The Greville Memoirs Volume I Part 16

Yesterday the Duke dined with us, in very good spirits, and agreeable as he always is, though not so communicative and free as he used to be. He had never told Francis Leveson about the Duke of Northumberland[26] till Sunday, when he wrote to announce the appointment. His Grace seems mightily pleased with it, and fancies that his figure and his fortune are more than enough to make him a very good Lord-Lieutenant. He says he was obliged to coax him a little to get him to accept it.

[26] [Hugh, third Duke of Northumberland, was declared Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on the recall of Lord Anglesey.]

[Page Head: THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER I.]

He said that he was on the best terms with France, talked of Russia and her losses in the war, adding that the notion of her power was at an end. He believed that the Russians were numerically as strong as the Turks in the last campaign, and they were much more numerous than they said: first, _because_ they said they were not so; and secondly, that he had other reasons for believing it; he thought they had begun the campaign with 160,000 men and had lost 120,000.[27] They were talking of St.

Petersburg and its palaces. The Duke said that the fortunes of the great Russian n.o.bles--the Tolstoys, &c.--were so diminished that they lived in corners of their great palaces; but this was owing to the division of property and the great military colonies, by which the Crown lands were absorbed, and the Emperors had no longer the means of enriching the n.o.bles by enormous donations as formerly. When to these circ.u.mstances are added the amelioration of the condition of the serfs, and the spirit of general improvement, and the growth of Liberal ideas, generated by intercommunication with the rest of Europe, it is impossible to doubt that a revolution must overtake Russia within a short period, and probably the Emperor has undertaken this war in order to give vent to the restless humours which are beginning to work. I said so to Lord Bathurst, and he replied that 'he thought so too, but that the present Emperor was a man of great firmness,' as if any individual authority or character could stem the torrent of determined action impelled by universal revolution of feeling and opinion. He said the late Emperor was so well aware of this that he died of the vexation it had caused him, which was aggravated by the reflection that he was in great measure himself the cause of it. He was so bit by Liberal opinions, and so delighted with the effects he saw in other countries flowing from the diffusion of intelligence and freedom, that he wished to engraft these dangerous exotics upon the rude and unprepared soil of his own slavish community. When he went to Oxford he was so captivated with the venerable grandeur of that University that he declared he would build one when he got home, and it is equally true that he said he 'would have an Opposition.' These follies were engendered in the brain of a very intelligent man by the mixture of such crudities with an unbounded volition, and the whole fermented by a lively imagination and a sincere desire to confer great benefits on his country.

[27] [This seems an extraordinary statement, but it shows how well informed the Duke was. In Major von Moltke's narrative of the campaign of 1828 he estimates the average force of the Russian army at 100,000. But from May 1828 to February 1829 no less than 210,108 men pa.s.sed through the hospitals, or died in them. So that, as Moltke remarks, in the course of those ten months every man in his army was twice in hospital. Never did an army suffer more severely from sickness.]

January 25th, 1829 {p.159}

Lord Anglesey's departure from Dublin was very fine, and his answer to the addresses good. I fancy George Villiers had some hand in penning them. The Duke when he dined with us the other day said that a Russian Extraordinary Amba.s.sador was coming here to overhaul Lieven, a M. Matuscewitz. He is the princ.i.p.al writer in their Foreign Office, a clever man. Their despatches are more able than they used to be, but the Duke said that the Turkish offices are better conducted than any, and the Turkish Ministers extremely able. Lord Bathurst told me he had lately read the minutes of a conversation between the Reis-Effendi and the Allied Ministers after the battle of Navarino, when they were ignorant whether the Turk had received intelligence of the event, and that his superiority over them was exceedingly striking. This was the conference in which when they asked him 'supposing such an event had happened, what he should say to it,' he replied 'that in his country they never named a child till its s.e.x was ascertained.'

