Transcriber’s Note:
In this work, all spellings and punctuation were reproduced from the original work except in the very few cases where an obvious typo occurred. These typos are corrected without comment.
In the original volumes in this set, each even-numbered page had a header consisting of the page number, the volume title, and the chapter number. The odd-numbered page header consisted of the year of the diary entry, a subject phrase, and the page number. In this set of e-books, the year is included as part of the date (which in the original volume were in the form reproduced here, minus the year). The subject phrase has been converted to sidenotes located below the relevant page number.
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The Greville Memoirs
(SECOND PART)
A JOURNAL OF THE REIGN
OF
QUEEN VICTORIA
FROM 1837 TO 1852
BY THE LATE
Charles C. F. Greville, Esq.
CLERK OF THE COUNCIL
IN THREE VOLUMES — VOL. I.
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1885
‘PLERAQUE EORUM, QUÆ RETULI QUÆQUE REFERAM, PARVA FORSITAN ET LEVIA MEMORATU VIDERI, NON NESCIUS SUM; SED NEMO ANNALES NOSTROS CUM SCRIPTURA EORUM CONTENDERIT, QUI VETERES POPULI ROMANI RES COMPOSUERE. INGENTIA ILLI BELLA, EXPUGNATIONES URBIUM, FUSOS CAPTOSQUE REGES, AUT, SI QUANDO AD INTERNA PRÆVERTERENT, DISCORDIAS CONSULUM ADVERSUM TRIBUNOS, AGRARIAS FRUMENTARIASQUE LEGES, PLEBIS ET OPTIMATIUM CERTAMINA, LIBERO EGRESSU MEMORABANT. NOBIS IN ARTO ET INGLORIUS LABOR.... NON TAMEN SINE USU FUERIT, INTROSPICERE ILLA, PRIMO ADSPECTU LEVIA, EX QUIS MAGNARUM SÆPE RERUM MOTUS ORIUNTUR.’
TACITUS, Ann. iv. cap. 32.
PREFACE
OF THE EDITOR
TO THE SECOND PART OF THIS JOURNAL.
When the first portion of the Memoirs of the late Mr. Charles Greville, consisting of a Journal of the Reigns of King George IV. and King William IV., was given to the world in the autumn of the year 1874, it was intimated that the continuation of the work was reserved for future publication. Those volumes included the record of events which Mr. Greville had noted in his Diary from the year 1818 to the accession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria in the year 1837, a period of nineteen years. As they were published in 1874, an interval of thirty-seven years had elapsed between the latest event recorded in them and the date at which they appeared. The reigns of George IV. and William IV. already belonged to the history of the past, and accordingly I did not conceive it to be my duty to suppress or qualify any of the statements or opinions of the Author on public men or public events. I am still of opinion that this was the right course for a person charged with the publication of these manuscripts to pursue. I have seen it stated that the first edition of these Journals contains passages which have been suppressed in the later editions: but this is an error. The first edition contained a good many mistakes, which were subsequently pointed out by criticism, or discovered and corrected. Two or three sentences relating to private individuals were omitted, but nothing which concerns public personages or public events has been withdrawn.
Eight and forty years have now elapsed since the date at which the narrative contained in the former volumes was suspended, and I am led by several considerations to the opinion that the time has arrived when it may be resumed. We are divided by a long interval from the administrations of Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell, and, with a very small number of exceptions, no one survives who sat in the Cabinets of those statesmen. Nearly half a century has elapsed since the occurrence of the events recorded in the earlier pages of these volumes, and in a few months from the publication of them, the nation and the empire may celebrate with just enthusiasm the jubilee of the reign of Queen Victoria. Those who have had the good fortune to witness this long series of events, and to take any part in them, may well desire to leave behind them some record of a period, unexampled in the annals of Great Britain and of the world for an almost unbroken continuance of progress, prosperity, liberty, and peace. It is not too soon to glean in the records of the time those fugitive impressions which will one day be the materials of history. To us, veterans of the century, life is in the past, and we look back with unfading interest on the generations that have passed away.
As far as I am myself concerned, I am desirous to complete, whilst I am able, the task allotted to me by Mr. Greville in his last hours, which indeed I regard as a sacred duty, since I know that in placing these Journals in my hands his principal motive and intention was that they should not be withheld from publication until the present interest in them had expired. The advance of years reminds me that if this duty is to be performed at all by me, it must not be indefinitely delayed, and if any strictures are passed on the Editor of these volumes, I prefer to encounter them in my own person rather than to leave the work in other hands and to the uncertainty of the future.
If I turn to precedent and the example of other writers, it will be found that the interval of time which has elapsed since the latest date included in these volumes, embracing the period from 1837 to 1852, is considerably greater than that which marked the publication of similar contributions to political history[1]. At the head of these must be placed Bishop Burnet’s ‘History of His Own Time.’ Bishop Burnet had lived in confidential relations with four Sovereigns and their Ministers, and it would be a mistake to compare the position of Mr. Greville (who never filled any office of a political nature, and who never lived in confidential intercourse with the Court) with that of the bold adviser of Charles II. and James II., and the trusted councillor of William and Mary. Bishop Burnet finished his history of the reigns of Charles II. and James II. about the year 1704; that of William and Queen Anne between 1710 and 1713. In 1714 he died. The first folio containing the earlier reigns was published by his son in 1724; the second in 1734, barely twenty years after the death of Queen Anne. Many passages were, however, suppressed, and the text was not restored in its integrity until the publication of the Oxford edition in the present century.
[1] To look back as far as the Memoirs of the fifteenth century, it may be noted that the first edition of the Memoirs of Philippe de Comines, who had lived in the confidential intimacy of King Louis XI. and King Charles VIII. of France, was published in Paris in 1524, under a special privilege obtained for that purpose. Louis XI. died in 1483, and his son Charles VIII. in 1498. Comines himself died in 1511. These Memoirs, therefore, were published at a time when many of the persons mentioned in them, and most of their immediate descendants, were still alive.
Lord Clarendon died in 1674, and the first edition of his ‘History of the Rebellion and the Civil Wars’ was published in 1702-4, with some alterations and omissions, which were supplied by the publication of the complete text in 1826.
Lord Chesterfield died in 1773, and his ‘Letters to his Son,’ a work abounding in keen and sarcastic observations on his contemporaries, were published in the following year, 1774.
Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s ‘Memoirs,’ which contain the best account extant of the debates at the time of the Coalition Ministry in 1783, and on the Regency Question in 1788, were published in 1815, about thirty years after those discussions.
But it is scarcely necessary to seek for remote precedents to justify the publication of the materials of contemporary history. Our own time has been fertile in great examples of it. For instance, the ‘Memoirs of Lord Palmerston,’ by Lord Dalling and Mr. Evelyn Ashley, are full of confidential correspondence on the secret discussions and resolutions of the Cabinet. The ‘Journal of Lord Ellenborough,’ recently published by Lord Colchester, contains the private record of a Cabinet Minister on the events of the day and the characters of his colleagues. The more recent publication of Lord Malmesbury’s ‘Autobiography,’ and of the Croker Papers, has made public a large amount of correspondence and information of great interest, with reference to the ministerial combinations and political transactions of the present century. And above all, Her Majesty Queen Victoria, by placing the papers of the late Prince Consort, and her own correspondence and journals, in the hands of Sir Theodore Martin, for the purpose of composing from the most authentic materials a full biography of that illustrious Prince, has shown that, far from regarding with distrust or repugnance the records of contemporary history, she has been graciously pleased to contribute to it in the most ample manner by the publication of an immense mass of documents relating to the interior of the Court, the intercourse of the Sovereign with her Ministers, the character of foreign monarchs, the less known transactions of her reign, and even the domestic incidents of her life. No Sovereign ever courted more fully and more willingly the light of publicity on a reign which needs no concealment or disguise.
It would be presumptuous to compare the Journals of an individual who never held any important office in the State, and who derived his knowledge of public affairs entirely from the intercourse of private friendship, with the correspondence and private records of sovereigns, ministers, and statesmen of the highest rank, which have been published with their sanction or with that of their immediate successors. These Journals advance no such pretension; but the production of so many confidential documents of contemporary or recent history by such personages may be fairly invoked to justify, à fortiori, the publication of notes and memoranda of a humbler character.
The incidents and opinions which will be found in these volumes derive their chief value from the fact that they are recorded by a bystander and spectator, who was not, and did not aspire to be, an actor in the occurrences he witnessed, but who lived on terms of intimacy with many of the most active politicians of his times, in both the leading parties in the State, although he strictly belonged to neither of them, and was wholly indifferent to mere party interests.
Mr. Greville himself, in communicating a portion of his manuscripts to one of his friends, wrote of them in the following terms:—
You will find the greater part political, not often narrative; mostly allusions and comments on passing events, the details of which were not notorious and accessible; some miscellanea of a different description, personal, social, official; you will find public characters freely, flippantly perhaps, and frequently very severely dealt with; in some cases you will be surprised to see my opinions of certain men, some of whom, in many respects, I may perhaps think differently of now. Gibbon said of certain Pagan philosophers, that ‘their lives were spent in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.’ I cannot boast of having passed my life in the practice of virtue, but I may venture to say that I have always pursued truth; and you will see evidence of the efforts I have made to get at it, and to sum up conflicting statements of facts with a sort of judicial impartiality.
But although I am of opinion that the time has arrived when a further portion of these Journals may without impropriety be published, yet I am sensible that as the narrative draws nearer to the present time, and touches events occurring during the reign of the Sovereign who still happily occupies the throne, much more reticence is required of an Editor than he felt in speaking of the two last reigns, which belong altogether to past history. There were in the records of those reigns topics of scandal and topics of ridicule, already familiar to the world, which cast a shadow over those pages, and the more so as they were true. In narrating the earlier passages of the reign of Queen Victoria, no such incidents occur. The Court was pure; the persons of the Sovereign and her Consort profoundly respected. The monarchy itself has been strengthened in the last forty-eight years by a strict adherence to the principles of moral dignity and constitutional government. Nothing is to be found in any part of these Journals to impugn that salutary impression; and they will afford to future generations no unworthy picture of those who have played the most conspicuous part in the last half century.
Nevertheless, the delicacy and caution which ought to be observed in recording the language and the actions of eminent persons, some of whom are still alive, appear to me to prescribe the omission, at the present time, of some passages that may more fitly be published hereafter. Accordingly, I have exercised to some extent the discretionary powers entrusted to me by the Author with these manuscripts; and I have withheld from publication details which appeared to be of a strictly confidential character, or which related the conversations of living persons. In this respect I have again followed the example set by the illustrious precedents to which I have already referred. Lord Clarendon’s ‘History of the Great Rebellion,’ Bishop Burnet’s ‘History of His Own Time,’ the Duc de Saint-Simon’s ‘Memoirs,’ were all first published with large omissions from the text; and it is only in our own age—one or two centuries after the death of the writers—that these works have been made known to the world in their integrity from the original manuscripts. I know not if these Journals are destined to so long a life; they certainly do not lay claim to so great and lasting an historical and literary fame; but it is probable they will be read and referred to hereafter as a portion of the materials of history of England in this century.
The alternative lay between the entire suppression of the work for an indefinite period, and the publication of by far the larger portion of it with the omission of a few passages which touched too nearly on our contemporaries. Upon the whole, the latter course appears to me the most consistent with the duty I accepted from the Author, and which I owe to the public. It must not be supposed, however, that the passages which are omitted in this edition contain anything which it would be thought discreditable for the Author to have written or for the Editor to publish, or that they are of considerable extent or importance. These passages are simply withheld at the present time from motives of delicacy to persons still alive, or to their immediate descendants. I adhere to the opinion previously expressed by me, that the public conduct of those who, by their station or their offices must be regarded as public characters, needs no reticence or concealment.
An observation occurs in one of the later volumes of these Journals (which had previously escaped my notice) in which the Author remarks that much that he has written appears to him to be extremely dull, and that to avoid dullness the manuscript should be carefully revised before it is made public. I have not the same dread of dullness which affected Mr. Greville. A passage may be found to contain something of interest hereafter, though it is not amusing, and at the worst the reader can pass it by. Nor do I attach importance to the amusement the public may derive from this work. The volumes now published may be less attractive to some readers than those which preceded them, for they relate to less dissipated and distracted times; but they are, I think, more instructive because they are marked by a deeper insight into political history.
In conclusion, I may remark that the present publication embraces a period of fourteen years, extending from the accession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria in 1837 to the coup d’état of Napoleon III. in 1851. The latest events recorded in these pages are separated from us by an interval of about thirty-four years. The occurrences which took place after the close of 1851, the subsequent establishment of the Imperial power in France, the formation of the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen, followed in 1853 by the Crimean War, mark an important epoch in the history of this country and of Europe. I have therefore thought that this date is the appropriate conclusion of this portion of the work. Mr. Greville continued his Journal for nine years more, until the close of 1860, though in his later years he was less conversant with public affairs than he had been in the more active period of his life. Should life and health be vouchsafed to me, I shall endeavour to complete the task he confided to my care by the publication of one or two concluding volumes at no distant period.
HENRY REEVE.
⁂ The notes in brackets are by the Editor, those without brackets by the Author.
CORRECTIONS
The following inaccuracies have been remarked whilst these sheets were passing through the press:—
Vol. ii, p. 37, the Duke of Wellington sate in Sir Robert Peel’s Cabinet of 1841 without office. Sir E. Knatchbull was Paymaster-General with a seat in the Cabinet.
Vol. ii, p. 60, line 18, for Emerson Tennent read Tennant.
Vol. ii, p. 72, for Sir George Grey in the text and note read Sir Charles Grey.
Vol. ii, p. 113, the Rev. William Capel was Vicar, not Rector, of Watford, and Rector of Raine.
Vol. ii, p. 126, last line but two, for any read my.
Vol. ii, p. 194, last two lines, for Moore O’Farrell read More O’Ferrall.
Vol. ii, p. 372, the battles of Moodkee and Ferozeshah were fought in December 1845, before, not after, the battle of Aliwal.
Vol. iii, p. 108, line 12, for Machale read MacHale.
Vol. iii, p. 218, note1, line 2, for Gotto read Goito.
Contents of the First Volume
The New Reign — Character of William IV — Political Effects of the King’s Death — Candidates for Office — Lord Durham — The King’s Funeral — The Elections — The Whigs and O’Connell — First Impression of a Railroad — Lord Stanley at Knowsley — The King of Hanover — Return to London — Result of the Elections — Liberality of the Queen — Princess Lieven’s Audiences — Conservative Reaction in the Counties — The Queen and Lord Munster — State of Parties in the New Parliament — The Corn Laws — The Poor Laws — Tory-Radicals — Promise of the Queen’s Character — Her Self-Possession — Queen Victoria and Queen Adelaide — The Queen and Lord Melbourne — Mango wins the St. Leger — Racing Reflexions — Death of Lord Egremont — The Court of Victoria — Conservatism of the Whigs — Radical Discontent — Irish Policy of the Government — Mr. Disraeli’s First Speech — Lord Brougham’s Isolation — Radical Politics — Lord Melbourne and Lord Brougham — The Canada Debates — The Use of a Diary — Duke of Wellington on Canada — On his own Despatches — On the Battle of Salamanca — King Ernest in Hanover — English Manor Houses — Festivities at Belvoir Castle — Life at Belvoir — Reflexions — Beaudesert — Death of Lord Eldon.
Debates on the Canada Bill — Moderation of the Duke of Wellington — State of Canada — Lord Durham’s Position — Weakness of the Government — Parallel of Hannibal and the Duke of Wellington — The Ballot — Lord Brougham on the Ballot — Position of the Government — Policy of Sir Robert Peel — Death of Mr. Creevey — Knighthood of General Evans — Lord Brougham’s Conversation — A Skirmish in the House of Commons — Defeat of Government — Skirmish in the House of Lords — Annoyance of Peel at these Proceedings — Brougham’s Anti-Slavery Speech — Opposition Tactics — Brougham on the Coolie Trade — Ministerial Success — Sir Robert Peel’s Tactics — Composition of Parties — A Dinner at Buckingham Palace — Men of Science — The Lord Mayor at a Council — The Queen at a Levée — The Guiana Apprentices — Small v. Attwood reversed — Character of the Queen — Wilkie’s Picture of the ‘First Council’ — Small v. Attwood — Immediate Emancipation — Birthday Reflexions — Lord Charles Fitzroy turned out — Vote on Lord Durham’s Expenses — Lord Durham’s Irritation — Wolff the Missionary — Newmarket — The Coronation — Lord Brougham’s Reviews.
