The Greville Memoirs Volume III Part 15

[5] [The injustice of this remark has since become very obvious, for no man was better qualified to enter upon official life, or to run a great career in it, than Sydney Herbert. It must also be said of Sir Robert Peel that he was ever on the watch for the young and rising statesmen who, he said, were hereafter to govern the country; and a very large proportion of the men who have since played a most conspicuous and useful part were introduced by Sir Robert Peel to public life--Sydney Herbert, the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Cardwell, and others.]

I very much incline to believe that, although Peel says he is satisfied with the returns, he does not expect the thing will last, and that upon this conviction he is determined to secure a retreat with such a force as shall make him formidable hereafter.

Such as the appointments are at home, so are they abroad: Londonderry to St. Petersburg, Stuart to Vienna, and in all probability Strangford to Constantinople--the three men who are considered the great upholders of the Anti-Liberal system.

(Stuart told everybody he had the offer, but it was not true.)

The Duke of Leuchtenberg arrived last night. The picture of the young Queen of Portugal (which is probably flattered) does not make her very tempting.

January 15th, 1835 {p.195}

[Page Head: SIR JOHN HOBHOUSE'S VIEW OF AFFAIRS.]

The day before yesterday I fell in with Hobhouse, and we walked together for some time. He said he could not understand what the Government people meant by claiming a majority, as he heard they did; that on the Borough returns the Opposition had a majority of 100 more or less, but that the difference could only be accounted for by one party including all those who call themselves Whigs, and who supported the late Government, and by the other party counting those who, though not supporters, would be disposed to give them a trial. He wondered at and blamed the const.i.tution of the Government, ridiculed the idea of Stanley succeeding Peel, acknowledged that he saw no possibility of any other Government being formed on the dissolution of this, and had no conception what would happen--that another dissolution would be indispensable.

I said that I did not see any more than he did what they were to do when they had got Peel out; that their junction with the Radicals must end there, unless (which I could not believe) they meant to come into office on the principle of supporting and carrying all the measures they had opposed last year. He said, 'I for one will go no farther than I did then; no, that is out of the question.' He said the restoration of Melbourne's Government was impossible after what had pa.s.sed; they could not look the King in the face again, nor he them, after such a clear intimation on his part that he disliked them, and dreaded their principles. Soon after, however, he said that any other Government must be formed on a more popular principle, and especially must make the _arrangement_ of the House of Lords a condition, for it was impossible to go on as things were, between the two houses; that it might have been discovered when the Reform Bill was proposed that this would be the inevitable consequence of pa.s.sing that measure, but that all this he did not expect to be accomplished without a violent collision, which would very likely lead to a republic; that he should be sorry for the disturbance, but was prepared for it, and if a sacrifice was to be made, he could not hesitate in choosing the object of it.

Yesterday morning I met Duncannon, and talked it all over. I asked him if he saw any chance of forming a Government, and if he figured to himself what the King would do. 'Yes,' he said, 'he will send for Stanley.' 'What next?' 'He may send for Lord Grey.'

'Will Lord Grey propose such measures as you think indispensable?'

'If he will not return, or won't go the length, he may send for Melbourne again; but it is clear he--the King--must be prepared for a more Radical Government.' I said, 'I don't think he will ever consent to take such a one, or to agree to the measures they will propose to him.' 'Oh, but he must, he can't help himself.'

'Well, but my belief is that, happen what may, he will not.' 'Why, you don't think he will abdicate?' 'Yes, I do, rather than agree to certain things.' 'Well, but then he must abdicate.' Such is the language of the leaders of the other party, and so calmly do they contemplate the possibility of such a consummation. The point on which all this turns is evidently the destruction of the House of Lords. The Whigs find it necessary to finish the work they began, and to destroy the last bulwark of Conservative power. Stanley's speech at his election, which was very able and eloquent, has evidently disappointed them. They had cherished a hope that he would unite with them at last, which they now find he will not do.

There has been a great debate in their camp whether they shall attack the Speaker or not, but it seems fixed that they shall, and probably they will be beaten. I am glad they do this.

Theodore Hook, whom I met at dinner the other day, and who is an _ame d.a.m.nee_ of the Speaker's, said that he was ready to give up the chair if it was thought imprudent to fight for it; he also said (which I don't believe) that the Home Office had been offered him, and that he had declined it because he could not quit the chair without a peerage, and that he should be of more use in it than in the House of Lords.

