The Greville Memoirs Volume III Part 21

[Page Head: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON SIR W. NAPIER.]

Yesterday the Duke of Wellington talked about the Spanish war, the nature of which he described very well, and expressed his opinion that on the whole the Christinos have the best chance; he said Zumalacarreguy was an able man, and that his death must have a very important influence on the result. We talked of Napier's controversy with Perceval.[10] He said Napier had not fairly treated Perceval's character in the controversy, said he had never read a syllable of the book, in order to keep clear of discussions, but that when the work was completed, and all controversies were silenced, he might probably look it over, and if he discovered any errors tell the author of them. He said that no doubt the army had been greatly in want of money, but that this was not the fault of the Government. It was a great mistake to suppose that any advantage had been derived (as to obtaining funds) from the bank restriction; certainly the raising of loans was facilitated by it, but the war would have been much less expensive without it, and he had always been of opinion that the immediate cause of the bank restriction was the Loyalty Loan.

This loan had drained the bankers and individuals of ready money, and the consequence was a stagnation in commerce, and therefore in circulation, which rendered the bank restriction necessary. He then talked of the Walcheren expedition, and said that though it was wretchedly conducted and altogether mismanaged, it was not ill-planned, and if they had gone straight to Antwerp it might have rendered very great service to the general cause, and have put Bonaparte in great difficulties. I had always fancied that he had disapproved of that expedition.

[10] [The Duke referred to Sir William Napier's 'History of the Peninsular War.']

July 1st, 1835 {p.271}

This morning Pemberton was heard in reply in Swift's case, and after a short discussion the court came to a resolution to upset Sir John Nicholl's decision. Brougham behaved very decently to-day, and stated fairly enough his opinion, but he was quite clear, and so was Baron Parke, as to the judgment. The Vice-Chancellor with hesitation acquiesced, and Erskine said nothing; the Lord President went with them, so that the court was unanimous.

From thence I went to St. James's to swear in Sir Charles Grey[11]

and Charles Fitzroy Privy Councillors, when we had a most curious burst of eloquence from his Majesty. This is the first time I have seen him and his present Ministers together, and certainly they do not strike me as exhibiting any mutual affection. After Sir Charles Grey was sworn the King said to him, 'Stand up,' and up he stood. He then addressed him with great fluency and energy nearly in these words:--'Sir Charles Grey, you are about to proceed upon one of the most important missions which ever left this country, and, from your judgment, ability, and experience, I have no doubt that you will acquit yourself to my entire satisfaction; I desire you, however, to bear in mind that the colony to which you are about to proceed has not, like other British colonies, been peopled from the mother country--that it is not an original possession of the Crown, but that it was obtained _by the sword_. You will take care to a.s.sert those undoubted prerogatives which the Crown there possesses, and which I am determined to enforce and maintain, and I charge you by the oath which you have just taken strenuously to a.s.sert those prerogatives, _of which persons who ought to have known better have dared even in my presence to deny the existence_.' His speech was something longer than this, but the last words almost precisely the same. The silence was profound, and I was amused at the astonishment depicted on the faces of the Ministers. I asked Lord Lansdowne and Lord Holland who it was that he alluded to. Neither knew, but the former said he thought it might be Ellice, and that the King referred to something Ellice had said to him when he was Minister.

Somebody said they thought it was Spring Rice, but that could not be when Rice was sitting at the table. I have heard many specimens of his eloquence, but never anything like this. After this he had to give Durham an audience on his emba.s.sy, which must have been very agreeable to him, as he hates him and the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, whose 'magnus Apollo' Durham is.

[11] [Sir Charles Grey had just been appointed Governor of Jamaica. He had previously filled for a short time the office of Chief Justice of Bengal, and enjoyed at this time a considerable reputation in society. The Minister to whom the King referred in his concluding observation was Lord Glenelg as will be seen presently.]

July 3rd, 1835 {p.272}

[Page Head: LORD STANLEY AND GRAHAM CROSS THE HOUSE.]

