pun of Jekyll's (I so regret never having met him). He was asked to dine at Lansdowne House, but was engaged to the Chief Justice. It happened that the ceiling of the dining-room at Lansdowne House fell in, which when Jekyll heard, he said he had been invited to 'ruat cælum,' but was engaged to 'fiat Justitia.'
Sunday, February 25th.—On Friday night, after nine nights' debate, the longest since the Duke of York's case, the division took place, with 99 majority for the Government. The Attorney-General, Roebuck, O'Connell, and Peel occupied the last night: the Attorney-General very good; O'Connell spoke well, temperately, becomingly, was well received, and made a favourable impression; Peel an able speech of nearly four hours, very successful in repelling his opponent's attacks, a very good party speech, but in my opinion not well argued as to the Church question, and certainly containing nothing definite or satisfactory. Some thought it indicated a consciousness of the frail tenure by which the Church maintains itself, but he evinced no disposition under any circumstances to be a party to the alienation of its revenues. The general opinion is that the debate has reflected great credit on the House of Commons; the Speaker says he never heard one so good. There has been a great display of ability on both sides; the lawyers, the statesmen, and the orators have equally distinguished themselves; and, what is almost higher praise, the temper, the taste, and the tone have been excellent, just what becomes a discussion upon a subject so important and delicate. The best speeches have been those of John Russell, Sir George Grey, Howick, Macaulay, Wilde, and Sheil; Peel, Graham, Stanley, and the two Attorney-Generals; Disraeli very clever and original, full of finesse, in some respects the most striking of all. I think that on the whole it will do good: as far as the Government are concerned, it will strengthen them for a time; but from this moment a new Catholic question will begin, though it would be indeed rash to predict when it will end. The Opposition all cry out that O'Connell has not had a fair trial, and the Government were extremely annoyed at Wilde's speech, which they felt was damaging. But the imputed unfairness amounts at most to this, that although the case was clearly proved against him, it is just possible, if the jury list affair had not occurred, that some strong Catholic or Repealer might have been on the jury, by means of whose obstinate determination not to consent to a verdict of guilty he might have got off.
I dined at Palmerston's yesterday; Melbourne was there. He could not say O'Connell had not had a fair trial; and Luttrell said, which seemed to hit off Melbourne's own notion, that he had had a fairish trial. Melbourne said an odd thing which showed that he has not abandoned all idea of taking office again, though I hardly think he would if it came to the point. It was this, 'There is not much chance of the House of Commons coming to a vote against Government; but still such a thing is possible, and I was kept awake half the night thinking, suppose such a thing did occur, and I was sent for to Windsor, what advice I should give the Queen'—'it kept me long awake,' he repeated, 'and I determined that I would advise her not to let Mr. O'Connell be brought up for judgement.' It was very strange, and everybody looked amazed. He has been a very curious man all his life, and he is as strange as ever now, in the sort of make-believe with which he tries to delude himself and others. Whilst all indicates the decay of his powers, and his own consciousness of it, he assumes an air and language as if he was the same man, and ready to act his old part on any stage and at any time. His friends are, I think, vexed and pained, and think it, as it is, a rather melancholy spectacle.
March 9th.—During the last fortnight there has been a great deal of discussion about the great debate, and there is a general impression that it will prove productive of good. Peel's speech is much commented on, and considered to signify his own opinion that the Irish Church must be dealt with sooner or later, but also his resolution to have no hand in the arrangement. At all events it is thought that his sentiments, as set forth in his speech, are very different from Stanley's, and even from Graham's. Some days ago John Russell called on me, and talked the thing over. He said this about Peel, whom he so dislikes that whatever he says of him is always rather tinged with bitterness; and with regard to his own notions, he said that he was not opposed to the establishment of the Catholic religion, provided the Protestant was preserved. He is in fact prepared to go farther than I was aware of.
Last night Brougham brought in his Privy Council Bill. I dined at Lansdowne House. Lord Lansdowne had been at the beginning of the discussion, and Melbourne and Normanby came in later, having stayed it out. They all thought it was impossible such a Bill could pass. Cottenham made a very good speech. The only point on which there seemed any agreement was on the expediency of naming a President of the Court, and Lyndhurst, who was appealed to, limited his opinion to this alone. Brougham pretended that the precedence he claimed was only intended to be in the Court—which was a mere pretence, because by putting in the Lord Privy Seal, who is not a member of the Court, he showed what he wanted. It is to be hoped that his trickery will fail altogether and the Bill be thrown out.