Theodore Hook _improvised_ in a wonderful way that evening; he sang a song, the burthen of which was 'Good Night,' inimitably good, and which might have been written down. I heard two good things at dinner yesterday, one of Spankie's. In his canva.s.s he met with a refusal from some tradesman, who told him he should vote for Duncombe and Wakley. Spankie said, 'Well, my friend, I am sorry you won't vote for me, and I can only say that I hope you may have Tom Duncombe for your customer, and Wakley for your tenant.'[6] The other is attributed to Alvanley. Some reformer was clamouring for the expulsion of the Bishops from the House of Lords, but said he would not have them all go; he would leave two: 'To keep up the breed, I suppose,' said the other.

[6] [The one was celebrated for non-payment of his bills, and the other was suspected of setting fire to his house. Wakley's house was burnt, and he brought an action against the Insurance Office, which declined to pay his policy. I forget what was the result of the trial, but that of the evidence was a conviction of his own instrumentality.]

January 17th, 1835 {p.197}

[Page Head: THE COUNTY ELECTIONS.]

The Middles.e.x election terminated in the return of Hume by about 400 votes--Wood got a majority of about 250 at first, but could not sustain it. It would have been a capital thing to turn out Hume, but I never expected it.

January 20th, 1835 {p.197}

Sir George Murray is beaten at Perth; James Wortley at Forfar--blows to the Government. On the other hand, Palmerston is beaten in Hants, at which everybody rejoices, for he is marvellously unpopular; they would have liked to illuminate the Foreign Office. Lord Harrowby called on me yesterday; he told me my pamphlet had been attributed to Croker in some company where he had been. Jonathan Peel told me yesterday morning that Lady Alice Kennedy had sent word to his wife that the Queen is with child; if it be true, and a queer thing if it is, it will hardly come to anything at her age, and with her health; but what a difference it would make!

January 23rd, 1834 {p.197}

Within the last few days the county elections have given a considerable turn to the state of affairs. The Conservatives have been everywhere triumphant. Norfolk, Derbyshire, Hants, Lancashire--two Whigs turned out and two Conservatives returned; Ingilby in Lincolnshire; one in Surrey, one in Kent: and if these affairs had not been infamously managed, they would have returned two in Surrey, two in Kent, and (if they had put up a better man) one in the other division of Norfolk. The great and most important victory, however, is Francis Egerton in Lancashire, who is nearly 1,000 above his opponents, and has been received with astonishing enthusiasm, and was the popular candidate, even at Manchester and with the mob. These elections have damped the spirits of the Radicals, and proportionally raised those of the Government. The 'Morning Chronicle' was yesterday quite silent on the subject, and at Holland House, where I dined, they were evidently in no small disgust. I told Lord Holland that I considered the Lancashire election as the most important event that had occurred, and one calculated to have a great moral effect in favour of the Government, which he owned was true, and they did not deny that the Government had cause for elation.

In the morning we had a meeting at the Council Office to consider of the removal of a.s.sizes, when Lyndhurst in his off-hand way said to me, 'Well, I think we are safe now; I have no fears.' 'Haven't you,' I said, 'but I have.' 'Oh no, we are on a rock--adamant.' I don't think they are yet in a condition to begin triumphing, but I certainly see daylight, which I did not before. n.o.body can possibly deny that there is a great reaction in the country; and though the weight of the towns, and the power of the ten-pounders thrown into the other scale, make it preponderate, there is a strong counteracting force which will enable the better cause to maintain a respectable fight. I expect that Francis Egerton's election will produce indirectly very important consequences, and will be the means of proving to moderate, doubting, timorous politicians that they need not shrink from avowing whatever Conservative sentiments they really do entertain. Much remains to be done, many difficulties to be surmounted, before anything like security can be felt, but undoubtedly the political horizon looks much brighter than it did.

January 25th, 1835 {p.199}

A ridiculous thing happened the other day. The Speaker came to the Council Office in a great stew about the attacks on him, and wanted to look at the register of the names of those who had attended at the different Councils. Though I think he is a _pauvre sire_, he has a very tolerable case here, and I wrote a letter to the 'Times' in his defence, and signed it 'Onslow,'

happening to think of Speaker Onslow. The next day appeared a letter from _Lord Onslow_, declaring that he was not the author of a letter which had appeared in his name. The 'Times' published it, adding they thought he could hardly be serious. Munster told me the day before yesterday that he was told of the Queen's being with child on the day of the Lord Mayor's dinner; that she is now between two and three months gone. Of course there will be plenty of scandal. Alvanley proposes that the psalm 'Lord, _how_ wonderful are thy works' should be sung. It so happens, however, that Howe has not been with the Court for a considerable time.

