The Greville Memoirs Volume I Part 13

Mr. Goulburn, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Charles Grant, President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Herries, Master of the Mint.

Viscount Melville, President of the India Board.

Lord Dudley, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Grant, and Lord Palmerston (Secretary at War, not in the Cabinet) were the four Canningite members who resigned in May following. They were replaced by Lord Aberdeen, Sir George Murray, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, and Sir Henry Hardinge respectively.]

All the Ministers (old and new) were at Windsor the other day; but it was contrived that they should not meet, the _ins_ being in one room and Lansdowne and Carlisle in another, and it was afterwards discovered that in a third room by himself was G.o.derich. This Lord Sefton told me, and he had it from Lord Lansdowne, who had it from the King and confirmed by Lord Conyngham. His Majesty was remarkably civil to Lords Lansdowne and Carlisle. The King had a scene with the Duke of Devonshire, whom he could not persuade to stay in his place, though he tried hard. Scarlett has resigned the Attorney-Generalship, but not very willingly. He wrote to Milton and asked his advice. Milton advised him to resign, and so he did. One thing that has angered the Tories is the Duke's not having consulted Lord Eldon, nor offered him any place; and it seems he is extremely mortified, for though he did not want the seals again, he would have been very glad to take office as President of the Council.

[Page Head: IRRITATION OF THE WHIGS.]

February 25th, 1828 {p.126}

There is one advantage in writing at intervals of some time instead of keeping a regular diary; I can take a more bird's-eye view of events, and avoid falling into many errors, which it would be afterwards necessary to correct. I went to Newmarket and stayed there three weeks for my health. While I was there Huskisson made his speech at Liverpool.[2] The Tories were furious, and in the House of Lords the Duke of Wellington contradicted it, or rather said he did not believe it was faithfully reported, for all that he was reported to have said about _the guarantee_ was untrue. I returned to town in time for the House of Commons, and found the greatest excitement, curiosity, and violence generally prevailing. As to Huskisson, he had offended the Tories, the Whigs, and Lady Canning, and everybody condemned him. Parties were split to pieces, there was no Opposition, and no man could tell what were the politics of his neighbour, scarcely what his own. Lady Canning was in a state of great rage and resentment, and had inspired George Bentinck with the same sentiments. Clanricarde had been sent down by her to the House of Lords furnished with extracts of Canning's letters to throw in the teeth of his old friends and his old enemies, and she threatened fresh disclosures and fresh doc.u.ments which were to confound all whom she deemed worthy of her indignation. A very angry colloquy took place at a dinner at Warrender's between Lord Seaford and George Bentinck, in which the latter violently attacked Mr. Canning's friends for joining the present Government, and quoted Huskisson's declaration that he would never act with the men who had abandoned him. Lord Seaford grew angry, and asked George what he knew of that declaration and what his authority was for quoting it. To which George replied that he had it from himself--from Lord Seaford at Paris. This confounded the n.o.ble Lord, and altogether there was a pretty violent altercation, which greatly annoyed both him and Howard, who was present, and was regretted by all their common friends. Two days after this came on the debate in the House of Commons and the explanations of Huskisson and Herries. Their speeches were both satisfactory enough till Tierney spoke, who entirely knocked over their cases, or at least that of Herries, for against Huskisson he proved nothing, except that he might perhaps have been more communicative, though I think this reproach applies more to Lord G.o.derich than to him. The impression left with regard to Herries was as unfavourable as possible.

[2] [The speech made by Mr. Huskisson on his re-election at Liverpool on the 5th of February, 1828, is printed in vol. iii. of his 'Collected Speeches,' p. 673. It contains a full account of these transactions. The pa.s.sage which gave so much offence to the Tories was that 'if the Government was such as satisfied the view I took of the interests of the country, and provided such arrangements were made in its construction _as afforded a guarantee_ that the principle I approved should not be departed from, I was not precluded from joining it;' and again, 'The presence in office of such men as Lord Dudley, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Grant, and Mr.

Lamb is the most satisfactory of all guarantees that the general principles of our foreign and commercial system would remain unchanged, and that Ireland would be governed with the strictest impartiality in respect to the Catholic question.'

These declarations of Mr. Huskisson had a material effect on the occurrences which not long afterwards took place.]