Everybody thinks the appointment of the Duke of Northumberland a very good one, and that the Duke is in great luck to get him. It is surprising that he should have consented to go, but he probably likes to do something and display his magnificence. He is a very good sort of man, with a very narrow understanding, an eternal talker, and prodigious bore. The d.u.c.h.ess is a more sensible woman, and amiable and good-humoured. He is supposed to be ruled in all things by her advice; he has no political opinions, and though he has. .h.i.therto voted against the Catholics, he is one of the people who pin their faith on the Duke, and who are made to vote in any way and upon anything as he may please to desire them.

This pension of Lady Westmeath's makes a great noise, and it is generally believed that when Lord Anglesey refused to grant it the Duke got the King's sign manual for it, and the job was done.

The truth is that Lord Anglesey had at first refused, or rather expressed his disapprobation, and asked the Duke if the King had commanded it, to which the Duke sent an angry answer that he might have been sure he should not have recommended it but by the King's commands. M---- told me the pension (400) was granted four months ago, for he signed the warrant himself.

Polignac is gone to Paris, but the Duke thinks not to be Minister. Polignac told him that he wished to return here, as he thought he could do more good here than there.

[Page Head: THE STATE PAPER OFFICE.]

Yesterday I went with Amyot to the State Paper Office to look after my Council books. I found one book belonging to my office and nearly thirty volumes of the 'Register of the Council of State,'[28] which I mean to ask for, but which I suppose they will refuse. Amyot suggests that as all the acts of the Council of State were illegal and of no authority they cannot be considered as belonging to the Council Office, and are merely historical records without an official character. I shall try, however, to get them. Mr. Lemon showed us a great many curious papers. When he first had the care of the State papers they were in the greatest confusion, and he has been diligently employed in reducing them to order. Every day has brought to light doc.u.ments of importance and interest which as they are successively found are cla.s.sed and arranged and rendered disposable for literary and historical purposes.

[28] [Of the time of the Commonwealth. The 'Privy Council Register' extends from the last years of Henry VIII. to the present time, not including the Commonwealth.]

Lemon has found papers relating to the Powder Plot alone sufficient to make two quarto volumes, exceedingly curious; all Garnett's original papers, and I hope hereafter they will be published.[29] We saw the famous letter to Lord Mounteagle, of which Lemon said he had, he thought, discovered the author. It has been attributed to Mrs. Abington, Lord Mounteagle's sister, but he thinks it was written by Mrs. Vaux, who was a friend of hers, and mistress, probably, of Garnett; it is to her that many of Garnett's letters are addressed. It seems that Mrs. Vaux and Mrs. Abington were both present at the great meeting of the conspirators at Hendlip, and he thinks that the latter, desirous of saving her brother's life, prevailed on Mrs. Vaux to write the letter, for the handwriting exactly corresponds with some other writing of hers which he has seen. There is a remarkable paper written by King James with directions what questions should be put to Guy Faux, and ending with a recommendation that he should be tortured first gently, and then more severely as might be necessary. Then the depositions of Faux in the Tower, which had been taken down (contrary to his desire) in writing, and which he was compelled to sign upon the rack; his signature was written in faint and trembling characters, and his strength had evidently failed in the middle, for he had only written 'Guido.' There is a distinct admission in the Plot papers in Garnett's own hand that he came to a knowledge of the Plot otherwise than by the Sacrament of Confession, which oversets Lingard; a paragraph by which it is clear that the Pope knew of it; and a curious paper in which, having sworn that he had never written certain letters, which letters were produced when he was taxed with the false oath, Garnett boldly justifies himself, and says that they ought not to have questioned him on the subject, having the letters in their hands, and that he had a right to deny what he believed they could not prove--a very remarkable exposition of the tenets of his order and the doctrines of equivocation.

[29] [The substance of these papers has since been published by the late David Jardine, Esq., in his excellent 'Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot.' (Murray, London, 1857.) Some of the particulars here referred to by Mr.