A Ball at the Palace — Aspect of Foreign Affairs — Irish Tithe Bill — Debate on Sir T. Acland’s Motion — Death of Prince Talleyrand — Death and Character of Lady Harrowby — Government defeated on Emancipation of Slaves — Dispute of Mr. Handley and Lord Brougham — Dinner at Lambeth — Arrangement of Irish Questions — Settlement of Irish Questions — O’Connell declines the Rolls — Naval Intervention in Spain — Duke of Wellington’s Moderation — Marshal Soult arrives — Preparations for the Coronation of Queen Victoria — The Wellington Statue — The Coronation — Coleridge and John Sterling — Lord Durham’s Mission to Canada — Lord Brougham contrasted with the Duke — Macaulay on his return from India — Soult in London — Duke of Sussex quarrels with Ministers — Lord Burghersh’s Opera — High Church Sermons — Lord Palmerston and Mr. Urquhart — The Ecclesiastical Discipline Bill — The Duke’s Despatches — Macaulay’s Plan of Life — Lord Durham’s Canada Ordinance — Mr. Barnes — Canada Indemnity Bill — Lord Durham’s Ordinance disallowed — Irish Corporation Bill — Review of the Session
The Queen and Lord Melbourne — The Battersea Schools — A Council at Windsor — A Humble Hero — Lord Durham’s Resignation — Duke of Wellington’s Campaigns — The Grange — Lord Durham’s Return — Death of Lord Sefton — Lord Durham’s Arrival — His Reception in the Country — Position of the Radicals — A Visit to Windsor Castle — Lord Brougham’s ‘Letter to the Queen’ — Lord Durham repudiates the Radicals — A Lecture at Battersea — Dinner at Holland House — Curran and George Ponsonby — Prospect of the New Year — The Petition of the Serjeants-at-Law — Reconciliation with Lord Durham — Murder of Lord Norbury — The Corn Laws attacked — Lord Palmerston and the ‘Portfolio’ — The Serjeants’ Case — Brougham and Lyndhurst ‘done up’ — Opening of the Session — Resignation of Lord Glenelg — State of Parties — Lord Durham’s Report — Lord Glenelg’s Retirement — Lord Normanby, Colonial Minister — Corn Law Repeal — Sir Francis Bond Head — Gore House — Lady Blessington
Opening of the Session — Lady Flora Hastings — Bulwer’s ‘Richelieu’ — Changes at the Colonial Office — Attack on Lord Normanby’s Irish Administration in the Lords — General Aspect of Affairs — The ‘Morning Chronicle’ — Death of Lord de Ros — Precarious Position of the Government — Views of Lord John Russell — A doubtful Question — Conciliatory Conversation with Sir James Graham — Attitude of the Whig Party — Peel’s cold Reception of the Proposal — Result of the Debate — Attitude of Lord John Russell — Language of the Radical Party — Conciliation — Change of Feeling in the Country — Duke of Newcastle dismissed from the Lord Lieutenancy — Lord John Russell’s Letter — Jamaica Bill — Defeat of the Jamaica Bill — Resignation of Ministers — The Queen retains the Ladies of her Household — Conduct of the Whigs — End of the Crisis — The Truth of the Story
The Whigs retain the Government — Motives of the Queen — Decision of Ministers — Lord Brougham’s Excitement — Ministerial Explanations — State of Affairs in Parliament — Lord Brougham’s great Speech on the Crisis — Duke of Wellington’s Wisdom and Moderation — Visit of the Grand Duke Alexander — Macaulay returns to Parliament — Disappointment of the Radicals — The Radicals appeased — Visit to Holland House — Anecdotes of George Selwyn — False Position of the Whigs — Downton Castle — Payne Knight — Malvern — Troy House — Castles on the Wye — Tintern Abbey — Bath — Salisbury Cathedral — Death of Lady Flora Hastings — Violent Speech of the Duke — Conversation with the Duke of Wellington — Lord Clarendon’s début in the House of Lords — Lord Brougham attacks Lord Normanby — His fantastic Conduct — Pauper School at Norwood
Review of the Session — Ministerial Changes — Effect of Changes in the Government — A Greenwich Dinner — Dover Dinner to the Duke of Wellington — A Toast from Ovid — Decay of Tory Loyalty — Unpopularity of Government — Brougham’s Letter to the Duke of Bedford — Character of John, Duke of Bedford — Brougham at the Dover Dinner — Brougham and Macaulay — The Duke’s Decline — Duke of Wellington consulted on Indian and Spanish Affairs — Baron Brunnow arrives in England — False Reports of Lord Brougham’s Death — Insulting Speeches of the Tories — Holland House — Lord Brougham and Lord Holland — The Queen’s Marriage is announced — Remarkable Anecdote of the Duke of Wellington — The Mayor of Newport at Windsor — Ampthill — Lord John Russell’s Borough Magistrates — Lord Clarendon’s Advice to his Colleagues — Prospects of the Government — Opening of the Session — Duel of Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Horsman — Lord Lyndhurst’s View of Affairs — Prince Albert’s Household — The Privilege Question — Prince Albert’s Allowance — Precedence of Prince Albert — Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel — Judgement on the Newport Prisoners — A Vote of Want of Confidence moved — The Newport Prisoners — Prince Albert’s Precedency — Sir Robert Peel and his Party — Sir Robert Peel’s Speech and Declaration — Precedence Question — The Queen’s Marriage — Illness of the Duke of Wellington — The Precedence Question settled — The Duke opposed to Peel on the Privilege Question — Change in the Health of the Duke — Prince Albert’s Name in the Liturgy — Success of Pamphlet on Precedence — Judicial Committee Bill — Lord Dudley’s Letters — Amendment of Judicial Committee — King’s Sons born Privy Councillors, other Princes sworn — The Duke returns to London — Lord Melbourne’s Opinion on Journals
The ex-King of Westphalia — The Duke of Wellington at Court — Failure of the Duke’s Memory — Dinner at Devonshire House to Royalties — Government defeated on Irish Registration Bill — The King of Hanover’s Apartments — Rank of Foreign Ministers — The Duchess of Inverness — War with China — Murder of Lord William Russell — Duke of Wellington on the China War — Weakness of Government — Duke of Wellington’s Conduct towards the Government — The Queen shot at — Examination of the Culprit — Retrospect of Affairs — Conciliatory Policy — Advantages of a Weak Government — The Eastern Question — Lord Palmerston’s Daring and Confidence — M. Guizot and Mr. Greville — Pacific Views of Louis Philippe — M. Guizot’s Statement of the Policy of France — Growing Alarm of Ministers — Alarm of Prince Metternich — Lord John Russell disposed to resist Palmerston — History of the Eastern Negotiation — A Blunder of M. Guizot — Important Conversation with Guizot — Conflict between Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston — Energetic Resolution of Lord John — Lord Palmerston holds out — Conciliatory Proposals of France — Interview with Lord Palmerston and Lord John
The Cabinet meets — The Government on the verge of Dissolution — The Second Cabinet — Palmerston lowers his Tone in the Cabinet — But continues to bully in the Press — Taking of Beyrout — Deposition of Mehemet Ali — Lord John acquiesces — Total Defeat of Peace Party — Lord John Russell’s False Position — His Views — Lord Granville’s Dissatisfaction — Further Attempts at Conciliation — Prevarication of Lord Ponsonby — Newspaper Hostilities — Discussion of the French Note of the 8th October — Guizot’s Opinion of the Note of the 8th October — Louis Philippe’s Influence on the Crisis — Summary of Events — Death of Lord Holland — Lord Clarendon’s Regret for Lord Holland — M. Guizot’s Intentions as to France — Effects of the Queen’s Partiality for Melbourne — Resignation of Thiers — Bickerings in the Ministry — Lord John Russell’s Dissatisfaction with Lord Palmerston — Lord John resigns — Lord John demands the Recall of Lord Ponsonby — Lord Palmerston defends Lord Ponsonby — M. Guizot’s Policy — Conciliatory Propositions fail — Attitude of Austria — Asperity of Lord Palmerston — Operations in Syria — Success of Lord Palmerston and his Policy — Baron Mounier’s Mission to London — Birth of the Princess Royal — Results of the Success of Lord Palmerston’s Measures — The Tories divided in Opinion as to the Treaty — Retrospect of the Year — Lord Holland
Successes in India, China, and Syria — The Hereditary Pashalik of Egypt — Lord Palmerston’s Hostility to France — Lord Palmerston and the Tories — His extraordinary Position — A Communication from M. Guizot — Death of the Duchess of Cannizzaro — Her History — Dinner with Lady Holland — Macaulay’s Conversation — Opening of the Session — A Sheriffs’ Dinner — Hullah’s Music Lecture — Tory Successes — Duke of Wellington ill — Irish Registration Bill — Opposed by the Conservatives — Conservative Government of Ireland — Petulance of Lord Palmerston — Double Dealing of Lord Palmerston — Ill Temper of the French — M. Dedel’s account of the State of Affairs — M. Dedel’s account corrected — Termination of the Disputes with France — Bad News from China — Hostility of the United States — The Sultan’s Hatti-sherif — The Hatti-sherif disapproved by some Ministers — Peel’s Liberality — The Hatti-sherif disavowed — The Bishop of Exeter left in the lurch — Poor Law Amendment Bill — Lord Granville’s Illness — Death of Mrs. Algernon Greville — Loss of ‘The President’ — Government defeated — China Troubles — Danger of the Government
The Royal Precedency Question
A JOURNAL
OF THE
REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA
FROM 1837 TO 1852.
CHAPTER I.
The New Reign — Character of William IV. — Political Effects of the King’s Death — Candidates for Office — Lord Durham — The King’s Funeral — The Elections — The Whigs and O’Connell — First Impression of a Railroad — Lord Stanley at Knowsley — The King of Hanover — Return to London — Result of the Elections — Liberality of the Queen — Princess Lieven’s Audiences — Conservative Reaction in the Counties — The Queen and Lord Munster — State of Parties in the New Parliament — The Corn Laws — The Poor Laws — Tory-Radicals — Promise of the Queen’s Character — Her Self-Possession — Queen Victoria and Queen Adelaide — The Queen and Lord Melbourne — Mango wins the St. Leger — Racing Reflexions — Death of Lord Egremont — The Court of Victoria — Conservatism of the Whigs — Radical Discontent — Irish Policy of the Government — Mr. Disraeli’s First Speech — Lord Brougham’s Isolation — Radical Politics — Lord Melbourne and Lord Brougham — The Canada Debates — The Use of a Diary — Duke of Wellington on Canada — On his own Despatches — On the Battle of Salamanca — King Ernest in Hanover — English Manor Houses — Festivities at Belvoir Castle — Life at Belvoir — Reflexions — Beaudesert — Death of Lord Eldon.
June 25th, 1837
I remember when George IV. died, seven years ago, having been struck by the small apparent sensation that his death created. There was, however, at that time a great deal of bustle and considerable excitement, which were caused by the activity of the new Court, and the eccentricities of the King; but in the present instance the Crown has been transferred to the head of the new Queen with a tranquillity which is curious and edifying. The first interest and curiosity to see the young Queen and observe her behaviour having passed off, there appears nothing more to do or to think about; there are no changes, and there is no talk of change. Her Majesty has continued quietly at Kensington, where she transacts business with her Ministers, and everything goes on as if she had been on the throne six years instead of six days. Animated panegyrics were pronounced upon the late King in both Houses of Parliament by those who had served him; and Peel repeated in the House of Commons, in more set phrases, the expressions of his admiration of the conduct of the Queen on her first public appearance, which he uttered to me when I saw him after the Council on Tuesday. Melbourne’s funeral oration over William IV. was very effective because it was natural and hearty, and as warm as it could be without being exaggerated. He made the most of the virtues the King undoubtedly possessed, and passed lightly over his defects.
King William IV., if he had been born in a private station, would have passed unobserved through life like millions of other men, looked upon as possessing a good-natured and affectionate disposition, but without either elevation of mind or brightness of intellect. During many years of his life the Duke of Clarence was an obscure individual, without consideration, moving in a limited circle, and altogether forgotten by the great world. He resided at Bushey with Mrs. Jordan, and brought up his numerous children with very tender affection: with them, and for them, he seemed entirely to live. The cause of his separation from Mrs. Jordan has not been explained, but it probably arose from his desire to better his condition by a good marriage, and he wanted to marry Miss Wykeham, a half-crazy woman of large fortune, on whom he afterwards conferred a Peerage. George IV., I believe, put a spoke in that wheel, fortunately for the Duke as well as for the country. The death of the Princess Charlotte opened to CHARACTER OF WILLIAM IV. him a new prospect, and the lack of royal progeny made his marriage as desirable an event to the public as it was convenient to himself. The subsequent death of the Duke of York, which made him heir to the throne, at once exalted him into a personage of political importance, and when the great Tory schism took place, upon the death of Lord Liverpool, Mr. Canning thought the Duke of Clarence’s appointment to the office of Lord High Admiral would strengthen his Government, and at the same time relieve him from some of the difficulties which beset him; and he accordingly prevailed upon the King to revive the office in his person. Soon after the Duke of Wellington’s elevation he found it necessary to remove the Duke of Clarence, and it is an excellent trait in the character of the latter that, notwithstanding his vexation at the time, which was very great, he harboured no resentment against the Duke of Wellington, and never seems to have hesitated about retaining him as his Minister when he came to the throne. His exaltation (for the moment) completely turned his head, but as his situation got familiar to him he became more composed and rational, if not more dignified in his behaviour. The moral and intellectual qualities of the King, however insignificant in themselves, now became, from their unavoidable influence, an object of great interest and importance, and in the early part of his reign he acquired no small share of popularity. People liked a King whose habits presented such a striking contrast to those of his predecessor. His attention to business, his frank and good-humoured familiarity, and his general hospitality, were advantageously compared with the luxurious and selfish indolence and habits of seclusion in the society of dull and grasping favourites which characterised the former reign.
The King seemed to be more occupied with the pleasing novelty of his situation, providing for his children, and actively discharging the duties of his high function, than in giving effect to any political opinions; and he took a correct view of his constitutional obligations, for although he continued his confidence to the Duke of Wellington unabated to the last, he transferred it as entirely to Lord Grey when the Whigs came in. He went on with his second Ministry as cordially as he had done with his first, nor does it appear that he took fright at their extensive plans of reform when they were first promulgated. He was probably bit by the popularity which the Reform Bill procured him, and it was not until he had gone too far to recede with safety that he was roused from his state of measureless content and unthinking security. The roar of the mighty conflict which the Reform Bill brought on filled him with dismay, and very soon with detestation of the principles of which he had unwittingly permitted himself to be the professor and the promoter; and as these feelings and apprehensions were continually stimulated by almost all the members of his family, legitimate and illegitimate, they led him into those unavailing struggles which embroiled him with his Ministers, rendered him obnoxious to the Liberal party, compromised the dignity of the Crown and the tranquillity of the country, and grievously embittered the latter years of his life. But although King William was sometimes weak, sometimes obstinate, and miserably deficient in penetration and judgement, he was manly, sincere, honest, and straightforward. The most painful moment of his life, and the greatest humiliation to which a king ever submitted, must have been when he again received the Whig Ministers in 1835; but it is to the credit of Lord Melbourne, as well as of the King, that their subsequent personal intercourse was not disagreeable to either, and greatly to the King’s honour that he has never been accused or suspected of any underhand or indirect proceeding for the purpose of emancipating himself from a thraldom so galling. Of political dexterity and artifice he was altogether incapable, and although, if he had been false, able, and artful, he might have caused more perplexity to his Whig Government and have played a better party game, it is perhaps fortunate for the country, and certainly happy for his own reputation, that his virtues thus predominated over his talents. The most remarkable foible of the late King was his passion for speechifying, and I POLITICAL EFFECTS OF THE KING’S DEATH. have recorded some of his curious exhibitions in this way. He had considerable facility in expressing himself, but what he said was generally useless or improper. He never received the homage of a Bishop without giving him a lecture; and the custom he introduced of giving toasts and making speeches at all his dinners was more suitable to a tavern than to a palace. He was totally deficient in dignity or refinement, and neither his elevation to the throne nor his association with people of the most distinguished manners could give him any tincture of the one or the other. Though a good-natured and amiable man, he was passionate and hasty, and thus he was led into those bickerings and quarrels with the Duchess of Kent and with his own children, which were a perpetual source of discomfort or disgrace to him, and all of which might have been avoided by a more consistent course of firmness and temper on his part. His sons generally behaved to him with great insolence and ingratitude, except Adolphus. Of the daughters I know nothing.
The various political hopes, fears, and expectations which his death has raised may be very shortly summed up. Nobody can deny that it has given the Whig Government a great advantage over the Tories. Hitherto the Government have been working against the stream, inasmuch as they had the influence of the Crown running dead against them; the tide has now turned in their favour, and to a certain degree they will be able to convert the Tory principle to their own advantage. The object of the Whigs is to remain in office, to put down the Radicals and Radicalism, and go on gradually and safely reforming; above all to proceed as fast as the innumerable difficulties which impede their course will let them, in bringing Ireland into a state of quiet and contentment, and to pave the way for some definite settlement of the great questions which distract that country. This I believe to be the object of Lord Melbourne and Lord John Russell, but at the same time they have colleagues and supporters who have more extensive and less moderate views, and who would like to see the Government more cordially allied to the Radicals than it is, and who are so animated against the Tories that they would do anything to prevent their return to power.[1]
[1] [A list of Lord Melbourne’s second Administration will be found in the first part of this work, vol. iii. p. 256. It had undergone no change since 1835, except that the Great Seal, which had been put in commission, was now held by Lord Cottenham.]
The great body of the Tories, on the other hand, are thirsting for office: they are, or pretend to be, greatly alarmed at the Radical tendencies of the Government, but they are well aware that in the actual state of the House of Commons they have the power of keeping the Government in check and of defeating every Radical scheme while in opposition, but that it would be dangerous to attempt to turn them out and take their places. So far from being satisfied with this position of exceeding strength and utility, they are chafing and fuming that they can’t get in, and would encounter all the hazards of defeat for the slightest chance of victory. It is only the prudent reserve of Peel (in which Stanley and Graham probably join) that restrains the impatience of the party within moderate bounds. The Radicals are few in number, and their influence is very low; they are angry with the Government for not making greater concessions to them, but as they still think there is a better chance of their views being promoted by the Whigs remaining in, they continue to vote with them in cases of need, though there are some of them who would prefer the dissolution of the Ministry and war with a Tory Government rather than the present imperfect alliance which subsists between themselves and the Whigs. The Whigs then expect to gain by the new elections and to obtain an accession of strength to their Government. They think the popularity of a new reign, and the partial neutrality of the Tory principle, will be of material advantage to their cause. The Tories, though they maintain that they shall not lose at the elections, evidently feel that they take the field under a great disadvantage, and do not deny that the King’s death has been a heavy blow to them as a party.