[Page Head: TOM DUNCOMBE'S MAIDEN SPEECH.]

The great event of the night was Duncombe's[3] speech, which was delivered with perfect self-possession and composure, but in so ridiculous a manner that everybody laughed at him, although they were amused with his impudence and at the style and objects of his attack. However, the next day it was discovered that he had performed a great exploit; he was loudly applauded and congratulated on all sides, and made into the hero of the day.

His fame was infinitely increased on a subsequent night, when Herries again came before the House and when Tommy fired another shot at him. The newspapers were full of his praises. The Whigs called at his door and eagerly sought his acquaintance. Those who love fun and personality cheered him on with loud applause, and he now fancies himself the greatest man going, and is ready to get up and abuse anybody on the Treasury bench. To me, who knew all the secret strings that moved this puppet, nothing can be more amusing.

[3] [Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, nephew of the first Lord Feversham distinguished for his Radical opinions, M.P.

for Finsbury after the Reform Bill. He sat at this time for Hertford; and the incident related in the text appears to have been his _debut_ in political life.]

The history of Tom Duncombe and his speech is instructive as well as amusing, for it is a curious proof of the facility with which the world may be deceived, and of the prodigious effect which may be produced by the smallest means, if they are aided by some fortuitous circ.u.mstances and happily applied. Tommy came to Henry de Ros and told him that his const.i.tuents at Hertford were very anxious he should make a speech, but that he did not know what to say, and begged Henry to supply him with the necessary materials.

He advised him to strike out something new, and having received his a.s.surance that he should be able to recollect anything that he learned by heart, and that he was not afraid of his courage failing, Henry composed for him the speech which Duncombe delivered. But knowing the slender capacity of his man, he was not satisfied with placing the speech in his hands, but adopted every precaution which his ingenuity suggested to avert the danger of his breaking down. He made him learn the speech by heart, and then made him think it over again and put it into language of his own, justly fearing that if he should forget any of the more polished periods of the original it would appear sadly botched by his own interpolations. He then instructed him largely as to how and when he was to bring it in, supplying him with various commonplace phrases to be used as connecting links, and by the help of which he might be enabled to fasten upon some of the preceding speeches. I saw Henry de Ros the day before the debate, when he told me what he was doing, and asked me to suggest anything that occurred upon the subject, and at the same time repeated to me the speech with which he had armed his hero.

I hinted my apprehensions that he would fail in the delivery, but though he was not without some alarm, he expressed (as it afterwards appeared a well-grounded) confidence in Duncombe's extraordinary nerve and intrepidity.

His speech on the second night was got up precisely in the same manner, and although it appeared to arise out of the debate and of those which preceded it, the matter had been all crammed into him by his invisible Mentor. The amus.e.m.e.nt to him and to me (especially at the honours that have been thickly poured upon him and the noise which he has made in the world) is indescribably pungent.

Thus Duncombe and his speech have made what is called a great sensation, and he has the reputation (no matter whether justly or not) of having thrown the enemy's camp into greater confusion by the boldness of his language than anybody has ever done, because n.o.body has ever before dared to mention those whom he dragged forward. To the ignorant majority of the world he appears a man of great promise, of boldness, quickness, and decision, and the uproar that is made about him cannot fail to impress others as well as himself with a high notion of his consequence.

Knighton is gone abroad, I have very little doubt, in consequence of what pa.s.sed, and as n.o.body enquires very minutely into the real causes of things where they get apparent ones with ease, it is said and believed at once that Duncombe is the man who has driven him out, and that he has given the first blow to that secret influence which has only been obscurely hinted at before and never openly attacked. These are great and important matters, far exceeding any consequences which the authors of the speech antic.i.p.ated from its delivery at the time. And what are the agents who have produced such an effect? A man of ruined fortune and doubtful character, whose life has been spent on the race-course, at the gaming-table, and in the green-room, of limited capacity, exceedingly ignorant, and without any stock but his impudence to trade on, only speaking to serve an electioneering purpose, and crammed by another man with every thought and every word that he uttered.

[Page Head: DISPUTES IN THE CABINET.]

June 12th, 1828 {p.130}

We have now got a Tory Government, and all that remained of Canning's party are gone.[4] The case of the Duke of Wellington and Huskisson is before the world, but n.o.body judges fairly.