March 16th.—Brougham has been outdoing himself about his Bill. He begins by naming a committee, very numerous, but containing hardly any of the Whigs or of those who would be likely to oppose him, none at least that he could possibly help naming. On Monday an article appeared in the 'Morning Chronicle,' very bitter and smart, and written by Clarendon, which stung him to the quick. He got up the next day in the House of Lords, and alluding to his having been accused of bringing in this Bill with personal views, rejected the accusation with vehement indignation, and in the most extravagant language, 'amidst loud laughter,' as the report said, 'in which the Lord Chancellor heartily joined.' None but Brougham himself can be his parallel; no other man would have dared to get up, and, in the presence of at least half a dozen men who knew the whole truth, deliberately and vehemently tell a parcel of impudent lies—lies too which, if he succeeds in his object, must be exposed to the whole world. But one of the most curious characteristics is his utter shamelessness. With an inordinate vanity and a morbid activity, which prompts him to be eternally doing and talking, he has lost all care for his serious reputation, and for the applause and approbation of the best part of the world. To flourish away, and become Cock-of-the-Walk among silly and dissolute people of fashion, to talk incessantly in a strain of boisterous levity, and make free and frivolous men and women roar with laughter at his coarse, but not witty pleasantries, seems now the height of his ambition. He passes days and hours at Chesterfield House and Gore House; his most intimate associate is D'Orsay; and from the nonsense and idleness of such houses as these, he rushes away to mix in the high matters of politics and legislation, in an eternal whirl and bustle of alternate business and gossip, a sad spectacle to those who remember what he once was; and he has not even the merit of success in his new vocation, for whereas he was once more brilliant and amusing than anybody, he is now become an arrant bore. He has frittered down his really great powers to the level of his new friends and companions, but he has no notion how to converse or 'live with ease,' and nothing can be more awkward and ungraceful than the exhibition he makes of himself as a man of fashion. What a contrast it is, when one turns from the vagaries of this impure and degraded buffoon, who has been guilty of debasing and rendering useless the rare talents with which Nature endowed him, to the dignified old age and mild wisdom of Mr. Grenville—who counts only twenty years more than Brougham—so inferior in genius and intellectual power, so superior in moral worth, in rectitude of understanding, and in all the graces and proprieties of social life.
Writing of Mr. Grenville, I must mention an anecdote he told me the other day, illustrating the facility with which Pitt gave peerages to anybody who had a fancy for the honour. Mr. Grenville one day asked his cousin, Lord Glastonbury, what had induced him to get made a peer, for he could not think he had ever cared much for a title. He said, 'God, Devil!' (for such it seems was his queer habit of expressing himself) 'I'll tell you. I never thought of a peerage; but one day I took up the newspaper, and I read in it that Tommy Townshend was made a peer. Confound the fellow, said I, what right had he to be made a peer I should like to know. Why, I am as rich again as he is, and have a much better right. So I resolved to write to Pitt and tell him so. I wrote, and was made a peer the following week.'
March 31st.—I never remember so much excitement as has been caused by Ashley's Ten Hours Bill,78 nor a more curious political state of things, such intermingling of parties, such a confusion of opposition; a question so much more open than any question ever was before, and yet not made so or acknowledged to be so with the Government; so much zeal, asperity, and animosity, so many reproaches hurled backwards and forwards. The Government have brought forward their measure in a very positive way, and have clung to it with great tenacity, rejecting all compromise; they have been abandoned by nearly half their supporters, and nothing can exceed their chagrin and soreness at being so forsaken. Some of them attribute it to Graham's unpopularity, and aver that if Peel had brought it forward, or if a meeting had been previously called, they would not have been defeated; again, some declare that Graham had said they were indifferent to the result, and that people might vote as they pleased, which he stoutly denies; then John Russell voting for 'ten hours,' against all he professed last year, has filled the world with amazement, and many of his own friends with indignation. It has, I think, not redounded to his credit, but, on the contrary, done him considerable harm. The Opposition were divided, Palmerston and Lord John one way, Baring and Labouchere the other. It has been a very queer affair. Some voted, not knowing how they ought to vote, and following those they are accustomed to follow; many who voted against Government afterwards said they believed they were wrong. Melbourne is all against Ashley; all the political economists, of course; Lord Spencer strong against him. Then Graham gave the greatest offence by taking up a word of the 'Examiner's' last Sunday, and calling it a Jack Cade legislation, this stirring them to fury, and they flew upon him like tigers. Ashley made a speech as violent and factious as any of O'Connell's, and old Inglis was overflowing with wrath. Nothing could be so foolish as Graham's taunt; he ought to have known better how much mischief may be done by words, and how they stick by men for ever. Lyndhurst rubbed his hands with great glee, and said, 'Well, we shall hear no more of 'aliens' now, people will only talk of Jack Cade for the future,' too happy to shift the odium, if he could, from his own to his colleague's back. The Ministers gave out, if they were beaten last Friday, they would resign; but they knew there was no chance of it. Some abused Ashley for not going on and fighting again, but he knew well enough it would be of no use. The House did certainly put itself in an odd predicament, with its two votes directly opposed to each other. The whole thing is difficult and unpleasant. Government will carry their Bill now, and Ashley will be able to do nothing, but he will go on agitating session after session; and a philanthropic agitator is more dangerous than a repealer, either of the Union or the Corn Laws. We are just now overrun with philanthropy, and God knows where it will stop, or whither it will lead us.