June 29th, 1837
All the accounts continue to report well of LORD DURHAM. the young Queen, of her quickness, sense and discretion, and the remarkable facility with which she has slid into her high station and discharges its duties. The Duchess of Kent never appears at Kensington, where the Queen occupies a separate range of apartments, and her influence is very silently exercised, if at all. The town is rife with reports of changes and appointments, some very natural and others very absurd; all agree that the power vested in Melbourne’s hands is unbounded, and that (as far as Court appointments are concerned) he uses it with propriety. The great topic of interest is the question of Lord Hill’s removal,[2] which the Radicals and violent Whigs have been long driving at, but to which it is believed Melbourne is himself adverse. So Lord Stanley told me the other day as his belief; and when I said that though this might be so, it was doubtful how far he would be induced to fight the battle in his own Cabinet if it was mooted there, he said that from what he heard, he thought Melbourne was lord and master in his own Cabinet.
[2] [Lord Hill held the office of Commander-in-Chief from 1828 till 1842, when he resigned it.]
The eternal question in everybody’s mouth is what is Lord Durham to have, or if it is indispensable that he should have anything. When Durham left England, he was the elected chief of the Radicals, and he was paving the way to future Court favour through a strict alliance with the Duchess of Kent and Sir John Conroy. At St. Petersburg his language was always moderate; now that he is returned, the Radicals, still regarding him as their chief, look anxiously to his introduction into the Cabinet. Charles Buller, whom I met the other day, said, in reply to my asking him if Government would gain at the elections, ‘I think they will gain anyhow, but if they are wise they will gain largely.’ I said, ‘I wonder what you call being wise?’ He said, ‘Take in Lord Durham.’ But they want Durham to be taken in as a pledge of the disposition of the Government to adopt their principles,[3] whereas Melbourne will receive him upon no such terms; and if Durham takes office, he must subscribe to the moderate principles upon which both Melbourne and John Russell seem disposed to act. After all, it appears to me that a mighty fuss is made about Durham without any sufficient reason, that his political influence is small, his power less, and that it is a matter of great indifference whether he is in office or out.
[3] After this was written, a letter of Durham’s appeared couched in vague but conservative language, and without any allusion to the Ballot or the Radical desiderata.
July 9th, 1837
Yesterday I went to the late King’s funeral, who was buried with just the same ceremonial as his predecessor this time seven years. It is a wretched mockery after all, and if I were king, the first thing I would do should be to provide for being committed to the earth with more decency and less pomp. A host of persons of all ranks and stations were congregated, who ‘loitered through the lofty halls,’ chattering and laughing, and with nothing of woe about them but the garb. I saw two men in an animated conversation, and one laughing heartily at the very foot of the coffin as it was lying in state. The chamber of death in which the body lay, all hung with black and adorned with scutcheons and every sort of funereal finery, was like a scene in a play, and as we passed through it and looked at the scaffolding and rough work behind, it was just like going behind the scenes of a theatre. A soldier’s funeral, which I met in the morning—the plain coffin slowly borne along by his comrades, with the cap and helmet and sword of the dead placed upon it—was more impressive, more decent, more affecting than all this pomp with pasteboard crowns, and heralds scampering about, while idleness and indifference were gazing or gossiping round about the royal remains. I would rather be quietly consigned to the grave by a few who cared for me (if any such there might be) than be the object of all this parade and extravagance. The procession moving slowly through close ranks of Horse and Foot Guards holding tapers and torches in their hands, whilst at intervals the bands played a dead march, had, however, a very imposing effect. The service was intolerably long and tedious, and THE ELECTIONS. miserably read by the Dean of Windsor. The Queen Dowager, with the King’s daughters and her ladies, were in the Royal Closet, and the FitzClarences in the one adjoining. At twelve o’clock she was to depart for Bushey, and a bitter moment it must have been when she quitted for ever the Castle where she had spent seven years of prosperous and happy splendour.
We continue to hear of the young Queen’s admirable behaviour, but all other subjects are swallowed up in the interest of the approaching elections. There will be more contests than ever were known, and it is amusing to see both parties endeavouring to avail themselves of the Queen’s name, the Tories affecting to consider her as a prisoner in the hands of the Whigs, and the Whigs boasting of the cordiality and warmth of her sentiments in their favour. The Whigs have the best of this, as they have some evidence to show in support of their assertions, and the probability really is that she is well enough contented with them, as they naturally take care she should be. Of the probable changes, one of the most important is the defeat of Sir James Graham in Cumberland, an event which the Whigs hail with extreme satisfaction, for they hate him rancorously. I am under personal obligations to Graham, and therefore regret that this feeling exists; but it is not unnatural, and his political conduct is certainly neither creditable nor consistent. He is now little better than a Tory, a very high Churchman, and one of the least liberal of the Conservative leaders. In Lord Grey’s Government he was one of the most violent, and for going to greater lengths than the majority of his colleagues. When the Reform Bill was concocted by a committee consisting of John Russell, Duncannon, Durham, and Graham, Graham earnestly advocated the Ballot, and Lord Durham says he has in his possession many letters of Graham’s, in which he presses for a larger measure of reform than they actually brought forward. In his address he says he has not changed, and talks of ‘having belonged to the Whig Government before they had made the compact by which they are now bound to O’Connell.’ Tavistock[4] said to me yesterday that this was too bad, because he knew very well that the only understanding the Government had with O’Connell was one of mutual support in the Irish elections, the same which existed when he was in office; and, moreover, that at that time the majority of the Cabinet (Graham included) wanted to confer office upon O’Connell, and that they were only induced to forego that design by the remonstrances of Lord Lansdowne and the Duke of Richmond, who insisted upon a further probation before they did so. O’Connell got nothing, and soon after took to agitating and making violent speeches. This exasperated Lord Grey, who, in his turn, denounced him in the King’s Speech, and hence that feud between O’Connell and the Whigs, which was only terminated by the attempt of the Tories to retake office in 1835. This led to the imperfect alliance between them, half denied by the Whigs, which exposed the Government to as much obloquy as if they had concluded an open and avowed alliance with him, and perhaps to greater inconvenience. It was a great blunder not securing O’Connell in the first instance, and certainly a curious thing that such men as Lord Lansdowne, and still more the Duke of Richmond, should have influenced so important a matter and have overborne the opinions of the whole Cabinet. After all this, it is not extraordinary that his old associates should be disgusted at seeing Graham become a Tory champion, and at hearing him more bitter against them than any man on the Opposition benches. The Tories, on the other hand, rejoice in him, and his bigotry about all Church matters cancels in their minds all his former Liberalism in that and every other respect.
[4] [Francis, Marquis of Tavistock, afterwards seventh Duke of Bedford; born 12th May 1788, died 14th May 1861. He was one of Mr. Greville’s most intimate friends. They agreed in the main in politics, and had a common amusement—the turf. Lord Tavistock preferred a life of retirement, and he refused office, but he kept up an enormous correspondence with the leading statesmen of the day. He was consulted by them on all occasions, and not infrequently by the Queen, and he exercised a considerable, though inostensible, influence on public affairs.]
Knowsley, July 18th, 1837
Tired of doing nothing in London, FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF A RAILROAD. and of hearing about the Queen, and the elections, I resolved to vary the scene and run down here to see the Birmingham railroad, Liverpool, and Liverpool races. So I started at five o’clock on Sunday evening, got to Birmingham at half-past five on Monday morning, and got upon the railroad at half-past seven. Nothing can be more comfortable than the vehicle in which I was put, a sort of chariot with two places, and there is nothing disagreeable about it but the occasional whiffs of stinking air which it is impossible to exclude altogether. The first sensation is a slight degree of nervousness and a feeling of being run away with, but a sense of security soon supervenes, and the velocity is delightful. Town after town, one park and château after another are left behind with the rapid variety of a moving panorama, and the continual bustle and animation of the changes and stoppages make the journey very entertaining. The train was very long, and heads were continually popping out of the several carriages, attracted by well-known voices, and then came the greetings and exclamations of surprise, the ‘Where are you going?’ and ‘How on earth came you here?’ Considering the novelty of its establishment, there is very little embarrassment, and it certainly renders all other travelling irksome and tedious by comparison. It was peculiarly gay at this time, because there was so much going on. There were all sorts of people going to Liverpool races, barristers to the assizes, and candidates to their several elections. The day was so wet that I could not see the town of Liverpool.
This is a very large place, the house immense, with no good room in it but the dining room. The country is generally flat, but there are fine trees and thriving plantations, so that it is altogether sufficiently enjoyable. It is a strange thing to see Stanley here; he is certainly the most natural character I ever saw; he seems never to think of throwing a veil over any part of himself; it is this straightforward energy which makes him so considerable a person as he is. In London he is one of the great political leaders, and the second orator in the House of Commons, and here he is a lively rattling sportsman, apparently devoted to racing and rabbit-shooting, gay, boisterous, almost rustic in his manners, without refinement, and if one did not know what his powers are and what his position is, it would be next to impossible to believe that the Stanley of Knowsley could be the Stanley of the House of Commons.
Just before I left London, the Proclamation of the King of Hanover appeared, by which he threw over the new Constitution. Lyndhurst told me of it, before I had seen it, with many expressions of disappointment, and complaining of his folly and of the bad effect it would produce here. The Government papers have taken it up, though rather clumsily, for the purpose of connecting this violent measure with the Tory party; but it is a great folly in the Opposition, and in the journals belonging to them, not to reject at once and peremptorily all connexion with the King of Hanover, and all participation in, or approbation of, his measures. Lyndhurst told me that the King had all along protested against this Constitution, and refused to sign or be a party to it; that he contended it was illegal, inasmuch as the States by which it had been enacted had been illegally convoked; that he was able to do what he has done by his independence in point of finance, having a great revenue from Crown lands. The late King was very anxious to give this up, and to have a Civil List instead; but when this was proposed, the Duke of Cumberland exerted his influence successfully to defeat the project, and it was accordingly thrown out in the Senate (I think the Senate) by a small majority. Though we have nothing to do with Hanover, this violence will, no doubt, render him still more odious here than he was before, and it would be an awful thing if the Crown were, by any accident, to devolve upon him. The late King’s desire to effect this change affords an indisputable proof of the sincerity of his constitutional principles, and it is no small praise that he was satisfied with a constitutional sovereignty, and did not hanker after despotic power.
July 25th, 1837
I remained at Knowsley till Saturday morning, when I went to Liverpool, got into the train at half-past eleven, and at five minutes after four arrived at RESULT OF THE ELECTIONS. Birmingham with an exact punctuality which is rendered easy by the great reserved power of acceleration, the pace at which we travelled being moderate and not above one half the speed at which they do occasionally go; one engineer went at the rate of forty-five miles an hour, but the Company turned him off for doing so. I went to Kenilworth, and saw the ruins of Leicester’s Castle, and thence to Warwick to see the Castle there, with both of which I was very much delighted, and got to town on Sunday to find myself in the midst of all the interest of the elections, and the sanguine and confident assertions and expectations of both parties. The first great trial of strength was in the City yesterday; and though Grote beat Palmer at last, and after a severe struggle, by a very small majority, it is so far consolatory to the Conservative interest that it shows a prodigious change since the last general election, when the Conservative candidate was 2,000 behind his opponents.
July 28th, 1837
The borough elections in England, as far as they have gone, and they are nearly over, have disappointed the Government, who expected to gain in them.[5] The contests have been numerous, often very close, and in some instances very costly. Norwich, won with the greatest difficulty by Lord Douro and Scarlett, is said to have cost 50,000ℓ. A compromise was offered at Yarmouth and at Norwich, but the parties could not come to terms, and the result has been the same as if it had taken place—two Tories in one place and two Whigs in the other. There have been a vast number of changes, and, as always happens, results very different from what were expected in particular places. The balance is slightly in favour of the Tories, but the best sign of the times is the defeat of the Radicals in various places. Grote nearly beaten in the City, and probably will be turned out on a scrutiny;[6] Roebuck and Palmer were defeated at Bath, Ewart at Liverpool, Wigney at Brighton, Thompson at Hull. It was clear enough before from the Conservative language which was put into the Queen’s mouth by her Ministers, and by that which they held themselves, that it was the only tone which would be palatable to the country, and the event of the elections confirms this impression. This is, after all, the essential point, to which the gains of either party are entirely subordinate. If the Government keeps together without internal dissensions, and nothing particular occurs to produce a change, these Ministers cannot well be turned out, because, though their majority is small, they have the undoubted support of the House of Commons, and in my opinion they will be all the stronger from the Radicals being so reduced in numbers, as those who remain must support them, and cannot expect any concessions in return. It is quite impossible to doubt that there is in the country a strong Conservative reaction, and it is the more valuable from not being more strongly pronounced. It is great enough to prove that our institutions are safe, but not great enough to bring the Tories back into power and to turn their heads, ready as they always are to be puffed up with every returning gale of success. The Tories have made one good exchange in the article of whippers-in, for they have got Planta and Holmes instead of Bonham and Ross.
[5] [It was found that the Liberals replaced by Tories amounted to 66, and the Tories replaced by Liberals to 53. The Government therefore lost 13 seats in the boroughs.]
[6] [Mr. Grote was returned by a majority of only six, but he was not turned out.]
Everything that could be said in praise of the Queen, of her manners, conduct, conversation, and character, having been exhausted, we now hear no more of her. It is an interesting speculation to conjecture how soon she will begin to think and to act for herself upon higher matters, as she has at once done on all minor points connected with her domestic arrangements. It is generally believed that she is perfectly independent of any influence in these things, and while in all political concerns she has put herself implicitly in Melbourne’s hands, in all others she is her own mistress. From the beginning she resolved to have nothing to do with Sir John Conroy, but to reward him liberally for his services to her mother. She began by making him a baronet, and she has given him a pension of 3,000ℓ. a year; but he has PRINCESS LIEVEN’S AUDIENCES. never once been invited to the Palace, or distinguished by the slightest mark of personal favour, so that nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the magnitude of the pecuniary bounty and the complete personal disregard of which he is the object. The Queen has been extremely kind and civil to the Queen Dowager, but she has taken no notice of the King’s children, good, bad, or indifferent. Lord Munster asked for an audience to deliver up the keys of the Castle which he had, and was very graciously received by her, but she did not give him back the keys. Adolphus FitzClarence has lost his Lordship of the Bedchamber, but then they only retained Peers, and he keeps the command of the Royal yacht. He has had no intimation whether his pension and his Rangership of Windsor Park are to be continued to him. [In the end, however, they retained everything, and the Queen behaved with equal liberality and kindness towards them all.]
July 29th, 1837
The loss of Leeds, news which arrived last night, is a great blow to the Tories, and the only important Radical triumph that has occurred. George Byng[7] told me yesterday that all the applications from the country for candidates sent to the Reform Club desired that Whigs and not Radicals might be supplied to them, which affords an additional proof of the decline of Radical opinions. He owned that they are disappointed at the result of the borough contests, having lost many places when they had no idea there was any danger.
[7] [The Hon. George Byng, born 8th June 1806; succeeded his father the Earl of Stafford, 3rd June 1860.]
July 30th, 1837
Madame de Lieven told me yesterday that she had an audience of the Queen, who was very civil and gracious, but timid and embarrassed, and talked of nothing but commonplaces. Her Majesty had probably been told that the Princess was an intrigante, and was afraid of committing herself. She had afterwards an interview with the Duchess of Kent, who (she told me) it was plain to see is overwhelmed with vexation and disappointment. Her daughter behaves to her with kindness and attention but has rendered herself quite independent of the Duchess, who painfully feels her own insignificance. The almost contemptuous way in which Conroy has been dismissed must be a bitter mortification to her. The Duchess said to Madame de Lieven, ‘qu’il n’y avait plus d’avenir pour elle, qu’elle n’était plus rien;’ that for eighteen years this child had been the sole object of her life, of all her thoughts and hopes, and now she was taken from her, and there was an end of all for which she had lived heretofore. Madame de Lieven said that she ought to be the happiest of human beings, to see the elevation of this child, her prodigious success, and the praise and admiration of which she was universally the object; that it was a triumph and a glory which ought to be sufficient for her—to which she only shook her head with a melancholy smile, and gave her to understand that all this would not do, and that the accomplishment of her wishes had only made her to the last degree unhappy. King William is revenged, he little anticipated how or by what instrumentality, and if his ghost is an ill-natured and vindictive shade, it may rejoice in the sight of this bitter disappointment of his enemy. In the midst of all her propriety of manner and conduct, the young Queen begins to exhibit slight signs of a peremptory disposition, and it is impossible not to suspect that, as she gains confidence, and as her character begins to develope, she will evince a strong will of her own. In all trifling matters connected with her Court and her palace, she already enacts the part of Queen and mistress as if it had long been familiar to her.