Motives are attributed to both parties which had no existence, and the truth is hardly ever told at first, though it generally oozes out by degrees. After the explanations in February the Government went on to all appearance very well, but there lurked under this semblance of harmony some seeds of jealousy and distrust, not I believe so much in the mind of the Duke as in those of his Tory colleagues, and the Canningites on their side certainly felt no cordiality even towards the Duke himself. They said that he never could nor would understand anything; that he said a thing one day and forgot it the next, and instead of that clearness of intellect for which he had credit, nothing could be more puzzled and confused than he was; that nothing could absolve him from the suspicion of duplicity and insincerity but the conviction that his ambiguous conduct on various occasions arose from a confusion of ideas. On the other hand, Lord Bathurst told my father that he thought they (Huskisson and his friends) were too much disposed to act together as a party in the Cabinet; and it is clear that the Duke thought so too, and that this feeling and the resentment it engendered in his mind are the real reasons of his conduct on the late occasion.

[4] [Bills had been brought into Parliament for the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the boroughs of Penryn and East Retford, and the transfer of those seats to Manchester and Birmingham. On the East Retford case, which came before the House of Commons on the 19th of May, Mr.

Huskisson felt bound in honour to support the measure, and voted against his colleagues. On his return home after the debate he wrote a hasty letter to the Duke of Wellington, in which he said that he 'owed it to the Duke and to Mr. Peel to lose no time in affording them an opportunity of placing his office in other hands.'

The Duke regarding this as a formal act of resignation, laid it before the King and filled up the appointment.

The correspondence is published in the Duke of Wellington's 'Correspondence,' New Series, vol. iv.

p. 449. The resignation of Lord Palmerston, Charles Grant, and Lord Dudley followed. The details of this transaction are sufficiently alluded to in the text.]

There had been a dispute in the Cabinet about the Corn Bill, which occasioned the discussion of it to be put off for a few days at the time, and upon that occasion Grant resigned his office. The matter was made up and he stayed. But when upon the East Retford affair Huskisson resigned, and in such an extraordinary manner, the Duke felt that there was a disposition to embarra.s.s him by these perpetual tenders of resignation, which he believed they thought he would not venture to accept. Upon receiving Huskisson's letter he went to Lord Bathurst and consulted him, and Lord Bathurst advised him to take him at his word. Everybody looks for some cause which does not appear for important events, and people with difficulty admit of very simple solutions and very trifling causes, though such are not unfrequently the real ones. I believe that Huskisson had no intention of embarra.s.sing the Duke and none of resigning; but for a cool and sensible man his conduct is most extraordinary, for he acted with the precipitation of a schoolboy and showed a complete want of all those qualities of prudence and calm deliberation for which he has the greatest credit. But though this breach might have been avoided, from the sentiments which have been expressed by both parties, it is evident other differences would have arisen which must have dissolved the Government before long.

After putting aside the violent opinions on both sides, the conclusion is that Huskisson acted very hastily and imprudently, and that his letter (say what he will) was a complete resignation, and that the Duke had a right so to consider it; that in the Duke's conduct there appeared a want of courtesy and an anxiety to get rid of him which it would have been more fair to avow and defend than to deny; that on both sides there was a mixture of obstinacy and angry feeling, and a disposition to treat the question rather as a personal matter than one in which the public interests were deeply concerned. But the charge which is made on one side that Huskisson wanted to embarra.s.s the Duke's Government and enhance his own importance, and that on the other of the Duke's insincerity, are both unfounded.

Some circ.u.mstances, however, contributed to place the Duke's conduct in an unfavourable point of view. These were the extravagant and unconcealed joy of the High Tories and of his immediate friends, and his attending at the same time the Pitt dinner and sitting there while Lord Eldon gave his famous 'one cheer more' for Protestant ascendency. That he treated Huskisson with some degree of harshness there is no doubt, but he was angry, and not without reason; the former brought it all upon himself. During the debate upon East Retford, when Huskisson was called upon by Sandon to redeem his pledge, he told Peel that he could not help himself, and must vote against him; but he begged him to put off the question till the following week, that it might be considered again. This Peel refused; had he acceded, all this would not have taken place.