May 1st.—This interval I passed at Newmarket (two weeks), where I took my books and papers, resolving to write, and go on with my pamphlet on Ireland; but it does not signify, I find it impossible at that place to put pen to paper or to open a book. It is one incessant course of active idleness, which with me at least utterly precludes all occupation, and even thought. The last day of the last week I went over to Cambridge to my nephew George Egerton, and took a look at some of the lions, none of which, strange to say (though I have frequented Newmarket so many years), with the exception of King's College Chapel, I had ever seen. I walked over the gardens, through the University Library, saw Lord Fitzwilliam's pictures, and looked at the Fitzwilliam Museum; but nothing is to be compared to King's College Chapel, which I beheld again, as one always does really great and perfect works, with increased admiration and delight.
On arriving in town, I found the world had been rattled out of its torpor by the astounding news of Ellenborough's recall by the Court of Directors, admitted by Ministers in both Houses, in reply to questions asked of them. I was astonished, because after the letter which Wharncliffe showed me some weeks ago, in which he had, as it were, dared the Directors to recall him, and their not doing so at the time, I thought the quarrel had blown over; and as his great measures are accomplished, I concluded they would make up their differences by some means. Therefore I was anything but prepared for this coup d'état. There is a strong feeling of exasperation on the side of the Government, as well as on that of the Court. The Duke of Wellington is particularly incensed. He has all along taken Ellenborough under his especial protection, and encouraged and supported him with his praise and approbation. All his irritability is therefore stirred up on this occasion, and he expressed himself in the House of Lords the night before last in reference to the Directors in very strong terms, which was not very becoming, and still less prudent. Peel in the other House was much more reserved and discreet. At present nobody knows exactly the merits of the case, although the Directors and their friends give out theirs, and to a certain degree the Government do the same. But as the papers must shortly be produced (for the public will insist on having materials wherewith to form its judgement, and that speedily), it is better to see what they contain, instead of guessing, and forming opinions on hypothetical cases and imaginary circumstances. The Government must have a very strong case indeed to exonerate them from the reproach of having allowed matters to come to this extremity; and having had full knowledge of the feelings, and ample notice of the intentions of the Directors, they ought to have made some arrangement with them, instead of exhibiting to the world an open breach. They say, however, that they could not be parties to Ellenborough's recall, or in any way consent to it, lest they should stultify themselves, having already approved of all his acts. But this strikes me to be very bad reasoning. They were bound to deal with the case as they find it. They may think it a bad thing that the Directors should have such a power, and a worse that they should exercise it; it was the duty of the Government to adopt such measures as should provide against the exercise of it becoming injurious to the public interests. The safety and prosperity of India are of infinitely greater consequence than the consistency, real or apparent, of the Ministry, and it would have been far better to have had Ellenborough recalled quietly, with some management and arrangement as to time and circumstance, than to suffer matters to be pushed to such extremities, and establish such hostile feelings between the Court of Directors and the Government as has now been done; nor can I see how the consistency of the Government could be affected by their deference to a power, created by the Legislature, and which they have no means of controlling. They have protested against its exercise, they have argued and remonstrated, but all in vain; and that being the case, they might with perfect consistency have taken some measures in concurrence with the Court as to the manner and time of his recall, while protesting against the measure itself, and repudiating all responsibility.
The town is full of speculation as to Ellenborough's successor, and nothing can exceed the difficulty of finding one who is competent. All sorts of men are mentioned, most of them the most unfit and incapable that can be imagined. Metcalfe is in Canada, and could not be got home in time; Lord Elgin in Jamaica, to whom therefore the same objection applies. They talk of Lord Seaton, Fitzroy Somerset, Lincoln, Clare, Gladstone, and I know not whom besides. Graham will not go; he would have gone some time ago, but he will not now. My own opinion is, and I record it on this 1st of May, that Haddington will be sent. He is not a very brilliant, but a sensible, right-minded man, who has gained credit by his fairness and courtesy at the Admiralty. I declare I do not see where they could find a better man.