Greville are not strictly accurate, or at least have not been confirmed by subsequent investigation. It is not probable that the letter to Lord Mounteagle was written by Mrs. Abington or by Mrs. Vaux, nor is it at all certain that either of these ladies had any knowledge of the Plot. Mr. Jardine ascribes the letter to Tresham ('Narrative,' &c., p. 83). Garnett's admissions are printed in Jardine's Appendix. His knowledge of the Plot was derived from Greenway, a priest to whom Catesby had revealed it in confession.

The Pope was probably not privy to the Plot. The celebrated 'Treatise on Equivocation' was found in Tresham's desk. The identical copy with Garnett's notes is still in the Bodleian; it was reprinted in 1851.]

When I came away from the State Paper Office I met George Dawson, and we had a long conversation about Irish affairs, from which I gathered what is to be done. The Catholic question is to be conceded, the elective franchise altered, and the a.s.sociation suppressed. This latter is, I take it, to be a preliminary measure, and I suspect the Duke went to the King on Monday with the resolution of the Cabinet on the subject, and I think so the more because the Archbishop was sent for post-haste just before he went. Dawson talked to me a great deal about his speech at Derry, and said that so many of his friends were aware of the change in his opinions that he thought it more fair and manly to declare them at once in public than to use any dissimulation with his const.i.tuents and leave them to be guessed at, as if he dared not own them; that he had made a great sacrifice, for he had risked his seat, which was very secure before, and had quarrelled with Peel, with his family, and with all his old political friends and a.s.sociates. We talked a great deal about Peel, and I see clearly that he has given way; probably they have compromised the business, and he agrees to the Emanc.i.p.ation part, in order to have the a.s.sociation suppressed and the 40s. freeholders disfranchised. Lord Anglesey always said that his removal would facilitate the business, for the Duke wished to have all the credit of it to himself, and had no mind to divide it with him, whereas if Lord Anglesey had remained the chief credit would have fallen to his share.

[Page Head: NAVARINO.]

I met Sir Edward Codrington in the morning, and walked with him to Downing Street, where he was going to talk to the Duke about his Navarino business. He is mightily incensed, thinks he has been scandalously used both by Dudley and Aberdeen, is ready to tell his story and show his doc.u.ments to anybody, and says he is resolved the whole matter shall come out, and in the House of Commons if he can produce it. G.o.d knows how his case will turn out, but I never saw a man so well satisfied with himself. He says that the action at Navarino was, as an achievement, nothing to the affair at Patras, when with one line-of-battle ship, one frigate, and a corvette he drove before him Ibrahim and four Turkish admirals and a numerous fleet.

February 4th, 1829 {p.163}

Went to Middleton last Friday; very few people. I returned by Oxford, and called on Dr. Bandinell, who took me to the Bodleian.

I could not find any Council books, but I had not much time to devote to the search. Dr. Bandinell promised to inform me if he could find any books or ma.n.u.scripts relating to my office. I was surprised to find in the Bodleian a vast number of books (ma.n.u.scripts) which had belonged to Pepys. I came to town on Monday night, and found that the concession of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation was generally known; the 'Times' had an article on Friday which clearly announced it. The rage and despair of the Orange papers is very amusing. I have not yet heard how the King took it all. Glad as I am that the measure is going to be carried, the conduct of all those who are to a.s.sist in it (the old anti-Catholics) seems to me despicable to the greatest degree; having opposed it against all reason and common sense for years past, now that the Duke of Wellington lifts up his finger they all obey, and without any excuse for their past or present conduct. The most agreeable event, if it turns out to be true, is the defection of Dr. Philpots, whose conduct and that of others of his profession will probably not be without its due effect in sapping the foundations of the Church. All the details that I have yet learnt confirm my opinion that the spirit in which the Duke and his colleagues approach this great measure is not that of calm and deliberate political reasoning, but a fearful sense of necessity and danger, to which they submit with extreme repugnance and with the most miserable feelings of pique and mortification at being compelled to adopt it. The Duke and Peel wrote to Francis Leveson, complaining of my brother's having met Shiel at dinner, and they were so enraged with George Villiers[30] that they seriously meditated turning him out of his office. Wretched and contemptible to the greatest degree! They are now exceedingly annoyed because it is discovered that Woulffe was once a member of the a.s.sociation, and would willingly have him turned out of the place of a.s.sistant-Barrister, which has just been given to him; but Francis is resolved to maintain him in it. They say the Duke sent a copy of the King's Speech to Lord Eldon.