August 8th, 1837
At Goodwood since this day week till Saturday, when I went to Petworth;—to town yesterday. The county elections have produced an endless succession of triumphs to the Conservatives, of which the greatest was that over Hume in Middlesex. The Whigs are equally astonished and dismayed at this result, for they had not a notion of being bowled down as they have been one after another. If the others had known their own strength, they might have done a great deal more; Bingham Baring[8] could CONSERVATIVE REACTION. have brought in another man with him for Staffordshire; Henry Windham could have won Sussex had he chosen it, and was very near being brought in without his own consent, and against the wishes of Lord Egremont, who, having renounced politics, could not endure the idea of his son being member for the county. Had Lord Egremont lifted up his finger, Windham would have come in. The most extraordinary of all these elections is that of Bingham Baring. He could not stand again with any chance of success for Winchester, and he went with 5,000ℓ. in his pocket to Stafford, from time immemorial a corrupt borough; there he was beat, and he was about to return after spending about one half of his cash, when Lord Sandon pressed him to allow himself to be proposed for Staffordshire, asserting that nothing was requisite but a candidate, so much stronger was the Conservative feeling in the county than people were aware of. Without much hope of success, his family having never resided in the county, though his father has some property in it, and being personally unknown to the electors, he consented to stand, and, though he had no committee, and nothing was previously organised or arranged, he was carried by a prodigious majority to the head of the poll. The elections in which the Conservatives have failed have, nevertheless, exhibited a vast change in the public mind, for they have generally been very severe contests, and in Yorkshire, with nearly twice the constituency that there was at the last election, John Wortley was within a few hundreds of his opponents, when on the former occasion he was in a miserable minority.
[8] [William Bingham Baring, afterwards second Baron Ashburton, born June 1799, died March 1864. He sat for North Staffordshire in this Parliament.]
Lord Munster has got back his keys of the Round Tower. Melbourne found out that the place was held for life, and he sent for Munster, and told him he had been hasty in disposing of it, that it was his own doing and not the Queen’s, who had acted entirely by his advice, and that in his situation it was impossible for him to do otherwise than bestow any vacant appointment upon a person connected with his own party, but that he was extremely glad in the present instance to find that he was not at liberty to deprive Munster of the office. Munster afterwards saw the Queen, who was exceedingly gracious, and told him she was very glad to restore the keys to him. The Queen and Melbourne appear to have both evinced kindness and good feeling on this occasion.
August 25th, 1837
Nothing of any moment has occurred for some time past, and all the world has been occupied with the elections as long as they lasted. After much disputing between the two parties as to the actual result, it appears by an impartial examination of the returns that the Ministers will have a majority of 30, and possibly a little more. As the Government members always attend better than their opponents, the working majority will probably be usually greater than this. The Conservatives are exceedingly triumphant at the result, and not without reason. The English counties have made a very important demonstration in their favour; they have not lost in the towns, and the Radicals have been almost everywhere defeated. This latter circumstance is exceedingly satisfactory, but the Radicals themselves do not admit that this election affords any proof that their principles are on the decline throughout the country. There cannot, however, be a doubt that questions of organic change are not at present in any degree of public favour. Charles Villiers, one of the Radicals with whom I sometimes converse, insists upon it that the Ballot has made great progress, but he also declares that, if carried, it would prove a Conservative measure, and that better men would be chosen. He predicts, however, with greater appearance of reason, that the question of the Corn Laws will, before long, become of paramount interest and importance, and I am induced to think that the next great struggle that takes place will be for their repeal.
The Tories behaved exceedingly ill in one respect during the late contest, and that was in availing themselves as much as possible of the cry that has been raised against the Poor Law. No measure of the Whig Government deserved greater credit than this, or obtained so much unqualified TORY OPPOSITION TO THE POOR LAW. praise and general support. Inasmuch as the Tories are the largest landed proprietors, they are the greatest gainers by the new system, and if a Tory Government should be in power at the period of the expiration of the Act, they will not hesitate to renew it. Nevertheless when they found that some odium was excited in various parts of the country against the new Poor Law and its administration, many of them did not scruple to foment the popular discontent, and all watched its progress with satisfaction when they saw that it was exclusively directed against their political antagonists. It has been remarked with truth, that Peel has observed an almost invariable silence upon this head. During the discussion of the Bill he seldom took any part; never opposed it; but, if appealed to, expressed his acquiescence by silent nods. Of late, when a great clamour has been raised against the Act, and language bordering on sedition has been used, he has never said a word in favour of the system, which it would have been more generous, manly, and honourable to do than to cover himself with a cautious and mysterious reserve on so important a subject. The Duke of Wellington took part in the original measure very frankly; but at the end of last year, when Lord Stanhope got up a discussion in the House of Lords on the subject, though appealed to by Lord Tavistock, the Duke would not say a word. This was not like him, for with reference to mere party tactics, it is to his praise that he is generally ‘too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.’ It is this behaviour of the Tories which has shown me that there may be such a thing as a ‘Tory-Radical;’ for though I had heard the appellation, I thought they were contradictory terms which did not admit of a conjunction. A Tory-Radical is, however, a politician who for Tory party purposes endeavours to influence the minds of the people against the laws and their administration, not because he thinks those laws either ill-contrived or ill-executed, but because he thinks that the consequences of such popular discontent will fall upon his opponents, and that he can render the angry feeling instrumental to his own selfish or ambitious designs.
August 30th, 1837
All that I hear of the young Queen leads to the conclusion that she will some day play a conspicuous part, and that she has a great deal of character. It is clear enough that she had long been silently preparing herself, and had been prepared by those about her (and very properly) for the situation to which she was destined. The impressions she has made continue to be favourable, and particularly upon Melbourne, who has a thousand times greater opportunities of knowing what her disposition and her capacity are than any other person, and who is not a man to be easily captivated or dazzled by any superficial accomplishments or mere graces of manner, or even by personal favour. Melbourne thinks highly of her sense, discretion, and good feeling; but what seem to distinguish her above everything are caution and prudence, the former to a degree which is almost unnatural in one so young, and unpleasing, because it suppresses the youthful impulses which are so graceful and attractive.
On the morning of the King’s death, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham arrived at Kensington at five o’clock, and immediately desired to see ‘the Queen.’ They were ushered into an apartment, and in a few minutes the door opened and she came in wrapped in a dressing-gown and with slippers on her naked feet. Conyngham in a few words told her their errand, and as soon as he uttered the words ‘Your Majesty,’ she instantly put out her hand to him, intimating that he was to kiss hands before he proceeded. He dropped on one knee, kissed her hand, and then went on to tell her of the late King’s death. She presented her hand to the Archbishop, who likewise kissed it, and when he had done so, addressed to her a sort of pastoral charge, which she received graciously and then retired. She lost no time in giving notice to Conroy of her intentions with regard to him; she saw him, and desired him to name the reward he expected for his services to her parents. He asked for the Red Riband, an Irish peerage, and a pension of 3,000ℓ. a year. She replied that the two first rested with her Ministers, and she could not engage for them, but that the THE QUEEN’S SELF-POSSESSION. pension he should have. It is not easy to ascertain the exact cause of her antipathy to him, but it has probably grown with her growth, and results from divers causes. The person in the world she loves best is the Baroness Lehzen, and Lehzen and Conroy were enemies. There was formerly a Baroness Spaeth at Kensington, lady-in-waiting to the Duchess, and Lehzen and Spaeth were intimate friends. Conroy quarrelled with the latter and got her dismissed, and this Lehzen never forgave. She may have instilled into the Princess a dislike and bad opinion of Conroy, and the evidence of these sentiments, which probably escaped neither the Duchess nor him, may have influenced their conduct towards her, for strange as it is, there is good reason to believe that she thinks she has been ill-used by both of them for some years past.[9] Her manner to the Duchess is, however, irreproachable, and they appear to be on cordial and affectionate terms. Madame de Lehzen is the only person who is constantly with her. When any of the Ministers come to see her, the Baroness retires at one door as they enter at the other, and the audience over she returns to the Queen. It has been remarked that when applications are made to Her Majesty, she seldom or never gives an immediate answer, but says she will consider of it, and it is supposed that she does this because she consults Melbourne about everything, and waits to have her answer suggested by him. He says, however, that such is her habit even with him, and that when he talks to her upon any subject upon which an opinion is expected from her, she tells him she will think it over, and let him know her sentiments the next day.
[9] [The Queen, in a letter to her uncle, King Leopold, published with Her Majesty’s sanction, speaks significantly of what she terms ‘my sad childhood.’]
The day she went down to visit the Queen Dowager at Windsor, to Melbourne’s great surprise she said to him that as the flag on the Round Tower was half-mast high, and they might perhaps think it necessary to elevate it upon her arrival, it would be better to send orders beforehand not to do so. He had never thought of the flag, or knew anything about it, but it showed her knowledge of forms and her attention to trifles. Her manner to the Queen was extremely kind and affectionate, and they were both greatly affected at meeting. The Queen Dowager said to her that the only favour she had to ask of her was to provide for the retirement, with their pensions, of the personal attendants of the late King, Whiting and Bachelor, who had likewise been the attendants of George IV.; to which she replied that it should be attended to, but she could not give any promise on the subject.
She is upon terms of the greatest cordiality with Lord Melbourne, and very naturally. Everything is new and delightful to her. She is surrounded with the most exciting and interesting enjoyments; her occupations, her pleasures, her business, her Court, all present an unceasing round of gratifications. With all her prudence and discretion she has great animal spirits, and enters into the magnificent novelties of her position with the zest and curiosity of a child.
No man is more formed to ingratiate himself with her than Melbourne. He treats her with unbounded consideration and respect, he consults her tastes and her wishes, and he puts her at her ease by his frank and natural manners, while he amuses her by the quaint, queer, epigrammatic turn of his mind, and his varied knowledge upon all subjects. It is not therefore surprising that she should be well content with her present Government, and that during the progress of the elections she should have testified great interest in the success of the Whig candidates. Her reliance upon Melbourne’s advice extends at present to subjects quite beside his constitutional functions, for the other day somebody asked her permission to dedicate some novel to her, when she said she did not like to grant the permission without knowing the contents of the work, and she desired Melbourne to read the book and let her know if it was fit that she should accept the dedication. Melbourne read the first volume, but found it so dull that he would not read any more, and sent her word that she had better refuse, which she accordingly did. She MANGO WINS THE ST. LEGER. seems to be liberal, but at the same time prudent with regard to money, for when the Queen Dowager proposed to her to take her band into her service, she declined to incur so great an expense without further consideration, but one of the first things she spoke to Melbourne about was the payment of her father’s debts, which she is resolved to discharge.
October 23rd, 1837
Since August 30th, nearly two months, I have written not a line, for I have had nothing to record of public or general interest, and have felt an invincible repugnance to write about myself or my own proceedings. Having nothing else to talk of, however, I shall write my own history of the last seven weeks, which is very interesting to me inasmuch as it has been very profitable. Having asked George Bentinck to try my horse ‘Mango’ before Doncaster, we went down together one night to Winchester race-course and saw him tried. He won the trial and we resolved to back him. This we accomplished more successfully than we expected, and ten days after he won the St. Leger, and I won about 9,000ℓ. upon it, the first great piece of good fortune that ever happened to me. Since Doncaster, I have continued (up to this time) to win at Newmarket, so that my affairs are in a flourishing condition, but, notwithstanding these successes, I am dissatisfied and disquieted in my mind, and my life is spent in the alternations of excitement from the amusement and speculation of the turf and of remorse and shame at the pursuit itself. One day I resolve to extricate myself entirely from the whole concern, to sell all my horses, and pursue other occupations and objects of interest, and then these resolutions wax faint, and I again find myself buying fresh animals, entering into fresh speculations, and just as deeply engaged as ever. It is the force of habit, a still unconquered propensity to the sport, and a nervous apprehension that if I do give it up, I may find no subject of equal interest.
November 14th, 1837
Yesterday morning I heard of the death of Lord Egremont, who died after a week’s illness of his old complaint, an inflammation in the trachea, being within a month of eighty-six years old.[10] He was a remarkable man, and his death will be more felt within the sphere of his influence (and that extended over the whole county of Sussex) than any individual’s ever was. He was immensely rich and his munificence was equal to his wealth. No man probably ever gave away so much money in promoting charitable institutions or useful undertakings, and in pensioning, assisting, and supporting his numerous relations and dependants. His understanding was excellent, his mind highly cultivated, and he retained all his faculties, even his memory, unimpaired to the last. He was remarkably acute, shrewd, and observant, and in his manner blunt without rudeness, and caustic without bitterness. Though he had for some years withdrawn himself from the world, he took an eager interest and curiosity in all that was passing in it, and though not mixed up in politics, and sedulously keeping aloof from all party conflicts, he did not fail to think deeply and express himself strongly upon the important questions and events of the times. In his political principles and opinions he was anti-Liberal, and latterly an alarmist as well as a Conservative. He had always opposed Catholic Emancipation, which it is difficult to account for in a man so sagacious and benevolent, except from the force of prejudices early instilled into a mind of tenacious grasp which was not exposed to the changeful influence of worldly commerce and communication. It is probable that Lord Egremont might have acted a conspicuous part in politics if he had chosen to embark on that stormy sea, and upon the rare occasions when he spoke in the House of Lords, he delivered himself with great energy and effect; but his temper, disposition, and tastes were altogether incompatible with the trammels of office or the restraints of party connexions, and he preferred to revel unshackled in all the enjoyments of private life, both physical and intellectual, which an enormous fortune, a vigorous constitution, and literary habits placed in abundant variety before him. But in the system of CHARACTER OF LORD EGREMONT. happiness which he marked out for himself, the happiness of others formed a large and essential ingredient; nor did old age, as it stole upon him with gradual and insensible steps, dull the brightness of his intellect or chill the warmth of his heart. His mind was always intent upon providing for the pleasure or the benefit of those around him, and there was nothing in which he so keenly delighted as the rural festivals with which he celebrated his own birthday, when thousands of the surrounding villagers were assembled in his park to eat, drink and be merry. He was passionately fond of children, and animals of every description found favour in his sight. Lord Egremont was a distinguished patron of artists, and it was rarely that Petworth was unvisited by some painter or sculptor, many of whom he kept in almost continual employment, and by whom his loss will be severely felt. He was extremely hospitable, and Petworth was open to all his friends, and to all their friends if they chose to bring them, provided they did not interfere with his habits or require any personal attention at his hands: from any such obligation he considered that his age and infirmities released him. He received his guests with the utmost urbanity and courtesy, did the honours of his table, and in every other respect left them free to abide as long as they pleased, but to amuse themselves as they could. Petworth was consequently like a great inn. Everybody came when they thought fit, and departed without notice or leave-taking. He liked to have people there who he was certain would not put him out of his way, especially those who, entering into his eccentric habits, were ready for the snatches of talk which his perpetual locomotion alone admitted of, and from whom he could gather information about passing events; but it was necessary to conform to his peculiarities, and these were utterly incompatible with conversation or any prolonged discussion. He never remained for five minutes in the same place, and was continually oscillating between the library and his bedroom, or wandering about the enormous house in all directions; sometimes he broke off in the middle of a conversation on some subject which appeared to interest him and disappeared, and an hour after, on a casual meeting, would resume it just where he had left off. But this habitual restlessness, which was so fatal to conversation, served perhaps to exhibit the vivacity of his mind and its shrewd and epigrammatic turn in a more remarkable manner: few persons visited Petworth without being struck with astonishment at the unimpaired vigour of his intellectual powers. To have lived to a great age in the practice of beneficence and the dispensation of happiness, and to die without bodily suffering or mental decay, in the enjoyment of existence up to the instant of its close, affords an example of human prosperity, both in life and in death, which has fallen to the lot of few, but which may well excite the envy and admiration of all.[11]
[10] [See for descent of Lord Egremont, p. 337, vol. ii. of the First Part of Mr. Greville’s Journals.]
[11] The substance of this character of the Earl of Egremont was inserted in the Times newspaper of Saturday, 18th November 1837.
November 3rd, 1837
At Court yesterday when the Queen received the Address of the Commons. She conducts herself with surprising dignity: the dignity which proceeds from self-possession and deliberation. The smallness of her stature is quite forgotten in the majesty and gracefulness of her demeanour.
The Session has opened merrily with an angry squabble between Lord John Russell and the Radicals, at which the Tories greatly rejoice. Upon the Address, Wakley and others thought fit to introduce the topic of the Ballot and other reforms, upon which John Russell spoke out and declared he would never be a party to the Ballot, and would not reform the Reform Bill. They were indignant, and attacked him in no measured terms. The next night Charles Buller returned to the charge with equal violence, when Lord John made (by the agreement of all parties) an incomparable speech vindicating his own consistency, explaining his motives for making the declaration which he did the first night, and repelling with great dignity the charges with which he was assailed.[12] Of course opinions vary as to the RADICAL DISCONTENT. expediency and propriety of his conduct on this occasion, but I do not see that he could have acted otherwise, and it is much more manly, straightforward, and honourable to declare at once what his sentiments and intentions are than to endeavour to evade the subject for a time, and to raise hopes and expectations which he has no design of realising, and which, whenever he does declare himself, as eventually he must, would only excite the bitterer disappointment and resentment. However, whether he acted wisely or not, the immediate effect has been to enrage the Radical section of his party exceedingly, and those who want the Government to be turned out fondly hope that this split among them will bring about the consummation. This is not probable, for angry as they may be, they will still prefer Melbourne to Peel, and O’Connell (who is all moderation) will throw Ireland into the scale and entreat them for Ireland’s sake to lay aside their resentment. Such questions as the Ballot can only be carried by the desire for them gaining ground largely throughout the country, and this many assert to be the case. At this moment it is pretty clear that the people care very little about speculative questions, and want only peace and tranquillity. It is also said that there is a growing anti-Catholic and anti-Irish spirit which the Conservatives do their best to excite and extend. It would be a curious speculation, supposing both these influences to operate widely, to anticipate the result of their action upon the great antagonist parties in the country, and see which would gain most by a coalition of Radical and sectarian principles. A state of things might by possibility arise when they would act as mutual checks.