I find Brougham is come back from Paris in a very peevish humour with everybody. He wrote a letter to the Duke of Bedford last week, complaining bitterly of the attack (as he called it) which John Russell had made upon him in the House of Commons, boasting that nobody had ever gained anything by attacking him, and then proceeded (as he said) to give an account of the transaction to which this attack referred. This account was as usual a tissue of lies, and there were in it two statements which I have not the least doubt are lies also. One was, that this Government had recently offered him a judicial office of 7,000l. a year; and the other, that the Duke of Wellington had employed Lord Wellesley to prevail upon him to take office with them. He is nearly as angry with Peel as he is with John Russell, for what he said in his speech in reply to the latter, and wrote to Peel on the subject. Meanwhile he is flourishing about, and was at the Temple Church on Sunday, with a tail of fashionables.
May 4th.—When I told Lord Wharncliffe that I thought Haddington would be the man for India, he told me he was quite out of the question, and would on no account go. He said Hardinge might possibly go, and I inferred from his manner of speaking of such an appointment that it was the most probable.79 Lord Aberdeen says that the Government and the East India Directors are going to make their matters up, and that the Duke of Wellington's speech had been a great cause of embarrassment and annoyance to them. The papers will not be produced, because they are really not producible. Aberdeen owns that Ellenborough's conduct and language to the Directors had been such as it was impossible for them to endure, and he said both they and the Government were sensible how inexpedient it would be to publish such a correspondence. Accordingly these belligerents will agree to bury the past in oblivion, and make it all up. The greedy and curious public, and the eager and malicious Opposition, will be cheated of the banquet of political scandal they are both so anxiously expecting.
May 12th.—The Indian affair went off very quietly; all was made up; Peel made a very skilful and temperate speech; the Duke himself made a sort of apology in the House of Lords, saying he did not mean to offend the Directors, and everybody was obliged to be satisfied. The Duke's wrath is, however, by no means mitigated, and his fidus Achates, Arbuthnot, poured forth to me the other day a torrent of abuse of the Directors. Peel has gained immense credit by his measure (and speech) about the Bank Charter. His Government is unquestionably strengthened prodigiously by such measures as these, such good business done, and accordingly he is invulnerably strong, and, barring accidents, one does not see when the Government is to be brought to an end.
May 26th.—The usual occupation of this time of the year has prevented my writing anything in this book, and now I will briefly bring up the arrears of all I have to notice. I was at Gorhambury when the division on the Factory Bill took place, and Government got the extraordinary and unexpected majority of 135. Nothing could exceed the universal astonishment, and many of their supporters grumbled much at having been compelled to vote with them or stay away, without any necessity. But they were wrong, for it was of great consequence to get such a majority as should put an end to the question, which this has done. It was a great triumph to Graham, who deserves it; for his conduct on this occasion, and the ferocious personality with which he has been assailed, have conciliated the sympathies of many, even of his enemies and opponents. But no man ever rose so much as he has latterly done. His capacity and administrative powers are admitted by all to be first-rate, and he has evinced so much more of temper and moderation, avoiding giving offence by a bitter and sarcastic tone, that he has disarmed a great deal of hostility and aversion, and there is a general disposition to do justice to his firmness, ability, and honesty on this occasion. This division is also a pregnant proof of the strength and power of the Government, when they choose to exert it; and when their position now is compared with that in which they were placed at the end of last session, everybody must see how enormously they have gained.
The Indian storm has quite blown over. Hardinge's dinner at the India House went off with a profusion of compliments and civilities exchanged between the Directors, the Ministers, and the new Governor-General, and no more allusion was made to Ellenborough than if he never had existed.
Meanwhile Brougham has been signalising himself both in the House of Lords and in the Judicial Committee. His railroad job in the former produced an exposure to the last degree discreditable, and not the less deplorable because the Duke of Wellington and the Tory Lords who were present were mean enough to vote with him. He was, nevertheless, beaten by one, after making eleven speeches. In the Judicial Committee he made a desperate effort to get a hearing for Madame Zichy (which was in fact a rehearsing of Croker's cause), but we had taken care to make use of the authority of the Lord President in convoking the Committee, and he was overruled by the majority, after a smart discussion. The circumstances of this case are quite sufficient to prove to me that the paramount authority of the Lord President is indispensable to make this machine work well, certainly so long as Brougham attends it, and I believe will be always useful to prevent jealousies and dissensions among the Judges. The Lord President is above them, and while he never would think of exercising his own authority, except for purposes of regulation, for composing differences and taking care that no injustice is done, he never can himself come into legal competition with, or be himself an object of jealousy to, any of them.