The night before last Lord Stanley and Graham quitted their neutral seats below the gangway, and established themselves on the opposite bench below Peel. This was considered as an intimation of a more decided hostility to the present Government, and as an abandonment of the neutrality (if such it can be called) which they have hitherto professed. Last night O'Connell made a very coa.r.s.e attack upon Stanley in consequence of this change, which lashed him into a fury, and a series of retorts followed between them, without any result. O'Connell half shuffled out of his expressions, but refused to apologise; the chairman (Bernal) took no notice, and the matter ended by a speech from Stanley and a few remarks upon it from Lord John Russell. The former stated his reasons for this ostentatious locomotion, which amounted to this: that he had been rudely treated in the House by ironical cheers and other intelligible sounds, and attacked by the Government newspapers, and he had, therefore, departed from a society for which he owned he was not fitted. It was not, I think, dignified or judicious, and George Bentinck, the most faithful of his followers, was not satisfied with the proceeding or the explanation. His party, such as it was, was finally extinguished by this act, though it hardly had any existence before; some five or six men, among whom were Gally Knight, George Bentinck, Stratford Canning, and Sir Matthew Ridley, went over to the Opposition benches; the others dispersed where they chose.

The real history of the transaction is this: it originated with Graham, and it is not the first time he has lugged Stanley into what may be called a sc.r.a.pe. He was returning from some division to his usual seat when he was a.s.sailed by those cheers, and some voice cried out, 'Why don't you stay where you are?' on which he bowed in acquiescence to the quarter whence the recommendation proceeded, and instantly retreated to the other side. The next day he told Stanley that _he_ must now stay where he was, and at the same time he produced the 'Globe' newspaper, which contained a very coa.r.s.e attack upon Stanley himself. This article, together with Graham's representation, determined him to take up his position on the Opposition bench, and accordingly there he went, but without any intimation to his friends, who, to their great surprise, found him there, and only got from him the above explanation that evening in the House. Lord John Russell's reply to Stanley's speech was very courteous, and rather well done as far as it went, for he only said a few words. Lord Stanley is certainly fallen from his high estate, and is in a very different position from that which he aspired to occupy at the beginning of the session. He is without a party, and without any authority in the House except what he derives from his own talents for debate.

He has now no alternative but to unite himself with Peel's party, and to act under him, without any pretension to compet.i.tion, and without the possibility of being considered as a separate element of political power. He has been brought to this by a series of false steps from his first refusal to join Peel, followed by his flippant and undecided conduct throughout the great contest. The Whigs and the Tories both hate him, and neither will be very ready to forgive him. There is a mixture of contempt in the dislike of the former, and an undisguised satisfaction among the most violent at having got rid of him, which make any future approximation to their side impossible, and the Tories, though they will receive him in their ranks, will never forgive him for his conduct, to which they attribute the failure of the Conservative effort, for his presumption in endeavouring to set up a middle party and render himself the arbiter of the contest, and especially for his affectation of want of confidence in Peel and his attacks upon the Duke. In the meantime this move of Stanley's has rather served to strengthen the Government in the House of Commons; between the disposition of many to go with Government, the lukewarmness and indolence of the Conservatives, and the steady attendance of a phalanx of Radicals, they have got good, regular, steady-working majorities, and appear as strong in the House of Commons as any Government need be.

July 4th, 1835 {p.274}

Yesterday Brougham gave judgment in the case of Swift and Kelly--a written judgment and at great length. I thought it remarkably well done, embracing all the points of the case, and laying down the law and the reasons for reversing the decree of the court below in a very forcible and perspicuous manner. He must have written this judgment with great rapidity, for it was only on Tuesday afternoon that it was settled to be given on Thursday, all of which is a proof of his admirable talents. His conduct on the last day of the hearing and this judgment in some degree made up for his previous intemperance and violence. He said that he had shown the judgment to Lord Lyndhurst, who entirely agreed with him. A negotiation had been previously opened to endeavour to get the other side to concur in an application to the court to stay the judgment and to consent to a pecuniary compromise, but it was quite ineffectual.

[Page Head: ALAVA AND THE DUKE OF c.u.mBERLAND.]

A night or two ago there was a breeze at Lady Jersey's between the Duke of c.u.mberland and Alava, and many stories made of it, more than were true. The Duke, who had frequently taunted him before, was again attacking him about his expedition and Spanish affairs generally, when Alava got into a fury and said to him, 'Monseigneur, Don Carlos peut etre roi d'Espagne, mais il ne sera jamais le roi du general Alava.' This Lord Jersey told me, and that the other things he is reported to have said to the Duke are not true.

July 7th, 1835 {p.275}

I can't deny that many persons have shown a very kind disposition to a.s.sist me in this business of my Jamaica place, of different political persuasions, and with most of whom I have but a very slight personal acquaintance, among these none more than Mr.