[12] [It was to this debate that Mr. Disraeli referred in his maiden speech, delivered a few days later, when he spoke of the ‘passion and recrimination of the noble Tityrus of the Treasury Bench and the learned Daphne of Liskeard,’ and added that ‘these amantium iræ had resulted in an amoris redintegratio.’ The orator was laughed down before he concluded the sentence.]
[The Editor of these Journals may here be permitted to say, that it was at this time that his acquaintance with Mr. Greville began, as he was appointed to an office in the Privy Council on November 17, 1837. This acquaintance speedily ripened into confidential friendship, which was uninterrupted for a single day in the course of the next eight-and-twenty years. Indeed Mr. Greville’s kind offices to his young acquaintance began immediately; for the appointment of Mr. Reeve having been attacked with great bitterness by Lord Brougham, who was then extremely hostile to every department of the Government, Mr. Greville exerted himself with his usual energy to defend it.
It may not be out of place, though it is out of date, to insert here, as a memorial of this long friendship, a note written to the Editor of these Journals by Mr. Greville, on May 6, 1859, when he had just resigned the office of Clerk of the Council. It is in the following terms:—
My dear R.,—I will not delay to thank you warmly for your kind note. Your accession to the Privy Council Office gave me a friendship which I need not say how much I have valued through so many years of happy intercourse, which I rejoice at thinking has never been clouded or interrupted and which, I hope, will last the same as long as I last myself. It is always painful to do anything for the last time, and I cannot without emotion take leave of an office where I have experienced for so many years so much kindness, consideration, and goodwill; but I hope still to be considered as amicus curiæ and to be applied to on every occasion when I can be of use to the Office. Between you and me there has been, I think, as much as possible between any two people the ‘idem velle, idem nolle, et idem sentire de republicâ,’ and, in consequence, the ‘firma amicitia.’
God bless you, and believe me always
Yours most sincerely and faithfully,
C.C.G.]
November 26th, 1837
It is still a matter of general discussion and speculation whether Lord John Russell’s bold declaration will have the effect of breaking up the Government by disgusting the Radicals to such a degree as to make them in spite withdraw their aid on some important occasion. Those gentry are still very irate and sulky, but I do not expect they will connive at the overthrow of the Government; they know better than to open the doors of office to the Tories. Lord Brougham has taken the field with a violent COMMITTEE ON THE PENSION LIST. Radical speech, and he seized an occasion to set his tongue wagging against the Chancellor; in short he seems bent on mischief. He has written word to Lord Granville that he would not be gagged this Session; he will be glad to lead anybody who will be led by him; and as the post of general of the Radicals appears to be vacant, he may aspire to that. His actual position as contrasted with his vast abilities is indeed calculated to ‘point a moral.’
December 8th, 1837
The notion of a break-up of the Government has gradually faded away, and though the Radicals have not forgiven John Russell for his speech, they appear to have no intention of altering their conduct towards the Government, and some concessions have already been made partly for the purpose of mollifying them. Government have given up the Pension List, and it is believed that the Ballot is to be made an open question. This will be considered more than an equivalent for the discouraging effect of John Russell’s speech. Peel and the Tories oppose the Committee on the Pensions,[13] but it is remarkable that on the Civil List Committee the other day, when Rice proposed that 75,000ℓ. should be granted for pensions, and Grote moved to suspend the grant till after the Pensions Committee had reported, Peel and his people (Goulburn, Harding, Fremantle, &c.) supported Grote, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in a minority of one. This too was an accident, for Francis Baring was absent from the division on account of the following circumstance. In a speech in the House of Lords the night before on the Post Office, Lord Lichfield[14] had attacked Mr. Wallace with great severity, and immediately after Wallace sent him a message which was tantamount to a challenge. Alvanley was employed to settle the quarrel, which he did, but it became necessary to instruct Baring to say something on the subject in the House of Commons, where Wallace was going to allude to it. Alvanley detained Baring so long that he was too late for the division in the Committee; had he been there and made the numbers even, Rice, as chairman, must have given the casting vote for or against his own proposition, either of which would have been very awkward, but it is not very clear why Peel voted as he did.
[13] [The Chancellor of the Exchequer moved for a Select Committee to inquire how far pensions granted under the Acts of the last reign, and charged on the Civil List or the Consolidated Fund, ought to be continued. The motion was carried by 293 to 233 votes.]
[14] [The Earl of Lichfield was Postmaster General.]
Lord Roden brought on the Irish question in the House of Lords, when Mulgrave[15] made a very triumphant vindication of himself and utterly discomfited the Orangemen. The Duke of Wellington made a very clever speech, and availed himself of the contradictory returns of crimes and convictions skilfully enough, but he had the candour to give Mulgrave ample credit for the vigour with which he had caused the law to be enforced, and, as for months past the Orangemen had been clamouring against the Irish Government for neglecting to enforce the law and for depriving Protestants of its protection, it was a very magnanimous admission on the Duke’s part, and such a one as few of his political opponents would have made. It is the peculiar merit of the Duke that he is never disposed to sacrifice truth for a party purpose, and it is this manliness and straightforwardness, this superiority to selfish considerations and temporary ends, which render him the object of universal respect and admiration, and will hereafter surround his political character with unfading honour. Not content with the defeat which they sustained in the House of Lords, the Orangemen had the folly to provoke another contest in the House of Commons, and Colonel Verner brought forward ‘the Battle of the Diamond,’ giving Morpeth an opportunity of another triumph as signal as Mulgrave’s in the House of Lords. The Irish Orangemen were left to their fate on this occasion, for none of their English associates came to their relief.
[15] [Constantine Henry, second Earl of Mulgrave, created in the following year Marquis of Normanby. He was at this time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Morpeth was Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant.]
Mr. Disraeli made his first exhibition the other night, MR. DISRAELI’S FIRST SPEECH. beginning with florid assurance, speedily degenerating into ludicrous absurdity, and being at last put down with inextinguishable shouts of laughter.[16]
[16] [Mr. Disraeli’s first speech was made on the motion with reference to what was called ‘the Spottiswoode Gang.’ An association had been formed in London for the purpose of collecting money to test the validity of the Irish elections wholesale. Mr. Spottiswoode, one of the Queen’s printers, was the president of this association, which was denounced by the Radicals and the Irish Members as ‘the Spottiswoode Gang,’ and attacked in Parliament by Mr. Blewitt, who moved five resolutions condemning the institution of the Spottiswoode fund. Lord John Russell, however, discouraged the attack, on the ground that the number of election petitions in the present year was not such as to warrant any extraordinary measures in regard to them. Mr. Blewitt withdrew four of his resolutions and left the House without moving the fifth. Solvuntur risu tabulæ.]
The new House of Commons does not promise to be a more business-like or more decorous assembly than its immediate predecessor. Already two whole nights have been consumed in the discussion of two topics so unprofitable as ‘the Battle of the Diamond’ and ‘the Spottiswoode Gang,’ and it is said that such a scene of disorder and such a beargarden never was beheld. The noise and confusion are so great that the proceedings can hardly be heard or understood, and it was from something growing out of this confusion and uproar that the Speaker thought it necessary to address the House last night and complain that he no longer enjoyed its confidence, and if he saw any future indication that such was the case he should resign the Chair. His declaration was taken very quietly, for nobody said a word.
Brougham made a great speech on education the other night, but it was so long, tedious, and digressive that he drove everybody away. He is in a very bitter state of mind, scarcely speaking to any of his former friends and colleagues, and having acquired no new friends of any party. He courts the Radicals, and writes letters and makes speeches directly at variance with all his former professions and opinions; but the Radicals, though they do not object to make use of him, will by no means trust him.
I asked Charles Buller if they would have Lord Brougham for their leader, and he said ‘certainly not,’ and added that ‘Durham had done nothing as yet to forfeit their confidence.’ He enlightened me at the same time about his own Radical opinions and views and the extent of them, together with those of the more moderate of his party, complaining that they were misrepresented and misunderstood; although for the Ballot and extension of the suffrage, he is opposed to reform of the House of Lords or any measure directly affecting the Constitution. He does not admit that the measures he advocates do affect the Constitution directly or indirectly.[17] I told him if he repudiated the violent maxims of Molesworth and others, he should not let these ultra-Radicals be the organs of the party, as the world did not and could not distinguish between them, especially as the Moderates took no steps to clear themselves and establish juster notions of the character and tendency of their principles. He did not deny this, but they dread an appearance of disunion; so, as always happens when this is the case, the most exalted and exaggerated of the party, who will not be silenced and are reckless of consequences, take the lead and keep it.
[17] [It cannot fail to strike the reader that all the measures which were regarded as the tests of Radicalism in 1837 have long since been carried, and have now the general assent of the nation.]
December 12th, 1837
On the debate about Pensions the other night Whittle Harvey outdid himself; by all accounts it was inimitable, dramatic to the greatest degree, and acted to perfection. Peel was heavy, Stanley very smart, the Ministers were beaten hollow in the argument, but got a respectable division, of which they make the most; but it proves nothing as to their real strength, which has not yet been tested. John Russell made a wretched speech, being obliged to vote in the teeth of his former opinions and conduct.
December 14th, 1837
There was a grand breeze in the House of Lords the night before last between Melbourne and Brougham. The latter is said to have been in a towering passion, and he vociferated and gesticulated with might and main. Jonathan Peel was in the Lobby, and being attracted by the noise, ran to the House, and found Brougham not only on his legs, but on tip-toes in the middle of his indignant LORD BROUGHAM AND LORD MELBOURNE. rejoinder. Melbourne’s attack upon him seemed hardly called for, but I heard he had declared he would not much longer endure the continual twittings and punchings that Brougham every day dealt out to some one or other of the Ministers. The Chancellor, Lord Lansdowne, and Glenelg, had all suffered in their turns, and so when Brougham taunted him with his courtly habits, he could not restrain himself, and retorted savagely though not very well. What he said was nothing but a tu quoque, and only remarkable for the bitter tone in which it was uttered and the sort of reproach it conveyed. Probably Melbourne thought it as well to put an end at once to the half hostile, half amicable state of their mutual relations, to their ‘noble friendship,’ and real enmity, and to bring matters to a crisis, otherwise he might have had some indulgence for his old friend and colleague, have made allowance for the workings of deep disappointment and mortification on his excitable temperament, and have treated him with forbearance out of reverence for his rare acquirements and capacity. But the fact is, that Brougham has ostentatiously proclaimed the dissolution of all his former ties, and has declared war against all his ancient connexions; he has abandoned his friends and his principles together, and has enrolled himself in a Radical fellowship which would have been the object of his scorn and detestation in his calmer moods and in more prosperous days.
Le Marchant, who was his secretary for four years, and knows him well, told me that no man was a greater aristocrat in his heart than Brougham, from conviction attached to aristocracy, from taste desirous of being one of its members. He said that Dugald Stewart, when talking of his pupils, had said though he envied most the understanding of Horner (whom he loved with peculiar affection), he considered Brougham the ablest man he had ever known, but that even then (forty years ago) he considered his to be a mind that was continually oscillating on the verge of insanity. Le Marchant said that Brougham’s powers of application exceeded what he had believed possible of any human being. He had known him work incessantly from nine in the morning till one at night, and at the end be as fresh apparently as when he began. He could turn from one subject to another with surprising facility and promptitude, in the same day travelling through the details of a Chancery cause, writing a philosophical or mathematical treatise, correcting articles for the ‘Library of Useful Knowledge,’ and preparing a great speech for the House of Lords. When one thinks of the greatness of his genius and the depth of his fall, from the loftiest summit of influence, power, and fame to the lowest abyss of political degradation, in spite of the faults and the follies of his character and conduct, one cannot help feeling regret and compassion at the sight of such a noble wreck and of so much glory obscured.
December 24th, 1837
News of the insurrection in Canada arrived the day before yesterday, and produced a debate of some animation in the House of Commons, in which the Radicals principally figured, making speeches of such exceeding violence that it was only justifiable to pass them over, because those who uttered them are not worth notice. Gladstone spoke very well, and Lord John Russell closed the discussion with an excellent speech just such as a Minister ought to make, manly, temperate, and constitutional. He is a marvellous little man, always equal to the occasion, afraid of nobody, fixed in his principles, clear in his ideas, collected in his manner, and bold and straightforward in his disposition. He invariably speaks well when a good speech is required from him, and this is upon every important question, for he gets no assistance from any of his colleagues, except now and then from Howick. This is a fine occasion for attacking the Government and placing them between two fires, for the Radicals abuse them for their tyrannical and despotic treatment of the Canadians, and the Tories attribute the rebellion to their culpable leniency and futile attempts at conciliation by concessions which never ought to have been made, and only were made out of complaisance to the Radicals here. As generally happens when there are THE INSURRECTION IN CANADA. charges of an opposite nature, and incompatible with one another, neither of them is true.
Since Brougham and Melbourne’s set-to in the House of Lords, the former has been speaking every day and entering a protest about every other day. He is in a state of permanent activity, and means to lead such of the Radicals as will enlist under his ragged banner. He was quite furious about the Civil List, and evidently means to outbid everybody for popularity. He goes on belabouring and ‘befriending’ the Government Lords, but the effect he produces (if any) is out of doors, for he usually wastes his rhetoric on empty benches.
The Queen went to the House yesterday without producing any sensation. There was the usual crowd to look at the finery of carriages, horses, Guards, &c., but not a hat raised nor a voice heard: the people of England seem inclined to hurrah no more.
December 30th, 1837
Since the receipt of Colborne’s despatches,[18] the alarm about Canada has subsided, and if Ministers had been aware that matters were no worse, probably Parliament would have had longer holidays. Nobody doubts that the insurrection will be easily put down, but the difficulty will be how to settle matters afterwards. It does not appear that this Government has been more to blame than any other, for the same system seems to have been pursued by all. They might indeed have adopted decisive measures at an earlier period, and as soon as they found that the Assembly was invincibly obstinate and deaf to the voice of reason, they ought to have put an end to the humiliating contest by an assertion of Imperial power. All that can be said is, that they tried the conciliatory power too long.
[18] [Sir John Colborne was Lieutenant-Governor of Canada at the time the insurrection broke out, and the suppression of it was mainly due to the vigorous measures taken by him on the spot. For these services he was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Seaton. He died in 1863 at the age of eighty-four.]
Burghley, January 2nd, 1838
Among other changes of habit, it has occurred to me why should not I begin the New Year by keeping a regular diary? What I do write are merely fragments of memoirs with passing events briefly alluded to, and the odds and ends collected from different sources recorded and commented on. It is not the first time I have had thoughts of keeping a more regular journal, in which not only my doings should be noted down and my goings, but which would also preserve some record of my thoughts and feelings, if ever indeed I really do think and feel. The reason I have never done anything of this sort is partly that I have been too idle, and the result partly of modesty and partly of vanity. A journal to be good, true, and interesting, should be written without the slightest reference to publication, but without any fear of it; it should be the transcript of a mind which can bear transcribing. I do not in sincerity believe that my mind, or thoughts, or actions, are of sufficient importance or interest to make it worth while (for the sake of others) to take this trouble. I always contemplate the possibility that hereafter my journal will be read by the public, always greedy of such things, and I regard with alarm and dislike the notion of its containing a heap of twaddle and trash concerning matters appertaining to myself which nobody else will care three straws about. If therefore I discard these scruples and do what I meditate (and very likely after all I shall not, or only for a very short time), the next thing is, Why? It seems exceedingly ridiculous to say that one strong stimulus proceeds from reading Scott’s Diary—which he began very late in life and in consequence of reading Byron’s—not because I fancy I can write a diary as amusing as Scott’s or Byron’s, but because I am struck by the excessive pleasure which Scott appeared to derive from writing his journal, and I am (and this is the principal cause) struck with the important use to which the habit may be turned. The habit of recording is first of all likely to generate a desire to have something of some interest to record; it will lead to habits of reflexion and to trains of thought, the pursuit of which may be pleasing and profitable; it will exercise the memory and sharpen the understanding THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AT BURLEIGH. generally; and though the thoughts may not be very profound, nor the remarks very lively or ingenious, nor the narrative of exceeding interest, still the exercise is, I think, calculated to make the writer wiser, and perhaps better. If I do this I shall read over all I write long before anyone else will have an opportunity of doing so, and I am not likely to be over-indulgent if I find myself a bore.
Yesterday morning I left town, slept at Newmarket, saw the horses, rode out on the Warren Hill, and came here to dinner, where I find twenty-two people—the Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen, the Salisburys, Wiltons, and a mob of fine people; very miserable representatives of old Lord Burleigh, the two insignificant-looking Marquesses, who are his lineal descendants, and who display no more of his brains than they do of his beard. The Duke of Wellington is in great force, talked last night of Canada, and said he thought the first operations had been a failure, and he judged so because the troops could neither take the rebel chief, nor hold their ground, nor return by any other road than that by which they came; that if Colborne could hold Montreal during the winter it would do very well, but he was not sure that he would be able to do so; that the Government ought to exhibit to the world their determination to put this revolt down, and that to do so they must seal the St. Lawrence[19] so as to prevent the ingress of foreigners, who would flock to Canada for employment against us; that the Queen could not blockade her own ports, so that they must apply to Parliament for power to effect this, and they ought to bring in a Bill forthwith for the purpose. This morning he got a letter (from a man he did not know) enclosing the latest news, which he thought very good, and promising better and more decisive results. After breakfast they went shooting.
[19] The Duke expressed no such opinion in either of his speeches on Canada (February 4th).