[30] [Mr. George Villiers, then an Irish Commissioner of Customs (afterwards Earl of Clarendon), had cultivated the society of Shiel and invited him to dinner. Such an attention from an English official to an Irish Catholic was at that time an unheard-of innovation. Shiel told his host that he had never dined in a Protestant house before. The Duke of Wellington took great umbrage at what he considered an unwarrantable breach of official decorum.]

[Page Head: CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.]

February 5th, 1829 {p.164}

Went to Brookes' yesterday, and found all the Whigs very merry at the Catholic news. Most of them were just come to town and had heard nothing till they arrived. The old Tories dreadfully dejected, but obliged to own it was all true; intense curiosity to hear what Peel will say for himself. The general opinion seems to be that the Duke has managed the matter extremely well, which I am disposed to think too, but there is always a disposition to heap praise upon him whenever it is possible. n.o.body yet knows who are converted and who are not; they talk of nine bishops; I think he will have them all, and I expect a very great majority in the House of Lords. Many people expect that Wilmot's plan will be adopted, restraining the Catholics from voting in matters concerning the Church, which I do not believe, for Wilmot is at a discount and his plan is absurd and impracticable. Lord Harrowby, however, is all for it. I hear many of the Liberals are exceedingly provoked, and not unnaturally, at the Duke's effecting this measure, at which they have been so long labouring in vain, and give as many spiteful flings at him as they can about the insincerity of his letter to Curtis. It matters very little now whether he was sincere or not. It evidently was part of his plan to keep it all secret till it was matured, and as Curtis chose to ask him questions he was quite right to throw dust in his eyes.

CHAPTER V.

The Catholic Relief Bill--Inconsistency of the Tories--The Catholic a.s.sociation--Dinner at Charles Grant's--The Terceira Expedition--Tory Discontent--Peel resigns his Seat for Oxford University--A Blunder in Chancery--The Oxford Election-- Influence of the Duke of Wellington--Debate of Royal Dukes-- Peel beaten--Sir Edward Codrington--Violence of the King-- Intrigues to defeat the Catholic Bill--The Duke of c.u.mberland-- Furious State of Parties--Matuscewitz--Peel's Speech on Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation--Exclusion of O'Connell from his Seat for Clare--Pitt's View of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation--'Musae Cateatonenses'--'Thorough'--Mr. Lowther not turned out--Duke of Newcastle's Audience of George IV.--The King's Personal Habits--The Debate--Mr. Sadler--Hardness of the Duke of Wellington--His Duel with Lord Winchelsea--The Bishops and the Bill--Sir Charles Wetherell--The King on the Duel--Lord Winchelsea's Pocket-handkerchief--Debate on the Catholic Bill-- The Duke of Richmond--Effects of Dawson's Speech on the King-- The Bill in Jeopardy--Lady Jersey and Lord Anglesey--Lord Falmouth and Lord Grey--O'Connell at Dinner--The Duke breaks with Lord Eldon--Hibner the Murderess--Theatrical Fund--The Levee--The Duke's Carriage stopped--The King's Health--Lady Conyngham--O'Connell's Seat--Child's Ball at Court--Princess Victoria--Legal Appointments--Lord Palmerston on Foreign Affairs--The King and Lord Sefton--The King's Speech on the Prorogation--Madame du Cayla--George IV.'s Inaccuracy-- Conversation of the Duke of Wellington on the King and the Duke of c.u.mberland.

[Page Head: PEEL'S SPEECH ON THE CATHOLIC BILL.]