When the King saw Huskisson he was extremely gracious to him, expressed the utmost regret at losing him, and said that he had wished not to see him at first, that he might avoid receiving his resignation, and in hopes that the matter would have been arranged.[5] However, the other party say that the King is very glad to have got rid of him and his party.

[5] [Huskisson solicited an audience, which his Majesty refused for some days to grant: he would not see him until he had written again to the Duke of Wellington.]

In the middle of all this Madame de Lieven is supposed to have acted with great impertinence if not imprudence, and to have made use of the access she has to the King to say all sorts of things against the Duke and the present Government. Her dislike to the Duke has been increasing ever since that cessation of intimacy which was caused by Canning's accession to power, when she treated him very uncivilly in order to pay court to Canning.

Esterhazy told me last night that although her position here was now greatly changed, and that it was far from being so agreeable as it was, he could not accuse her of imprudence in having taken the part she had done, because he thought that it had answered very well, and that the objects of her Court had been in great measure accomplished through her means.

[Page Head: THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.]

June 18th, 1828

The Duke of Wellington's speech on the Catholic question is considered by many to have been so moderate as to indicate a disposition on his part to concede emanc.i.p.ation, and bets have been laid that Catholics will sit in Parliament next year. Many men are resolved to see it in this light who are anxious to join his Government, and whose scruples with regard to that question are removed by such an interpretation of his speech. I do not believe he means to do anything until he is compelled to it, which if he remains in office he will be; for the success of the Catholic question depends neither on Whigs nor Tories, the former of whom have not the power and the latter not the inclination to carry it. The march of time and the state of Ireland will effect it in spite of everything, and its slow but continual advance can neither be r.e.t.a.r.ded by its enemies nor accelerated by its friends. In the meantime men affect to consider his expressions as of importance enough to influence their conduct in taking or refusing office. Frankland Lewis,[6] who refused the Irish Secretaryship, said that after that speech he regretted his refusal and would be glad to take it, and now he wants to join the Government again. Certainly at this moment the Tories are triumphant, and so far from the Duke's Government having any difficulty in standing, there does not appear to be a disposition in any quarter to oppose it. Not only in Parliament there is no Opposition, but the press is veering round and treating him with great civility. The Government seem well disposed to follow up the Liberal policy, to which they have been suspected of being adverse, and have already declared that they do not intend to deviate either in their foreign or domestic policy from the principles on which the Government was understood to act previous to the separation. Arbuthnot told my father yesterday that they all regret now having resigned in 1827, and Huskisson owned to A.

that he had acted with unfortunate precipitancy.

[6] [Right Hon. T. Frankland Lewis, a member of the Grenville and Canning section of the Tory party; made a baronet by Sir Robert Peel; the father of the Right Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis.]

June 29th, 1828 {p.134}

I dined yesterday with the King at St. James's--his Jockey Club dinner. There were about thirty people, several not being invited whom he did not fancy. The Duke of Leeds told me a much greater list had been made out, but he had scratched several out of it.

We a.s.sembled in the Throne Room, and found him already there, looking very well and walking about. He soon, however, sat down, and desired everybody else to do so. n.o.body spoke, and he laughed and said, 'This is more like a Quaker than a Jockey Club meeting.' We soon went to dinner, which was in the Great Supper Room and very magnificent. He sat in the middle, with the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton on each side of him. I sat opposite to him, and he was particularly gracious to me, talking to me across the table and recommending all the good things; he made me (after eating a quant.i.ty of turtle) eat a dish of crawfish soup, till I thought I should have burst. After dinner the Duke of Leeds, who sat at the head of the table, gave 'The King.' We all stood up, when his Majesty thanked us, and said he hoped this would be the first of annual meetings of the sort to take place, there or elsewhere under his roof. He then ordered paper, pens, &c., and they began making matches and stakes; the most perfect ease was established, just as much as if we had been dining with the Duke of York, and he seemed delighted. He made one or two little speeches, one recommending that a stop should be put to the exportation of horses. He twice gave 'The Turf,' and at the end the Duke of Richmond asked his leave to give a toast, and again gave 'The King.' He thanked all the gentlemen, and said that there was no man who had the interests of the turf more at heart than himself, that he was delighted at having this party, and that the oftener they met the better, and he only wanted to have it pointed out to him how he could promote the pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt of the turf, and he was ready to do anything in his power. He got up at half-past twelve and wished us good night.