I walked out and joined the Duke, who talked to me for I dare say an hour and a half about his Spanish campaigns, and most interesting it was. I told him that the other day Allen[20] had asked me to find somebody, a military man, to review the Wellington Despatches in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ and that he had suggested Sir George Murray as the fittest person if he would undertake it; that I had accordingly spoken to Fitzroy Somerset, who had agreed to apply to Murray; and, if Murray would not do it, I begged him to turn in his mind what officer could be found equal to such a task, and I then asked the Duke if he knew of anybody. He seemed amazingly pleased at the idea, said he knew nobody, but Murray was the fittest man. From this he began to talk, and told me a great deal of various matters, which I wish I could have taken down as it fell from his lips. I was amused at the simplicity with which he talked of the great interest of these Despatches, just as he might have done if they had been the work of any other man; said he had read them himself with considerable astonishment and great interest, and that everybody might see that there was not one word in them that was not strictly and literally true. He said of his generals, ‘that in the beginning they none of them knew anything of the matter, that he was obliged to go from division to division and look to everything himself down to the minutest details.’ I said, ‘What on earth would have happened if anything had befallen you?’ He laughed and said, ‘I really do not know. There was a great deal of correspondence about my successor at the time Sir Thomas Graham went home.[21] I was against having any second in command, which was quite useless, as nobody could share the responsibility with me. However, afterwards Graham came back, and then there was Hope next to him.’ He said, ‘Hill had invariably done well, always exactly obeyed my orders, and executed THE BATTLE OF SALAMANCA. them successfully.’ The fall of Badajoz was a great blow to him, but he did not know that it was by an act of treachery. The Spanish Government perhaps did not believe that he was approaching to relieve the place, but it was a most curious fact, that whereas it was agreed that the Spanish army should march out over the breach with the honours of war, they were obliged, after the capitulation, to make a breach for them to go over, none having been made by the besiegers. The General, with whom he finds much fault (in the ninth volume) for disobeying his orders and making false movements, was Victor Allen, but he said he treated him with great leniency, and so he did his officers on all occasions, and was as forbearing and indulgent with them as it was possible to be.
[20] [Mr. Allen, an accomplished literary inmate of Holland House, the author of a work on the ‘Royal Prerogative,’ and himself an occasional contributor to the ‘Edinburgh Review.’]
[21] [The intention of the Government was that if any accident befell the Duke of Wellington, General Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch, should take the command of the British forces in Spain. This appears from the Memoir of Lord Lynedoch, published in 1880, by Captain Alexander Delavoye.]
All the movements and operations before the battle of Salamanca were to the last degree interesting. The Duke was anxiously waiting for some advantageous occasion to attack Marmont, and at last it arrived; he saw it happen, and took his resolution on the spot. He was dining in a farm-yard with his officers, where (when he had done dinner) everybody else came and dined as they could. The whole French army was in sight, moving, and the enemy firing upon the farmyard in which he was dining. ‘I got up,’ he said, ‘and was looking over a wall round the farm-yard, just such a wall as that’ (pointing to a low stone wall bounding the covert), ‘and I saw the movement of the French left through my glass. “By God,” said I, “that will do, and I’ll attack them directly.” I had moved up the Sixth Division through Salamanca, which the French were not aware of, and I ordered them to attack, and the whole line to advance. I had got my army so completely in hand that I could do this with ease, and in forty minutes the battle was won—‘quarante mille hommes battus en quarante minutes.’ I asked him if it was true that he and Marmont had subsequently talked over the event of the battle, and that Marmont had asserted that his orders had been disobeyed, or that this movement of which the Duke took advantage would not have been made. He said he believed there had been some conversation on the subject, and that Marmont had said he was wounded before this movement took place; he said he did not know if this was true, but it might be, as there had been continual fighting for some time previous. I asked him why Bonaparte had not himself come to Spain to attack him; and if he had with a great force, whether he would have driven him out. He replied that he thought Napoleon had satisfied himself that it would be a work of great difficulty, and what was more, of great length, and he had no mind to embark in it; and that the French certainly would not have driven him out: he should have taken up some position, and have been enabled to baffle the Emperor himself just as he had done his marshals. He thinks that Napoleon’s military system compelled him to employ his armies in war, when they invariably lived upon the resources of the countries they occupied, and that France could not have maintained them, as she must have done if he had made peace: peace, therefore, would have brought about (through the army itself) his downfall. He traces the whole military system of France from its first organisation during the Reign of Terror, in a letter in the tenth volume of the Despatches. I asked him how he reconciled what he had said of the extraordinary discipline of the French army with their unsparing and habitual plunder of the country, and he said that though they plundered in the most remorseless way, there was order and discipline in their plundering, and while they took from the inhabitants everything they could lay their hands upon, it was done in the way of requisition, and that they plundered for the army and not for themselves individually, but they were reduced to great shifts for food. At the battle of Fuentes d’Onor he saw the French soldiers carry off horses that were killed to be cooked and eaten in another part of the field. ‘I saw particularly with my own eyes one horse put upon a cart drawn by two bullocks (they could not afford to kill the bullocks), and drawn off; and I desired a man to watch where the cart went, and it was taken to another French division for the horse to be eaten. Now we never were reduced to eat horseflesh.’ I remarked that he alluded in A PARTY AT BELVOIR CASTLE. one of his letters to his having been once very nearly taken, and he said it was just before the battle of Talavera in consequence of some troops giving way. He was on a ruined tower from which he was obliged to leap down; and if he had not been young and active, as he was in those days, he should certainly have been taken.
He talked a great deal of the Spanish character, unchanged to this day; of the vast difficulties he had had to contend with from both Spanish and Portuguese Governments, the latter as bad as the former; of their punctilios and regard to form and ceremony. ‘At the time of the battle of the Pyrenees[22] I had occasion to send O’Donnel to advance, and he was mightily affronted because he did not receive the order by an officer from head-quarters. I was living under hedges and ditches, and had not been to head-quarters for several days, and so I told him, but that he should have an order if he pleased in the proper form.’ I asked him if it was not then that he found the troops in full retreat. He said they were beginning to retreat when he arrived, ‘then they threw up their caps and made a most brilliant affair of it.’
[22] [This expression occurs more than once in these Journals. No battle is known in history as the ‘battle of the Pyrenees,’ but the expression doubtless relates to the actions which were fought in the Pyrenees, after Soult took the command of the French army in July 1814.]
It is impossible to convey an idea of the zest, eagerness, frankness, and abundance with which he talked, and told of his campaigns, or how interesting it was to hear him. He expressed himself very warmly about Hill, of all his generals, and said, ‘When I gave him my memorandum about Canada the other day I said, Why it looks as if we were at our old trade again.’ He added that he ‘always gave his opinion when it was required on any subject.’
Belvoir Castle, January 4th, 1838
Came here yesterday, all the party (almost) migrating, and many others coming from various parts to keep the Duke of Rutland’s birthday. We are nearly forty at dinner, but it is no use enumerating the people. Last night the Duke of Wellington talked of Hanover, said he really did not know much of the matter; that neither William IV. nor George IV. had ever talked to him on the subject or he must have made himself acquainted with it; that the Duke of Cumberland had written him word that he had never had any notion of adopting the measures he has since done till he was going over in the packet with Billy Holmes.[23] The Duke wrote him word that he knew nothing of his case, and the only advice he could give him was to let the affair be settled as speedily as possible. When the late King had evidently only a few days to live, the Duke of Cumberland consulted the Duke as to what he should do. ‘I told him the best thing he could do was to go away as fast as he could: Go instantly,’ I said, ‘and take care that you don’t get pelted.’ The Duke, Aberdeen, and FitzGerald all condemned his proceedings without reference to their justice or to his legal and constitutional right as regards Hanover, but on account of the impression (no matter right or wrong) which they are calculated to produce in this country, where it ought to be a paramount interest with him to preserve or acquire as good a character as he can. They all declared that Lyndhurst was equally ignorant with themselves of his views and intentions, with which in fact the Conservatives had no sort of concern. The Duke also advised him not to take the oaths as Privy Councillor, or those of a Peer in the House of Lords, because he thought it would do him an injury in the eyes of his new subjects, that he, a King, should swear fealty as her subject to the Queen as his Sovereign; but somebody else (he thought the Duke of Buckingham) overruled this advice, and he had himself a fancy to take the oaths.
[23] [The first act of Ernest, King of Hanover, on his accession, was to suspend the Hanoverian Constitution, and to prosecute the liberal Professors of Göttingen.]
To-day we[24] went to see the house Mr. Gregory is building, five miles from here. He is a gentleman of about 12,000ℓ. a year, who has a fancy to build a magnificent MR. GREGORY’S HOUSE AND ESTATE. house in the Elizabethan style, and he is now in the middle of his work, all the shell being finished except one wing. Nothing can be more perfect than it is, both as to the architecture and the ornaments; but it stands on the slope of a hill upon a deep clay soil, with no park around it, very little wood, and scarcely any fine trees. Many years ago, when he first conceived this design, he began to amass money and lived for no other object. He travelled into all parts of Europe collecting objects of curiosity, useful or ornamental, for his projected palace, and he did not begin to build until he had accumulated money enough to complete his design. The grandeur of it is such, and such the tardiness of its progress, that it is about as much as he will do to live till its completion; and as he is not married, has no children, and dislikes the heir on whom his property is entailed, it is the means and not the end to which he looks for gratification. He says that it is his amusement, as hunting or shooting or feasting may be the objects of other people; and as the pursuit leads him into all parts of the world, and to mix with every variety of nation and character, besides engendering tastes pregnant with instruction and curious research, it is not irrational, although he should never inhabit his house, and may be toiling and saving for the benefit of persons he cares nothing about. The cottages round Harlaxton are worth seeing. It has been his fancy to build a whole village in all sorts of strange fantastic styles. There are Dutch and Swiss cottages, every variety of old English, and heaps of nondescript things, which appear only to have been built for variety’s sake. The effect is extremely pretty. Close to the village is an old manor house, the most perfect specimen I ever saw of such a building, the habitation of an English country gentleman of former times, and there were a buff jerkin and a pair of jack boots hanging up in the hall, which the stout old Cavalier of the seventeenth century (and one feels sure that the owner of that house was a Cavalier) had very likely worn at Marston Moor or Naseby.
[24] The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Salisbury, Lord Exeter, Lord Wilton, Lady Adeliza Manners, Lords Aberdeen, FitzGerald, J. Manners, and myself.
To-day (the cook told me) nearly four hundred people will dine in the Castle. We all went into the servants’ hall, where one hundred and forty-five retainers had just done dinner and were drinking the Duke’s health, singing and speechifying with vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never knew before that oratory had got down into the servants’ hall, but learned that it is the custom for those to whom ‘the gift of the gab’ has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian brows are adorned with an ample flaxen wig, which is the peculiar distinction of the functionaries of the whip. I should like to bring the surly Radical here who scowls and snarls at ‘the selfish aristocracy who have no sympathies with the people,’ and when he has seen these hundreds feasting in the Castle, and heard their loud shouts of joy and congratulation, and then visited the villages around, and listened to the bells chiming all about the vale, say whether ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ would be promoted by the destruction of all the feudality which belongs inseparably to this scene, and by the substitution of some abstract political rights for all the beef and ale and music and dancing with which they are made merry and glad even for so brief a space. The Duke of Rutland is as selfish a man as any of his class—that is, he never does what he does not like, and spends his whole life in a round of such pleasures as suit his taste, but he is neither a foolish nor a bad man, and partly from a sense of duty, partly from inclination, he devotes time and labour to the interest and welfare of the people who live and labour on his estate. He is a Guardian of a very large Union, and he not only attends regularly the meetings of Poor Law Guardians every week or fortnight, and takes an active part in their proceedings, but he visits those paupers who receive out-of-door relief, sits and converses with them, invites them to complain to him if they have anything to complain of, and tells them that he is not only their friend but their representative at the assembly of Guardians, and it is his duty to LIFE AT BELVOIR. see that they are nourished and protected. To my mind there is more ‘sympathy’ in this than in railing at the rich and rendering the poor discontented, weaning them from their habitual attachments and respects, and teaching them that the political quacks and adventurers who flatter and cajole them are their only real friends.
We had a great ball last night, opened by the Duke of Rutland and Duchess of Sutherland, who had to sail down at least a hundred couple of tenants, shopkeepers, valets, and abigails. The Duke of Newcastle gave the Duke’s health at dinner instead of the Duke of Wellington, who generally discharges that office. He made a boggling business of it, but apologised in sufficiently handsome terms for being spokesman instead of the Duke of Wellington. The Duke of Rutland made a very respectable speech in reply, and it all went off swimmingly. To-day I went to see the hounds throw off; but though a hunter was offered to me would not ride him, because there is no use in risking the hurt or ridicule of a fall for one day. A man who goes out in this casual way and hurts himself looks as foolish as an amateur soldier who gets wounded in a battle in which he is tempted by curiosity to mingle. So I rode with the mob, saw a great deal of galloping about and the hounds conveniently running over hills and vales all in sight, and then came home. They said a thousand people were out, many attracted by the expectation of the Duke of Wellington’s appearing, but he was rheumatic and could not come out. He is incessantly employed in writing military statements and memoranda, having been consulted by the Government, or probably by Lord Hill on behalf of the Government, both on this Canadian question, and on the general government of the army, and he will take as much pains to give useful advice to Melbourne’s Government as if he and Peel were in office. There never was a man who so entirely sank all party considerations in national objects, and he has had the glory of living to hear this universally acknowledged. Brougham said of him, ‘That man’s first object is to serve his country, with a sword if necessary, or with a pick-axe.’ He also said of the Duke’s Despatches, ‘They will be remembered when I and others (mentioning some of the most eminent men) will be forgotten.’ Aberdeen told the Duke this, and he replied with the greatest simplicity, ‘It is very true: when I read them I was myself astonished, and I can’t think how the devil I could have written them.’ This is very characteristic, very curious from a man who has not one grain of conceit in his disposition; but really great men are equally free from undue vanity or affected modesty, and know very well the value of what they do.
Last night I sat next to Lord FitzGerald at dinner, who said that if ever his memoirs appeared (he did not say that any existed) they would contain many curious things, and among them the proofs that the events which were supposed to have been the proximate cause of the Catholic question being carried were not the real cause, and that the resolution of the Duke of Wellington is traceable to other sources, which he could not reveal.
Melton, January 7th, 1838 (Lord Wilton’s house)
I came here to-day from Belvoir. Last night the Duke of Wellington narrated the battle of Toulouse and other Peninsular recollections. All the room collected round him, listening with eager curiosity, but I was playing at whist and lost it all. FitzGerald said to me that he had a great mind to write upon Ireland, and make a statement of the conduct of England towards Ireland for ages past; that he had mentioned his idea to Peel, who had replied, ‘Well, and if you do, I am not the man to object to your doing so.’ This he meant as a trait of his fairness and candour; but the fact is that it is Peel’s interest that all Irish questions should be settled, and he would rejoice at anything which tended to accelerate a settlement, and I am no great believer in his fairness. I was struck with a great admiration for Peel during his hundred days’ struggle, when he made a gallant fight; but this has very much cooled since that time.
FitzGerald said one thing in conversation with me of which I painfully felt the truth, that an addiction to worthless or useless pursuits did an irretrievable injury to the REFLEXIONS. mental faculties. It is not only the actual time wasted which might have been turned to good account; the slender store of knowledge acquired on all subjects instead of the accumulation which there might have been; but, more than these, the relaxation of the mental powers till they become incapable of vigorous exertion or sustained effort:—
Quoniam medio de fonte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat:
Aut quum conscius ipse animus se forte remordet
Desidiose agere ætatem, lustrisque perire.
Or, as Dryden nobly translates it—
For in the fountain where these sweets are sought
Some bitter bubbles up, and poisons all the draught.
First guilty conscience does the mirror bring,
Then sharp remorse shoots out the angry sting,
And anxious thoughts, within themselves at strife,
Upbraid the long misspent, luxurious life.
I feel myself a miserable example of this species of injury, both as relates to the defects and omissions of my early education and the evil of my subsequent habits. From never having studied hard at any time, no solid foundation of knowledge has ever been laid, my subsequent reading has been desultory and very nearly useless. I have attacked various subjects as I have been prompted thereto by curiosity, or vanity, or shame, but I have never mastered any of them, and the information I have obtained has been like a house built without a foundation, which the first gust of wind would blow down and scatter abroad. Really to master a subject, we should begin at the beginning, storing the memory with consecutive facts, reasoning and reflecting upon them as we go along, till the whole subject is digested, comprehended, made manageable and producible at will; but then, for this process, the mind must be disciplined, and there must be a power of attention undiverted, and of continuous application; but if the eyes travel over the pages of a book, while the mind is far away upon Newmarket Heath, and nothing but broken fragments of attention are bestowed upon the subject before you, whatever it may be, the result can only be useless imperfect information, crude and superficial ideas, constant shame, and frequent disappointment and mortification. Nothing on earth can make up for the valuable time which I have lost, or enable me to obtain that sort of knowledge, or give me those habits which are only to be acquired early in life, when the memory is fresh and vigorous, and the faculties are both lively and pliant; but that is no reason why I should abandon the design of improvement in despair, for it is never too late to mend, and a great deal may yet be done.