February 6th, 1829 {p.166}

Parliament met yesterday; a very full attendance and intense interest and curiosity. The King's Speech, which was long and better written than usual, was not quite satisfactory to the Catholics. I met Lord Harrowby coming from the House of Lords, and he said they did not like it at all; the previous suppression of the a.s.sociation was what they disliked. However, all discontent was removed by Peel's speech, which was deemed (as to the intentions of Ministers) perfectly satisfactory even by those who were most prejudiced before against Government. I was in the House of Commons. Peel was very feeble, and his case for himself poor and ineffective; all he said was true enough, but it was only what had been said to him over and over again for years past, and he did not urge a single argument for acquiescing now which was not equally applicable to his situation two years ago.

However, everybody was so glad to have the measure carried that they did not care to attack Peel or his speech, though if there had been a Brunswicker of any talent in the House he might have cut it up finely; two or three of them spoke, but wretchedly ill, and Lord Chandos was not at all violent, which I expected he would have been. Lord Eldon was violent but impotent, in the House of Lords, and Lord Bathurst made a sort of explanation which was very poor.

On leaving the House of Commons I fell in with Burdett, Lord Sefton, and G. Bentinck, and they all owned that the business is very handsomely done; and Morpeth and many others whom I saw afterwards at the Club are quite satisfied. They would have preferred that the Catholic Relief Bill and the suppression of the a.s.sociation should have gone together, but do not make any difficulties on this head, and acknowledge (which is the truth) that the Duke was probably obliged to do something to cajole the Tories, and give some colour to their conduct. I sat next to Fitzgerald in the House, who is not yet re-elected, and he told me that this was absolutely necessary. He was of course delighted and said, 'How right Lord Francis was to trust to the Duke,'

which, however, is all nonsense. He had no reason to trust to him at all, and I really believe would not have continued in office as Irish Secretary unless he had adopted this measure. He owned as Peel was speaking that he was not doing it well; he was feeble and diffuse in the beginning, and too full of civilities and appeals to Bankes and his old a.s.sociates. However, thank G.o.d, the event is accomplished, no matter how; probably it could not have been done without the concurrence of these Tories, who have, I think, certainly lost their character by their conduct; and there is this evil in the history of the measure, that a blow will have been given to the reputation of public men in general which will, I strongly suspect, have an important though not immediate effect upon the aristocratic influence in this country, and tend remotely to increase the democratic spirit which exists. In all these proceedings there has been so little of reason, principle, or consistency; so much of prejudice, subserviency, pa.s.sion, and interest, that it is impossible not to feel a disgust to parties in general. The conduct of those idiots the Brunswickers is respectable in comparison with such men as the High Churchmen; and the Whigs and Catholic supporters, however they may have suffered before, in this matter stand clear and have only grounds for exultation. They accept the measure with great moderation, and are not disposed to mar the success of it by the introduction of any topics likely to create ill blood, nor to damp the ardour of new converts by throwing their former follies in their faces.

Now, then, the Duke is all-powerful, and of course he will get all the honour of the day. Not that he does not deserve a great deal for having made up his mind to the thing; he has managed it with firmness, prudence, and dexterity; but to O'Connell and the a.s.sociation, and those who have fought the battle on both sides of the water, the success of the measure is due. Indeed, Peel said as much, for it was the Clare election which convinced both him and the Duke that it must be done, and from that time the only question was whether he should be a party to it or not. If the Irish Catholics had not brought matters to this pa.s.s by agitation and a.s.sociation, things might have remained as they were for ever, and all these Tories would have voted on till the day of their death against them.