Nothing could go off better, and Mount Charles told me he was sure he was delighted.

[Page Head: LORD LYNDHURST AND THE GREAT SEAL.]

I dined with the Chancellor [Lord Lyndhurst] three days ago; he talked to me a great deal about his acceptance of the Great Seal and of the speculation it was. He was Master of the Rolls with 7,000 a year for life when it was offered to him; he debated whether it was worth while to give this up to be Chancellor for perhaps only one year, with a peerage and the pension. He talked the matter over with his wife, and they agreed that if it only lasted one year (which he evidently thought probable) it was worth while, besides the contingency of a long Chancellorship. He asked me if the Government was popular and reckoned strong. I told him it was apparently popular and reckoned strong, because there was no Opposition and little chance of any. I said that however hazardous his speculation might have been, it had turned out well, for he had a good chance of being Chancellor as long as his predecessor had been, there being so few candidates for the office. He said this was true, and then he talked of his Court, and said it was impossible for one man to do the business of it.

In talking of the speculation he had made, political opinions and political consistency seemed never to occur to him, and he considered the whole matter in a light so business-like and professional as to be quite amusing. He talked of the Duke, said he was a good man to do business with, quick and intelligent, and 'how well he managed that little correspondence with Huskisson,'

which was droll enough, for Huskisson dined there and was in the room.

[Page Head: SIR ROBERT ADAIR'S ANECDOTES.]

August 6th, 1828 {p.136}

About three weeks ago I went to Windsor to a Council. The King had been very ill for a day or two, but was recovered. Rob Adair[7] was sworn in Privy Councillor, and he remained in the room and heard the speech, which he ought not to have done. The Duke attacked me afterwards (in joke) for letting him stay; but I told him it was no business of mine, and his neighbour ought to have told him to go. That neighbour, however, was Vesey Fitzgerald, who said it was the first time he had attended a Council, and he could not begin by turning another man out. I brought Adair back to town, and he told me a great many things about Burke, and Fox, and Fitzpatrick, and all the eminent men of that time with whom he lived when he was young. He said what I have often heard before, that Fitzpatrick was the most agreeable of them all, but Hare the most brilliant. Burke's conversation was delightful, so luminous and instructive. He was very pa.s.sionate, and Adair said that the first time he ever saw him he unluckily asked him some question about the wild parts of Ireland, when Burke broke out, 'You are a fool and a blockhead; there are no wild parts in Ireland.' He was extremely terrified, but afterwards Burke was very civil to him, and he knew him very well.

[7] [Right Hon. Sir Robert Adair, the friend of Fox, formerly amba.s.sador at Constantinople and Vienna. It was he whom Canning once called 'Bobadare-a-dool-fowla.']

He told me a great deal about the quarrel between Fox and Burke.

Fox never ceased to entertain a regard for Burke, and at no time would suffer him to be abused in his presence. There was an attempt made to bring about a reconciliation, and a meeting for that purpose took place of all the leading men at Burlington House. Burke was on the point of yielding when his son suddenly made his appearance unbidden, and on being told what was going on said, 'My father shall be no party to such a compromise,' took Burke aside and persuaded him to reject the overtures. That son Adair described as the most disagreeable, violent, and wrong-headed of men, but the idol of his father, who used to say that he united all his own talents and acquirements with those of Fox and everybody else. After the death of Richard Burke, Fox and Burke met behind the throne of the House of Lords one day, when Fox went up to Burke and put out both his hands to him. Burke was almost surprised into meeting this cordiality in the same spirit, but the momentary impulse pa.s.sed away, and he doggedly dropped his hands and left the House.

Adair told me that Lord Holland has written very copious memoirs of his own time, and particularly characters of all the eminent men who have died, in the delineation of which he excels. Soon after Pitt's resignation in 1801 there was an attempt made to effect a junction between Pitt and Fox, to which they were neither of them averse. The negotiation was, however, entrusted to subordinate agents, and Adair said that he had always regretted that they had not met, for if they had he thought the matter would have been arranged. As it was the design was thwarted by the King through the intervention (I think he said) of Lord Loughborough.