January 27th, 1835 {p.199}

[Page Head: CHURCH REFORM BILL.]

There is a Committee sitting at my office to arrange the Church Bill--Rosslyn, Wharncliffe, Ellenborough, and Herries. It is generally believed they mean to bring forward some very extensive measures. Allen says, 'The honest Whigs cannot oppose it with honour, nor the Tories support it without infamy,' that all the honest Whigs would support it, the honest Tories oppose it, the dishonest Tories would support, and the dishonest Whigs oppose it.

He told me an anecdote at the same time which shows what the supineness and sense of security of the Church were twenty years ago. An architect built a chapel on Lord Holland's land, near Holland House, and wished it to be appropriated to the service of the Church of England, and served by a curate. The rector objected and refused his consent. There was no remedy against him, and all that could be done was to make it a Methodist meeting-house, or a Roman Catholic chapel, either of which by taking out a licence, the builder could do. However, he got Lord Holland to speak to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Sutton), to tell him the difficulty, and request his interference with the rector to suffer this chapel to be opened to an Orthodox congregation. After some delay the Archbishop told Holland that he had better advise his friend to take out a licence, and make it a Catholic or Dissenting chapel, as he thought best. The builder could not afford to lose the capital he had expended, and acted upon the advice of the Primate.

The chapel is a meeting-house to this day. I shall be very glad if this reform of the Church is well done and gives satisfaction, and I do not know that any of the present Ministers are pledged against a measure which improves the discipline without diminishing the revenues of the Church, but certainly reforms, and especially ecclesiastical reforms, do come with a bad grace from them. It is ludicrous to see the 'Standard' writing Church reform articles; and the other day I looked back at Knatchbull's speech at the Kentish meeting, a week after the dissolution of the late Government, in which he expressed an earnest hope that he might leave this country 'without _any change_ in _Church_ or _State_.'

He has been Anti-everything during his whole life, and now he is come into office to carry into effect 'safe and necessary reforms,' which he never could perceive the slightest occasion for while he was out. All these things are disgusting; they disgust one with political life, they lower the characters of public men.

One strains one's eyes in vain to catch a sight of sincerity, straightforwardness, disinterestedness, consistency; each party we have constantly acting with a view to its own interests _as a party_, and always disregarding consequences with miserable shortsightedness.

February 2nd, 1835 {p.201}

[Page Head: INSECURITY OF THE TORIES.]

The elections are over, and still each side claims a majority. It will turn out probably that the Government have about 270 thick and thin men. Since the Lancashire election, the Whigs have certainly not been so elated, though they still expect to succeed. They begin with the Speakership, and put up Abercromby, who is probably the best candidate they could select; he is a dull, grave man, sensible and hard-headed I fancy, but it has always been matter of astonishment to me that they should make so much of him as they do. The Duke of Wellington is constantly regretting that he did not abstain from taking office, as he wished to do, and I hear that Peel now thinks it would have been better: but he thinks so because he fancies that Stanley would have joined if the Duke had not been there, which is after all very doubtful. Stanley has preserved the strictest neutrality through the late contest, and been very guarded and cautious in his language--so much so, that the Whigs think he will vote for Abercromby against Manners Sutton, which I don't believe. The Church Reform is in active preparation; I know nothing of its details.

Pozzo di Borgo is coming here, and the Emperor sends him partly to save time and, Madame de Lieven writes me word, 'to prove his goodwill, by sending his ablest and most confidential diplomatist.'

Old Talleyrand would very likely have been glad enough to come back too (while the Duke is in office), but he is gone to Richecote. A great mystery is still made about the Queen's _grossesse_; the medical men believe it, though they think it no certainty.