Mahony, who is here, has written over to O'Connell, as have all the other Catholics, to implore him to use his whole influence to procure the dissolution of the a.s.sociation, and it is said that O'Connell had an idea of resigning his seat for Clare to Vesey, on the ground that, having turned him out because he had joined a Government hostile to their claims, he owed him this reparation on finding it not to be the case. But I doubt whether this scheme is practicable; still, I think if O'Connell could do it it would be a good thing, and serve to reconcile the people here to him, and give a great lift to his character. I expect to hear that the a.s.sociation has dissolved itself on receiving intelligence of the proceedings in the House of Commons. Lord Anglesey spoke very well, but n.o.body will care for his case now; besides, I doubt his making out a good one. The fact is that they laid a trap for him, and that he fell into it; that the Duke's letters became more insulting, and that a prudent man would have avoided the snare into which his high spirit and pa.s.sion precipitated him.

[Page Head: DINNER AT CHARLES GRANT'S]

February 8th, 1829

Peel spoke on Friday night better than he did on Thursday.

Huskisson made a spiteful speech, and George Dawson one which I heard Huskisson say he thought one of the neatest speeches he had ever heard. I dined yesterday with all the Huskissonians at Grant's. There were there Lords Granville, Palmerston, and Melbourne, Huskisson, Warrender, and one or two more. Huskisson is in good humour and spirits, but rather bitter; he said that if Peel had asked the advice of a friend what he should do, the advice would have been for his own honour to resign. I said I did not think Peel would have got credit by resigning. He said, 'But don't you think he has quite lost it by staying in?' He owned, however, that the Duke could not have carried it without Peel, that his influence with the Church party is so great that his continuance was indispensable to the Duke.

This affair of the Portuguese at Terceira[1] (which certainly, unless it can be explained, seems a gross outrage) they all fell upon very severely, and Lord Harrowby told me afterwards he could not understand it, and thought for the honour of the country it should be explained forthwith.

[1] [In December 1828 an expedition, consisting of 652 Portuguese refugees of the party of the Queen, sailed from England for Terceira in four vessels, under the command of Count Saldanha. Terceira held for the Queen, and arms and ammunition had previously been sent them from England. The British Government ordered Captain Walpole, of the 'Ranger' to stop this expedition off Terceira, which he did by firing a gun into Saldanha's ship. The ground taken by the Duke of Wellington in defence of this measure was his resolution to maintain the neutrality of England between the two parties then contending for the Crown of Portugal. But the proceeding was vehemently attacked in Parliament and elsewhere.]

[Page Head: DISCONTENT OF THE TORIES.]

We are now beginning to discover different people's feelings about this Catholic business, and it is clear that many of the great Tories are deeply offended that the Duke was not more communicative to them, princ.i.p.ally, it seems, because they have continued to talk in an opposite sense and in their old strain up to the last moment, thereby committing themselves, and thus becoming ridiculous by the sudden turn they are obliged to make.

This they cannot forgive, and many of them are extremely out of humour, although not disposed to oppose the Duke. The Duke of Rutland means to go to Belvoir, and not vote at all. The Duke of Beaufort does not like it, but will support the measure. Lowther has been to the King, and it is supposed he has resigned. They complain that the Duke has thrown them over, still n.o.body doubts that he will have great majorities in both Houses. It was a.s.serted most positively at Brookes' yesterday that Peel's offer of resigning his seat at Oxford had been accepted. In Dublin the moderate people are furious with O'Connell for his abuse of everybody. There is no getting over the fact that he it is who has brought matters to this conclusion, and that but for him the Catholic question would never have been carried; but his violence, bad taste, and scurrility have made him 'lose the l.u.s.tre of his former praise.'

February 9th, 1829 {p.179}

I called at Devonshire House in the morning, and there found Princess Lieven very eloquent and very angry about the Terceira business, which certainly requires explanation. She is very hostile to the Duke, which is natural, as he is anti-Russian, and they have never got over their old quarrel. Saldanha got up a _coup de theatre_ on board his ship. When Walpole fired on him a man was killed, and when the English officer came on board he had the corpse stretched out and covered by a cloak, which was suddenly withdrawn, and Saldanha said, 'Voila un fidele sujet de la Reine, qui a toujours ete loyal, a.s.sa.s.sine,' &c.