Gladstone and Lord Lincoln, neither of whom did I know to speak to till I put myself into communication with them on this business. On the other hand Charles Wood, who is against me in his opinion, has been the channel of communication with Baring and shown generally a good will towards me. These demonstrations are agreeable enough, and contribute to put one in harmony with mankind, but it is after all a humiliating position, and I feel unutterable disgust, and something akin to shame, at being compelled to solicit the protection of one set of men, and the friendly offices of another, in order to be maintained in the possession of that which is in itself obnoxious to public feeling and opinion. A placeman is in these days an odious animal, and as a double placeman I am doubly odious, and I have a secret kind of whispering sensation that these very people who good-naturedly enough a.s.sist me must be a little shocked at the cause they advocate. All that can be said in my favour is not obvious, nor can it be properly or conveniently brought forward, and all that can be said against me lies on the surface, and is universally evident. The funds from which I draw my means do not somehow seem a pure source; formerly those things were tolerated, now they are not, and my prospects were formed and destiny determined at a remote period, while I incur all the odium and encounter all the risks consequent upon the altered state of public feeling on the subject.

July 15th, 1835 {p.276}

[Page Head: THE KING AND HIS MINISTERS.]

Sefton told me that a correspondence has taken place between Lord Glenelg and Sir Herbert Taylor about that speech of the King's at the Council on Wednesday se'nnight. Glenelg felt himself called upon to enquire whether the blow was aimed at him, and it was evident from the tenor of the reply that it was. I heard from Stephen a day or two afterwards the real truth of this matter. It was Lord Glenelg that the King intended to allude to in his speech. Lord Melbourne spoke to his Majesty on the subject, remonstrated, and said it was impossible to carry on the government if he did such things. He said that he was greatly irritated, and had acted under strong feelings in consequence of what Glenelg had said to him. Melbourne rejoined, 'Your Majesty must have mistaken Lord Glenelg.' 'Not at all,' said the King, and he then went into a dispute they had had about the old const.i.tution of Canada--I forget what, but something the King a.s.serted which Glenelg contradicted. He repaired to the Colonial Office and told Stephen, who informed him that the King was right and he was wrong. (The King, in fact, had got it up, and had the thing at his fingers' ends.) This was awkward; however, it ended in the King's making a sort of apology and crying _peccavi_ for the violence of his language, and this will probably be somewhat of a lesson to him, though it will not diminish the bitterness of his sentiments towards his Ministers.

I expressed my astonishment that any man could consent to stay in office after receiving such an insult as this was, to which Stephen replied that they were all thoroughly aware of their position relatively to the King and of his feelings towards them; but they had undertaken the task and were resolved under all circ.u.mstances to go through with it, and, whatever he might say or do, they should not suffer themselves to be influenced or shaken. This is the truth; they do not look upon themselves as _his_ Ministers, and perhaps they cannot do otherwise as things now are. It is, however, a very melancholy and mischievous state of affairs, and does more to degrade the Monarchy than anything that has ever occurred: to exhibit the King publicly to the world as a cypher, and something less than a cypher, as an unsuccessful compet.i.tor in a political squabble, is to take from the Crown all the dignity with which it is invested by that theoretical attribute of perfection that has been so conveniently ascribed to it. Both King and Ministers have been greatly to blame, the one for the egregious folly which made him rush into this sea of trouble and mortification without calculation or foresight; the other for the unrelenting severity with which they resolved to gratify their revenge and ambition, without considering that they could not punish him without degrading the throne of which he is the occupant, and that the principle involved in his impunity was of more consequence in its great and permanent results than any success of theirs. But it would have required more virtue, self-denial, wisdom, and philosophy than falls to the lot of any public man individually in these days to have embraced all these considerations, and it would have been a miracle if a great mob of men calling themselves a party could have been made to act under the influence of such moral restraints. The King's present behaviour only makes matters worse. When he found himself compelled to take these people back, and to surrender himself a prisoner into their hands, he should have swallowed the bitter pill and digested it, and not kept rolling it in his mouth and making wry faces. He should have made a very bad business as tolerable as he could, by yielding himself with a good grace; and had he treated them with that sort of courtesy which one gentleman may and ought to show to all those with whom he is unavoidably brought into contact, and which implies nothing as to feeling and inclination, he would have received from them that respect and attention which it would have been equally their interest and their desire to show. This would have rendered their relations mutually much more tolerable, a decent veil would have been thrown over all that was humiliating and painful, and the public service must have gained by the tacit compromise; but extreme folly, great violence in those about the King, and hopes of emanc.i.p.ation secretly cherished, together with the intensity of his hatred of his Ministers, have conspired to keep his Majesty in his present unwise, irksome, and degrading posture.