Beaudesert,[25] January 12th, 1838
On Monday went to Sutton; nobody there but Mr. Hodgson, formerly my tutor at Eton, the friend of Byron, author of a translation of Juvenal—a clever, not an agreeable man. The house at Sutton is unfinished, but handsome enough. Came here on Wednesday; a magnificent place indeed, and very comfortable house. A good many people, nobody remarkable; very idle life. Read in the newspaper that Colburn gave Lady Charlotte Bury 1,000ℓ. for the wretched catchpenny trash called ‘Memoirs of the Time of George IV.,’ which might well set all the world what Scott calls ‘gurnelising,’ for nobody could by possibility compile or compose anything more vile or despicable. Since I came here, a world of fine thoughts came into my head which I intended to immortalise in these pages; but they have all evaporated like the baseless fabric of a vision.
[25] [The seat of the Marquess of Anglesey near Burton-on-Trent.]
Beaudesert, January 17th, 1838
To Sandon on Monday, and returned here yesterday; go away to-morrow. It has been a dreadfully idle life all day long, facendo niente, incessant gossip and dawdle, poor, unprofitable talk, and no rational employment. Brougham was here a little while ago for a week. He, Lord Wellesley, and Lord Anglesey form a discontented triumvirate, and are knit together by the common bond of a sense of ill-usage and of merit neglected. Wellesley and Anglesey are not Radicals, however, and blame Brougham’s new tendency that way. Anglesey and DEATH OF LORD ELDON. Wellesley both hate and affect to despise the Duke of Wellington,[26] in which Brougham does not join. They are all suffering under mortified vanity and thwarted ambition, and after playing their several parts, not without success and applause, they have not the judgement to see and feel that they forfeit irretrievably the lustre of their former fame by such a poor and discreditable termination of their career. Douro is here, une lune bien pâle auprès de son père, but far from a dull man, and not deficient in information.
[26] Lord Wellesley became good friends with his brother before his death, and Anglesey has long been the Duke’s enthusiastic admirer and most attached and devoted comrade.—1850.
Badminton, January 23rd, 1838
The debate in the Lords the other night was very interesting and creditable to the assembly.[27] Brougham delivered a tremendous philippic of three hours. The Duke of Wellington made a very noble speech, just such as it befitted him to make at such a moment, and of course it bitterly mortified and provoked the Tories, who would have had him make a party question of it, and thought of nothing but abusing, vilifying, and embarrassing the Government. This was what Peel showed every disposition to do in the House of Commons, where he made a poor, paltry half-attack, which was much more to the taste of his party than the Duke’s temperate and candid declaration.
[27] [Parliament reassembled on the 16th January. This debate was on the Address to the Queen on the Canadian Rebellion. A Bill was at once brought in to give extended powers to Lord Durham, who was sent out as Governor General. Mr. Roebuck, as the Agent for Canada, was heard against the Bill at the bar of both Houses. The Bill passed, but Lord Durham soon exceeded his powers under it.]
Lord Eldon died last week full of years and wealth. He had for some time past quitted the political stage, but his name was still venerated by the dregs of that party to whom consistent bigotry and intolerance are dear. Like his more brilliant brother, Lord Stowell, he was the artificer of his own fortune, and few men ever ran a course of more unchequered prosperity. As a politician, he appears to have been consistent throughout, and to have offered a determined and uniform opposition to every measure of a Liberal description. He knew of no principles but those (if they merit the name of principles) of the narrowest Toryism and of High Church, and as soon as more enlarged and enlightened views began to obtain ascendency, he quitted (and for ever) public life. I suppose he was a very great lawyer, but he was certainly a contemptible statesman. He was a very cheerful, good-natured old man, loving to talk, and telling anecdotes with considerable humour and point. I remember very often during the many tedious hours the Prince Regent kept the Lords of the Council waiting at Carlton House, that the Chancellor used to beguile the time with amusing stories of his early professional life, and anecdotes of celebrated lawyers, which he told extremely well. He lived long enough to see the overthrow of the system of which he had been one of the most strenuous supporters, the triumph of all the principles which he dreaded and abhorred, and the elevation of all the men to whom, through life, he had been most adverse, both personally and politically. He little expected in 1820, when he was presiding at Queen Caroline’s trial, that he should live to see her Attorney-General on the Woolsack, and her Solicitor-General Chief Justice of England.
CHAPTER II.
Debates on the Canada Bill — Moderation of the Duke of Wellington — State of Canada — Lord Durham’s Position — Weakness of the Government — Parallel of Hannibal and the Duke of Wellington — The Ballot — Lord Brougham on the Ballot — Position of the Government — Policy of Sir Robert Peel — Death of Mr. Creevey — Knighthood of General Evans — Lord Brougham’s Conversation — A Skirmish in the House of Commons — Defeat of Government — Skirmish in the House of Lords — Annoyance of Peel at these Proceedings — Brougham’s Anti-Slavery Speech — Opposition Tactics — Brougham on the Coolie Trade — Ministerial Success — Sir Robert Peel’s Tactics — Composition of Parties — A Dinner at Buckingham Palace — Men of Science — The Lord Mayor at a Council — The Queen at a Levée — The Guiana Apprentices — Small v. Attwood reversed — Character of the Queen — Wilkie’s Picture of the ‘First Council’ — Small v. Attwood — Immediate Emancipation — Birthday Reflexions — Lord Charles Fitzroy turned out — Vote on Lord Durham’s Expenses — Lord Durham’s Irritation — Wolff the Missionary — Newmarket — The Coronation — Lord Brougham’s Reviews.
London, January 28th, 1838
I came to town on Wednesday night, and have been laid up with the gout ever since. Found all things prepared for a fight in the House of Commons on Thursday, upon Peel’s two amendments to the Canada Bill. The Tories had mustered in large force, and the Irishmen had not arrived, so that there was a very good chance of the Government being beaten. In this emergency Edward Ellice made a very convenient and dexterous speech, in which he begged Lord John Russell, for the sake of unanimity, to give way. Lord John said he would consult his colleagues and give an answer the next day. It was clear enough what he would do, and accordingly he came down the next day, and amidst shouts of triumph, and what was intended for ridicule from the Tory mob, announced his intention to accept both amendments. Peel next fell upon the Instructions to Durham, which he treated very scornfully, and predicted that they would be compelled to withdraw them. The Tories were in high dudgeon with the Duke at his speech in the House of Lords, which they showed in a sort of undergrowl and with rueful faces, for they stand in awe of the great man, and don’t dare openly to remonstrate with him or blame his actions. There is no doubt that his speech was essentially serviceable to the Government, and upset one of the most promising topics of its opponents. Francis Egerton came up from the Carlton Club to his own home after it, and said with deep melancholy that ‘the Duke had floored the coach,’ and he described the consternation and mortification which were prevalent throughout that patriotic and disinterested society. They were in consequence the more anxious to urge on Peel to make an attack of some sort upon the Ministers in the House of Commons, and he gratified them by moving these amendments, and vilipending the Instructions.[1] It may be questionable whether it was right to attack the Government upon the details of their measures when no difference exists between the opposite parties as to the principle; but granting that it was, he acted with great skill as a party tactician. He was certainly right upon every point. The Bill will be improved by his alterations, and it was equally unnecessary and ill-judged to lay the Instructions on the table of the House. The result has been a very clamorous triumph on the part of the Tories, and a somewhat unlucky exposure of themselves by the Government; as one of their own friends (in office) acknowledged to me to-day, they have had ‘to eat humble pie.’
[1] [Lord John Russell adopted amendments proposed by Sir R. Peel by striking out of the preamble of the Bill the words recognising Lord Durham’s council of advice and the clause empowering the Queen to suspend the Act by Order in Council.]
February 5th, 1838
Another debate in the House of Lords on Friday, and a good one, which will probably finish the Canadian discussion. Upon this occasion Brougham fired off another fierce philippic, and was bitterly answered by Melbourne, who declared war against him once for all. Aberdeen MODERATION OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. made an attack on the Government which he had intended to make on the first debate; but as the Duke then said ‘Shall I speak?’ he said, ‘Oh yes, do,’ expecting the Duke would make one instead, but was bitterly disappointed when he heard that moderate speech which gave such offence to his friends and such comfort to his foes. So on Friday Aberdeen said what he had intended to say before, and to do him justice, he made some strong points against the Government, which told well. He accused them of unnecessary delay in bringing in this Bill last year, after they had passed their Resolutions, and asserted that they shuffled it off for fear they should be inconvenienced thereby in the election contests which were approaching. I incline to believe this accusation is well founded, and if so, it was very paltry conduct, and not an inapt illustration of the Duke of Wellington’s famous question during the Reform Bill, ‘How is the King’s Government to be carried on?’ The King’s Government was not carried on; its interests were neglected or postponed to the more pressing interest (as they thought, and I believe thought erroneously) of the party in their election contests. The Duke of Wellington was expected upon this occasion to make some amends to his party by explaining away the exculpatory remarks with which he had before assisted his opponents. But not a bit: he repeated the same thing, and made a second speech quite as moderate as his first. The Duke is therefore incorrigible. My mother told him the other day how angry they were with him for what he had said, and he only replied, ‘Depend upon it, it was true.’
I saw a letter yesterday with a very bad account of the state of Canada.[2] It was to Lord Lichfield from his Postmaster there, a sensible man, and he describes the beaten Canadians as returning to their homes full of sullen discontent, and says we must by no means look upon the flame as extinguished; however, for the time it has been smothered. On the other hand, there are the English victorious and exasperated, with arms in their hands, and in that dangerous state of mind which is the result of conscious superiority, moral and intellectual, military and political, but of (equally conscious) physical—that is, numerical—inferiority. It is the very state which makes men insolent and timid, tyrannical and cruel; it is just what the Irish Orangemen have been, and it is very desirable that nothing like them should exist elsewhere. All this proves that Durham will have no easy task. It is a curious exhibition of the caprice of men’s opinions when we see the general applause with which Durham’s appointment is hailed, and the admiration with which he is all at once regarded. Nobody denies that he is a man of ability, but he has not greatly distinguished himself, perhaps from having had no fair opportunity to do so. He has long been looked upon as a man of extreme and dangerous opinions by the Conservatives, and he never could agree with the Whigs when he was their colleague; to them generally he was an object of personal aversion. Latterly he has been considered the head of the Radical party, and that party, who are not rich in Lords, and who are not insensible to the advantage of rank, gladly hailed him as their chief; but for the last year or two, under the alterative influence of Russian Imperial flattery, Durham’s sentiments have taken a very Conservative turn, and, though he and the Radicals have never quarrelled, they could not possibly consider him to be the same man he was when they originally ranged themselves under his banner. In public life the most that can be said for him is, that he cut a respectable figure. When in office he filled the obscure post of Privy Seal, and spoke but seldom. He was known, however, to have had a considerable share in the concoction of the Reform Bill. The only other public post he has held was that of Ambassador to Russia, where nobody knows but the Minister who employed him whether he did well or ill. Now everybody says he is the finest fellow imaginable, and that WEAKNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT. he alone can pacify Canada. Nor do I mean to say he is unequal to the task he has undertaken, but the opinion of the world seems oddly produced, and to stand upon no very solid foundation. If he had continued plain John Lambton I doubt if he ever would have been thought of for Canada, or that the choice (if he had been sent there) would have been so approved. Why on earth is it that an Earldom makes any difference?
[2] [The actual disturbances in Canada, which had broken out in November of the preceding year, were terminated in about a month, by the military operations of Sir John Colborne and Sir Francis Head. The debates which ensued in England related to the treatment of the prisoners and the future government of the Canadian provinces.]
To return to the Canadian discussions. The Ministers have on the whole come out of them discreditably. Peel has worried and mauled them sadly, and taken a tone of superiority, and displayed a real superiority, which is very pernicious to a Government, as it tends to deprive them of the respect and the confidence of the country. Brougham’s harangues in the House of Lords have not done them half the mischief that Peel’s speeches have done them in the House of Commons, because Peel has a vast moral weight and Brougham has none. In the conduct of the business and in their Parliamentary proceedings they committed errors, especially in the latter, and Peel availed himself of both with great dexterity and power. The front Treasury Bench is in a deplorable state. John Russell is without support; Rice is held cheap and is ineffective; Palmerston never utters except on his own business; Thomson and Hobhouse never on any business; and Howick alone ventures to mix in the fight. The Tories render ample justice to Lord John under these overwhelming difficulties. Francis Egerton (one of the keenest of the party) writes to my brother an account of their recent successes, full of scorn and triumph, and proud comparisons between the Government and the Opposition, and he says, ‘John Russell is alone—a host in himself I admit; but Rice and Howick, the only colleagues who did assist him, are gone down in the Parliamentary estimation a hundred degrees. I certainly admire the spirit and dexterity of John Russell, and give him credit for great ability.’ There is no doubt that the Tories have put themselves in a better position for getting office, and the Whigs in a worse for keeping it, than they were in before, because impartial men who look at these debates will say that Peel and his people are the abler practical men, and as time settles the great questions in dispute, and renders the public mind more indifferent about those which still remain, there will be a growing opinion that the direction of affairs ought to be entrusted to those who display the greatest capacity to conduct them. The Conservatives besides have the inestimable advantage of an alliance with the ‘Times,’ the most vigorous and powerful agent which the press ever produced. The effect of its articles, stinging as they are, is irresistible on the public mind, and the Government have nothing to oppose to such a torrent. It is impossible however, while admiring the dexterity of Peel in the elaboration of his offensive measures, to overlook the selfish and unpatriotic spirit which the great body of the Tories have manifested throughout the proceedings. If they could have foregone the bitter pleasure of achieving a party triumph, and shown themselves ready not only to support the Government in suppressing the rebellion, but to join with them in rendering the necessary legislative measures as conducive to the great object of pacification as they could be made, they would have covered themselves with honour, and acquired a credit for noble and public-spirited conduct, which, as it is, the Duke of Wellington has alone obtained, and which none of them share with him. Nor do I believe if Peel had exerted his dexterity and astuteness in another way that he would have failed to acquire the same moral superiority over the Ministers by pacific and moderate behaviour, that he has acquired by hostile motions and taunting language. But his tail was in a state of furious agitation, and so angry and dejected at the Duke’s forbearance, that he felt himself compelled to give them the gratification of a triumph of some sort. To the majority of his followers the Canadian insurrection was a very pleasing occurrence, and they would have been overjoyed if the troops had been defeated and Montreal captured by the rebels. This would indeed have been a fine case against the Government, and have paved the way for the return of the Tories to office—all that they care about.
February 8th, 1838
HANNIBAL AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. I have just conducted to a successful termination a negotiation (through Allen) between Sir George Murray and Macvey Napier, and Murray is to write the article on the Duke’s Despatches in the ‘Edinburgh Review.’[3] I am rather surprised at their persuasion that Murray will execute the task so well, and I hope it may turn out so. They have employed the handsomest language in praise of the Duke and towards Murray. [He did it very ill: his articles (he wrote two) were very poor performances.]
[3] [Mr. Macvey Napier was at this time editor of the ‘Edinburgh Review.’]
February 11th, 1838
I suppose all great generals have necessarily some qualities in common; even Vendôme, an indolent and beastly glutton and voluptuary, was capable of prodigious exertions and of activity not to be surpassed. There is a great deal in the character of Hannibal (as drawn by Livy) which would apply to the Duke of Wellington; only, instead of being stained with the vices which are ascribed to the Carthaginian general, the Duke is distinguished for the very opposite virtues.
‘Nunquam ingenium idem ad res diversissimas, 1. parendum atque imperandum, habilius fuit, itaque haud facile discerneres, utrum imperatori, an exercitui, carior esset: 2. Neque Hasdrubal alium quemquam præficere malle, ubi quid fortiter ac strenuè agendum esset, neque milites alio duce plus confidere aut audere. 3. Plurimum audaciæ ad pericula capessenda, plurimum consilii inter ipsa pericula erat: 4. Nullo labore aut corpus fatigari aut animus vinci poterat: caloris ac frigoris patientia par: cibi potionisque desiderio naturali, non voluptate, modus finitus: vigiliarum somnique nec die nec nocte discriminata tempora. Id, quod gerendis rebus superesset, quieti datum: ea neque molli strato neque silentio arcessita. 5. Multi sæpe militari sagulo opertum, humi jacentem inter custodias stationesque militum conspexerunt. 6. Vestitus nihil inter æquales excellens: arma atque equi conspiciebantur. Equitum peditumque idem longè primus erat: princeps in prœlium ibat: ultimus conserto prœlio excedebat. 7. Has tantas viri virtutes ingentia vitia æquabant; inhumana crudelitas, perfidia plus quàm Punica, nihil veri, nihil sancti, nullus Deûm metus, nullum jusjurandum, nulla religio.’[4] ...
[4] [This passage is cited from Livy, lib. xxi. c. iv.]
1. Nothing is more remarkable in the Duke than his habit of prompt obedience to his superiors and employers, and this shines forth as much when the triumphant Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies at the end of the Spanish war, as in his early campaign in India. He was always ready to serve when, where, and how his services were required, and so I believe he is now.
2. In India he was employed by Lord Wellesley and Lord Lake in all the most important and difficult military enterprises and civil transactions.
3. Napier says some of Wellington’s operations were daring to extravagance, some cautious to the verge of timidity, all founded as much upon keen and nice perceptions of the political measures of his adversaries as upon pure military considerations—and ‘he knew how to obey as well as to command.’
4. He told me himself that he was obliged to do everything in person. His despatches show that he thought of everything, wrote of everything, directed everything.
5. During the battles of the Pyrenees he slept wrapped in a cloak, under a thick bush, and the shot fell so near him that he was urged to remove to a less exposed place.