February 8th, 1834 {p.201}

On Monday last we had the Sheriffs' dinner at Lord Rosslyn's,[7]

where I met for the first time all the new men. Murray did not come, for since his defeat in Perthshire he no longer considers himself of the Cabinet. Before dinner Peel told me he had offered the vacant Lordship of the Treasury to Charles Canning,[8] in a letter to Lady Canning, saying it would give him great pleasure to introduce her son into public life, and that he should be glad to treat him with confidence, and do all that lay in him to promote his success. Lady Canning wrote a very gracious answer, saying that she preferred his being in Parliament some time before he took office, but neither he nor she was indisposed to support him and his Government. At this dinner the Duke talked to me about Spain, and said that the affair at the Post Office at Madrid, in which Canterac was killed, was the most lamentable thing that had happened, and the most discreditable to the Government; that if the Carlists did not rise upon it all over Spain, it was clear there were none; that it was a most extraordinary war, in which the Carlists had the superiority in the field, but possessed no fortified and even no open town; and that, notwithstanding all the plunder and devastation incidental to such a state of things, all the farmers in the disturbed provinces regularly paid their rents.

[7] [The Lord President's annual dinner to the Cabinet, at which the Sheriffs for the ensuing year are selected, to be appointed by the King at the next Council.]

[8] [Afterwards Viscount Canning and Governor-General of India in 1856.]

Sandon is to move the address in the House of Commons, Lord Carnarvon refused to move it in the House of Lords. I think the Church Reform Commission, which was gazetted a few days ago, has done good, especially as it is backed up by Peel's refusing to fill up the vacant Prebendary of Westminster, and placing it at the disposal of the Commissioners.

I went to Oatlands on Wednesday for two nights, and met the d.u.c.h.ess, Countess, the Granvilles, and Pahlen. It was agreeable enough. Lord Granville told us a curious story of an atrocity very recently committed in France. The governor of a military academy had objected to one of the officers, a professor, bringing a woman who lived with him into the establishment. The man persisted, and he finally ordered her to be ejected.

Resolving to be revenged, the officer took these means; he bribed a servant of the governor's, who let him into the house at night; when he got into the bedroom of his daughter, ravished her, and then wounded her severely with some sharp instrument, but not mortally. The girl is still alive, but in a state of frenzy; the case is coming before the French tribunals. [This was the famous case of La Ronciere, very inaccurately stated above. There is now little doubt that La Ronciere was innocent, and that the story was got up by the girl to revenge herself on him for some slight.]

[Page Head: THE KING'S WHIMS.]

My brothers tell me that the Duke is bored to death with the King, who thinks it necessary to be giving advice and opinions upon different matters, always to the last degree ridiculous and absurd. He is just now mightily indignant at Lord Napier's affair at Canton, and wants to go to war with China. He writes in this strain to the Duke, who is obliged to write long answers, very respectfully telling him what an old fool he is. Another crotchet of his is to buy the Island of St. Bartholomew (which belongs to Denmark, and which the Danes want to sell) for fear the Russians should buy it, as he is very jealous of Russia. The Duke told him that it would cost 70,000 or 80,000, for which they must go to Parliament; and he did not think any House of Commons we were likely to have would vote such a sum for such a purpose. Then he does not at all like Pozzo di Borgo's coming here, and wrote to say that since he was to come, it was well that he would have the vigilant eye of the Duke to watch him, for he never could look upon him in any other light than as the servile tool of advancing the ambitious objects of an aggrandising and unprincipled Power, or words to that effect. He thinks his present Ministers do not treat him well, inasmuch as they do not tell him enough. The last, it seems, constantly fed him with sc.r.a.ps of information which he twaddled over, and probably talked nonsense about; but it is difficult to imagine anything more irksome for a Government beset with difficulties like this than to have to discuss the various details of their measures with a silly bustling old fellow, who can by no possibility comprehend the scope and bearing of anything.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Speakership--Temporary Houses of Parliament--Church Reform-- Dissenters' Marriage Bill--Peel's False Position--Burke-- Palmerston's Talents as a Man of Business and Unpopularity-- Sympathy of Continental Courts with the Tories--Abercromby elected Speaker--Defeat of the Government--Tactics of the Opposition--The Speaker does not dine with Peel--Meeting of Stanley's Friends--Debate on the Address--Lord John Russell leads the Opposition--The Stanley Party--Second Defeat of the Government--Peel's Ability--The Lichfield House Meeting--Debate on Lord Londonderry's Appointment--His Speech in the Lords and Resignation--Sir E. Sugden resigns the Great Seal of Ireland-- Lady Canterbury--Brougham in the House of Lords--Peel's Readiness and Courage--Lord Canterbury and Stratford Canning proposed for Canada--Approaching Fall of the Peel Government-- Meetings of the Opposition--Further Defeat--Sir Robert Peel's own View of the State of Affairs--He resigns.