6. He was always dressed in his plain blue coat; he rode very good horses.
7. Here ends the parallel and begins the contrast. No general ever exhibited to the world a nobler example of mildness and humanity, of the most perfect and invariable good faith, of severe truth, of inflexible justice, of scrupulous honesty, of reverence for religion, and regard to the precepts of morality. Cruelty is not a modern vice; no general is cruel in these days. I doubt if there has been any great deed of cruelty committed since the Thirty Years’ War, the sack of Magdeburg, and the exploits of Tilly and Pappenheim. Turenne ravaged the Palatinate, but that was Louvois’ THE BALLOT. cruelty, not Turenne’s. There were no military cruelties perpetrated in the revolutionary wars that I remember.
February 18th, 1838
On Thursday night came on the Ballot, and its advocates divided, as they said they should, 200. Lord John Russell, though ill, came down and spoke against it. Peel made a good speech, and complimented John on his conduct. All the Cabinet Ministers voted against it except Poulett Thomson, who stayed away. The result is the creation of a strong impression that the Ballot will eventually be carried; Brougham says in five years.[5] There can be no doubt that if the Government had declared a neutrality, perhaps if John Russell had not so deeply committed himself against it, it would have been carried now. Some men in office, many others closely connected with Ministers, did vote for it; a great number stayed away, and of those who followed John many did so very reluctantly, and some certainly will never vote against it again. Then it is indubitable that the Ballot is getting more popular in the country, and it is not regarded with much apprehension by many of those who are altogether opposed to Radical principles: by such as Fazakerley for instance, a sensible man and moderate Whig, who did not vote at all on this occasion.
[5] [It was carried, but in thirty-four years from this time. It is possible to foresee and predict political events with considerable certainty, but very difficult to foretell when they will arrive. The division on this occasion, on Mr. Grote’s motion in favour of the Ballot, was 305 to 198.]
On Friday night Brougham announced to the Lords that they must make up their minds to the Ballot after the division of the preceding night, and yesterday morning, when we were assembled in my room before going into court (Parke, Erskine, Bosanquet, and himself) he gave us his speech in high glee. Parke, who is an alarmist, had just before said that he had never doubted when the Reform Bill had passed that England would become a republic, and when Brougham said that he gave the Ballot five years for its accomplishment, Parke said, ‘And in five years from that we shall have a republic,’ on which Brougham gave him a great cuff, and, with a scornful laugh, said, ‘A republic! pooh, nonsense! Well, but what if there is? There are judges in a republic, and very well paid too.’ ‘Well paid!’ said the other in the same tone, ‘and no.’ ‘Yes, they are; they have 350ℓ. a year. But, never mind, you shall be taken care of; I will speak to Grote about you.’ This is the way he goes on. He sits every day at the Judicial Committee, but pays very little attention to the proceedings; he is incessantly in and out of the room, giving audience to one odd-looking man or another, and while in court more occupied with preparing articles for the ‘Edinburgh Review’ or his Parliamentary tirades than with the cases he is by way of hearing. The day after the Lord Advocate’s attack upon him in the matter of the Glasgow cotton-spinners, he received Wakley, and as he returned (through my room) from the interview, he said, ‘Do you know who that was? It was Wakley. He would have felt your head if he had stopped, for he is a great phrenologist. He examined all the heads of the Glasgow men, and he said they had none of them the organ of destructiveness except one.’ ‘Oh,’ said I, ‘then that man would have committed murder.’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘for the organ of benevolence was also strongly developed.’ He is in extraordinary good humour; in a state of furious mental activity, troubled neither with fear nor shame, and rejoicing in that freedom from all ties which renders him a sort of political Ishmael, his hand against everybody, and everybody against him, and enables him to cut and slash, as his fancy or his passion move him, at Whig or Tory, in the House of Lords.
To return from Brougham to the Ballot. It is not so much the number of 200 who voted for it that demonstrates the greatness of its progress as the circumstances which attended the discussion. There can be no doubt that John Russell’s strenuous declaration, besides annoying the Radicals, greatly embarrassed the Whigs, who had either wholly or partially committed themselves on the hustings to its support, and the consequence has been to place the Government in a false position, for while the opposition to the Ballot has been called a Government measure (and William LORD JOHN OPPOSES THE BALLOT. Cowper told me the evening before the division that nobody could keep his place and vote for Ballot), and many have been induced to sacrifice their opinions or act against their professions upon the ground of the necessity of supporting the Government; many others in office, who were too deeply pledged to, or too much afraid of their constituents to vote against it, either voted with Grote, or, what is very nearly the same thing, absented themselves, and will have done so with impunity, for the Government cannot turn people out for voting or non-voting on such a question as this; the proscription would be too numerous as well as too odious. They are much too weak for any such stretch of authority and severity; besides, the Cabinet itself is probably neither unanimous nor decided in its opposition to the Ballot. John Russell had, however, spoken out with such determination, that his honour was irretrievably committed against it, and accordingly the most strenuous efforts were made, the most urgent entreaties and remonstrances were employed, to induce people to support him on this occasion, but with a success not at all commensurate with these exertions. Vivian offered to resign, but could not be prevailed on not to vote.[6] So disgusted was John Russell with the result of this division, that it was with the greatest difficulty he was prevented from resigning; and yesterday it was reported all over the town that he had resigned. It is remarkable that in contemplation of his resignation, Morpeth is the man talked of as his successor as leader of the House of Commons, a man young enough to be the son of half the Cabinet Ministers, and not in the Cabinet; but in such low estimation are all Lord John’s colleagues, that not one of them is deemed capable of taking his place in the event of his giving it up. However, there is not much use in speculating about Lord John’s successor if he secedes, for the whole concern would in that case inevitably fall to the ground. Indeed, it is not likely that it will, under any circumstances, go on much longer. When once the leader of the House of Commons has become thoroughly disgusted and dissatisfied with his position, either a change or a dissolution of the Government may be anticipated, and in this case any attempt at change can scarcely fail to break up this rickety firm.
[6] Vivian’s Cornish petition was signed by 2,100 or 2,200 freeholders, the same number who had voted for him at the election, but of these there were 200 who had voted for Eliot.
The circumstances which enable them to go on at all I take to be these: the extreme repugnance of the Queen to any change, and the necessity in which Melbourne finds himself on her account to go on as long as he possibly can; and on the other hand, the reluctance of Peel to assault the Government in front. I know no more of Peel’s opinions and designs than what I can gather from his conduct and what he is likely to entertain under present circumstances; but it must be his object to delay coming into office till he can do so as a powerful Minister, and till it is made manifest to Parliament and the country that he is demanded by a great public exigency, and is not marching in as the result of a party triumph. If the resignation of the present Government should take place under any circumstances which admitted of a reunion of the Whigs and the Radicals, and of the whole re-united party being held together in opposition to a Conservative Government, Peel would be little more secure, and not more able to act with efficiency and independence than he was in 1835, and this is what he never will submit to. It is also a great object to him that the Irish questions should be settled before he comes into office. Nothing would gladden his heart more than to have the Government in Ireland established on a footing from the practice of which he could not deviate, and that once effected up to a certain point (as far as the Whigs can go) he would be enabled to go a good deal farther; and as the man who covers in a building has always more credit and is considered the artificer more than he who lays the foundations, so Peel would obtain all the credit of measures which would in fact have been rendered easy or practicable by the long-continued toils and perseverance of others. His interest therefore (and consequently I suppose his design) is to restrain the impatience of his followers; to let the POLICY OF SIR ROBERT PEEL. Government lose ground in public estimation gently and considerately, not violently and rancorously; to assist in putting them in a contemptible or inefficient point of view; to render their places as uneasy as possible; and to give them time to crumble to pieces, so that his return to power may be more in appearance the act of the Whig Ministry than any act of his own. Then he may demand, and would probably obtain, as the condition of his acceptance of office, the support of a large proportion of the moderate of the Whig party, and the necessity of conciliating such men and of acquiring their support could afford him an excuse for adopting those Liberal maxims which, though far from palatable to the Conservatives, would be indispensable to the formation of a strong Government, as without their adoption no Whig could with honour and consistency support him. I care not who is Minister, but I want to see a strong Government, one which may have a power of free action and not be obliged to pick its steps through doubtful divisions, living from day to day, and compelled to an incessant calculation as to the probable success of every measure, whether of principle or detail, on which it ventures in the House of Commons. Things are not yet ripe for such a consummation, and before the fresh fusion of parties takes place which is necessary to bring it about, it must be made manifest that there is no other alternative, for there is always a considerable amount of party violence and selfish interest which reluctantly sacrifice themselves, no matter how desperate the position they hold or how great the good which may ensue. Though the adherents of Government put on as bold a front as they can, there is a very considerable impression that the days of the Whig Cabinet are numbered; however, I don’t think they will go just yet.
February 20th, 1838
I made no allusion to the death of Creevey at the time it took place, about a fortnight ago, having said something about him elsewhere. Since that period he had got into a more settled way of life. He was appointed to one of the Ordnance offices by Lord Grey, and subsequently by Lord Melbourne to the Treasurer ship of Greenwich Hospital, with a salary of 600ℓ. a year and a house. As he died very suddenly, and none of his connexions were at hand, Lord Sefton sent to his lodgings and (in conjunction with Vizard, the solicitor) caused all his papers to be sealed up. It was found that he had left a woman who had lived with him for four years as his mistress, his sole executrix and residuary legatee, and she accordingly became entitled to all his personalty (the value of which was very small, not more than 300ℓ. or 400ℓ.) and to all the papers which he left behind him. These last are exceedingly valuable, for he had kept a copious diary for thirty-six years, had preserved all his own and Mrs. Creevey’s letters, and copies or originals of a vast miscellaneous correspondence. The only person who is acquainted with the contents of these papers is his daughter-in-law, whom he had frequently employed to copy papers for him, and she knows how much there is of delicate and interesting matter, the publication of which would be painful and embarrassing to many people now alive, and make very inconvenient and premature revelations upon private and confidential matters.... Then there is Creevey’s own correspondence with various people, especially with Brougham, which evidently contains things Brougham is anxious to suppress, for he has taken pains to prevent the papers from falling into the hands of any person likely to publish them, and has urged Vizard to get possession of them either by persuasion, or purchase, or both. In point of fact they are now in Vizard’s hands, and it is intended by him and Brougham, probably with the concurrence of others, to buy them of Creevey’s mistress, though who is to become the owner of the documents, or what the stipulated price, and what their contemplated destination, I do not know. The most extraordinary part of the affair is, that the woman has behaved with the utmost delicacy and propriety, has shown no mercenary disposition, but expressed her desire to be guided by the wishes and opinions of Creevey’s friends and connexions, and to concur in whatever measures may be thought best by them with reference to the character of Creevey, and the interests and MR. CREEVEY’S PAPERS. feelings of those who might be affected by the contents of the papers. Here is a strange situation in which to find a rectitude of conduct, a moral sentiment, a grateful and disinterested liberality which would do honour to the highest birth, the most careful cultivation, and the strictest principle. It would be a hundred to one against any individual in the ordinary rank of society and of average good character acting with such entire absence of selfishness, and I cannot help being struck with the contrast between the motives and disposition of those who want to get hold of these papers, and of this poor woman who is ready to give them up. They, well knowing that, in the present thirst for the sort of information Creevey’s journals and correspondence contain, a very large sum might be obtained for them, are endeavouring to drive the best bargain they can with her for their own particular ends, while she puts her whole confidence in them, and only wants to do what they tell her she ought to do under the circumstances of the case.
General Evans’s appointment as K.C.B. has made a great stir at the United Service Club, and is blamed or ridiculed by everybody. It is difficult to conceive why the Government gave it him, and if he had not been a vain coxcomb, he would not have wished for it; but they say he fancies himself a great general, and that he has done wonders in Spain.[7]
[7] [Sir De Lacy Evans probably did as much in Spain as it was possible to do with the troops under his command. But in justice to him as an officer it should be remembered that he commanded a division of the British army in the Crimea, long afterwards, and showed considerable foresight and ability at the battles of the Alma and Inkerman.]
We have had Brougham every day at the Council Office, more busy writing a review of Lady Charlotte Bury’s book than with the matter before the Judicial Committee. He writes this with inconceivable rapidity, seldom corrects, and never reads over what he has written, but packs it up and despatches it rough from his pen to Macvey Napier. He is in exuberant spirits and full of talk, and certainly marvellously agreeable. His talk (for conversation is not the word for it) is totally unlike that of anybody else I ever heard. It comes forth without the slightest effort, provided he is in spirits and disposed to talk at all. It is the spontaneous outpouring of one of the most fertile and restless of minds, easy, familiar, abundant, and discursive. The qualities and peculiarities of mind which mar his oratorical, give zest and effect to his conversational, powers; for the perpetual bubbling up of fresh ideas, by incapacitating him from condensing his speeches, often makes them tediously digressive and long; but in society he treads the ground with so elastic a step, he touches everything so lightly and so adorns all that he touches, his turns and his breaks are so various, unexpected, and pungent, that he not only interests and amuses, but always exhilarates his audience so as to render weariness and satiety impossible. He is now coquetting a little with the Tories, and especially professes great deference and profound respect for the Duke of Wellington; his sole object in politics, for the moment, is to badger, twit, and torment the Ministry, and in this he cannot contain himself within the bounds of common civility, as he exemplified the other night when he talked of ‘Lord John this and Mr. Spring that’ (on Thursday night), which, however contemptuous, was too undignified to be effective. He calls this ‘the Thomson Government’ from its least considerable member.
February 25th, 1838
Lord John Russell made a very paltry exhibition on Friday night, quite unworthy of the fame he had acquired and of the situation he holds. When Lord Maidstone threatened to bring before the House the language which O’Connell had used (about the perjury in Committees) in a speech at the ‘Crown and Anchor,’[8] and gave notice of a motion for that purpose, John jumped up and said, if he persevered in this motion he would call the attention of the House to an imputation against the Catholic members contained in a charge of the Bishop of Exeter with reference to the oath required of them by the Relief O’CONNELL AT THE CROWN AND ANCHOR. Bill. Whether this was a sally of passion I know not, but it was puerile, imprudent, and undignified. This charge was delivered in 1836, and ought to have been animadverted upon at the time, if at all. It either is, or is not, a proper matter to bring before the House, but that propriety cannot be contingent upon some other proceeding of another person, quite unconnected with it. It was a poor tu quoque which has got him into a scrape, and will contribute to the downhill impulsion of the Government; it is a fresh bit of discredit thrown upon them. John Russell too has been a personal antagonist of the Bishop of Exeter, and should have been the last man to attack him in this irregular way. Out of all this will spring much violence and personality, and that is what interests the members of the House of Commons more than any great political question.
[8] [O’Connell had asserted, at the ‘Crown and Anchor’ tavern, that ‘foul perjury was committed by the Tory Election Committees.’]
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.
[9] The notice was that if Lord Maidstone persisted in his motion, he would call the attention of the Crown to a charge delivered by the Bishop of Exeter (nearly two years ago), in which he had accused the Catholic members of perjury and treachery.
[10] Many more, I am told, for 517 voted, and several went away who would not vote.
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.
[11] The discussion arose out of a question Lyndhurst put about some young children who had been confined in the penitentiary, in solitary confinement, &c., without notice. Melbourne fired up at this in a very unnecessary rage, though Lyndhurst was clearly wrong in not giving notice. Much more was made of this omission than need have been.
[12] Lyndhurst was going out of the House to write a hostile note, but Brougham forced him down and said, ‘I insist on my noble friend’s sitting down,’ but though he boasts of having been the peacemaker, Lyndhurst told me he thought, but for Brougham, Melbourne would not have said what he did.
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.
[13] Bradshaw stood up on the benches, huzzaing and waving his hat, and it was said Sir John Tyrrell (if it was he) did the same, having the gout, with his crutches.
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.
[14] [In their speeches in the House of Commons.]
[15] [It was not Lord Lyndhurst who asked this question. Lord Brougham intimated that he had written a private letter on the matter to the Speaker, which he had a right to do.]
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.
[16] [Sir William Molesworth moved a vote of censure on Lord Glenelg, Colonial Secretary of State, on the 6th of March, but withdrew it after two nights’ debate in favour of an amendment moved by Lord Sandon, condemning the Canadian policy of the Government. On the division Ministers had 316, and their opponents 287 votes. The character and purport of this amendment are explained below.]
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.
[17] [The number of Conservatives who took part in the vote was 287; but thirty members of the party either paired or were absent.]
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]
[18] [It is a vulgar error, which it would scarcely be necessary to notice here except for the purpose of correcting it, that the Lord Mayor of London has some of the privileges of a Privy Councillor during his year of office. The mistake has probably arisen from his being styled ‘Right Honourable,’ but so are the Lord Mayors of Dublin and of York. But he has none of the rights of a Privy Councillor. He is, however, summoned to attend the Privy Council at which a new Sovereign is proclaimed, but having heard the Proclamation he retires before the business of the Council is commenced. See infra, March 27th.]
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]
[19] [The main question in the celebrated case of Small v. Attwood was whether the sale of certain ironworks in Staffordshire, by Mr. Attwood, to the British Iron Company, should be set aside for what, in the Courts of Equity, is termed fraud. Lord Lyndhurst, as Chief Baron of the Exchequer, held that an amount of misrepresentation had been practised by the vendor, which annulled the sale. The House of Lords was of opinion that if the purchasers had paid too much for the property, it was their own fault. This decision rested, of course, on the special circumstances of the case. It was argued with great ability by Serjeant Wilde and Mr. Sugden, who received fees in this case to an amount previously unknown to the Bar. It is remarkable that Lord Lyndhurst sat on the appeal from his own judgement and supported it; the fifth vote, which decided the case, was that of Lord Devon, who had never held a judicial office.]
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.