The night before last there was a great concert on the staircase at Stafford House, the most magnificent a.s.sembly I ever saw, and such as I think no crowned head in Europe could display, so grand and picturesque. The appearance of the hall was exactly like one of Paul Veronese's pictures, and only wanted some tapestry to be hung over the bal.u.s.trades. Such prodigious s.p.a.ce, so cool, so blazing with light; everybody was _comfortable_ even, and the concert combined the greatest talents in Europe all together--Grisi, Malibran, Tamburini, Lablache, Rubini, and Ivanhoff. The splendour, the profusion, and the perfect ease of it all were really admirable.

Dined yesterday with the Vice-Chancellor; sixteen people whom I never saw before, almost all lawyers and lawyeresses. He told me that he believed Melbourne had no intention as long as he was Minister of changing the present arrangement with regard to the Great Seal,[12] that he was of opinion that a Chancellor was of no use, and that it was more convenient to keep in his own hands the law patronage of the Great Seal, that this obviated the disputes between Ministers and Chancellors, which have generally been very violent, as between Thurlow and Pitt, and still more between Eldon and Liverpool, which were incessant, and that nothing could exceed the hatred Eldon had for Lord Liverpool, as he knew.

[12] [The Great Seal was still in Commission.]

Tavistock told me a day or two ago that his Majesty's Ministers are intolerably disgusted at his behaviour to them and his studied incivility to everybody connected with them. The other day the Speaker was treated by him with shocking rudeness at the drawing-room. He not only took no notice of him, but studiously overlooked him while he was standing opposite, and called up Manners Sutton and somebody else to mark the difference by extreme graciousness to the latter. Seymour, who was with him as Serjeant-at-Arms, said he had never seen a Speaker so used in the five-and-twenty years he had been there, and that it was most painful. The Speaker asked him if he had ever seen a man in his situation so received at Court. Since he has been Speaker the King has never taken the slightest notice of him. It is monstrous, equally undignified and foolish.

July 18th, 1835 {p.279}

[Page Head: DECISION OF THE WEST INDIA COMMITTEE.]

Yesterday I sat all day at my office wondering why I heard nothing of the Committee, till at half-past four o'clock Graham and Lord Lincoln came in with smiling countenances, that announced good news. They had had an angry debate of three hours' duration.

Baring moved that my holding the office of Secretary of Jamaica was against the spirit of the Act of Parliament. Graham moved that holding it with the leave of absence was in accordance with the Act, and the division was nine to seven. A teller on each side and Baring, who as chairman did not vote, made the numbers ten to nine. They told me that Baring and Vernon Smith were furious. The former endeavoured to turn off his defeat by proposing that the question should be reopened on framing the report; but even Grote opposed that, and he was forced to own that he was wrong in proposing it. I must say that Gladstone told me that Baring behaved very well after the division. I will not conceal the truth, much as I have reason to complain of the man. I owe this victory to the zealous a.s.sistance of the Conservatives, for not one Whig or Radical voted with me; some of the former stayed away, whether designedly or not I don't know, except Stanley, Secretary to the Treasury, who told me he could not make up his mind to go and vote against me. The majority consisted of Herries, Fremantle (Sir Thomas), Gladstone, Nicholl, Graham, Lord Lincoln, Beth.e.l.l, Fector, Bramstone, and Pringle; the minority, Baring, Vernon Smith, Pendarves, Ruthven, Scholefield, Evans, Grote, Hume, R.

Stewart. I never had any intimacy with any one of those who supported me except with Graham, and we were friends, and very intimate friends, twenty years ago. He dropped me all of a sudden from caprice or calculation, and we have been on very decent but scarcely cordial terms ever since. On this occasion I whipped up the old friendship, and with great effect, for he has served me very zealously throughout the business. I scarcely knew any of the other before, Lord Lincoln and Gladstone only on this occasion, and Fector, Nicholl, Bramstone, Beth.e.l.l, and Pringle I do not know now by sight. It is really amusing to see the joy with which the news of Baring's defeat has been hailed by every member of his own family, and all others who have heard of it. The goodwill of the world (a very inert but rather satisfactory feeling) has been exhibited towards me, and there is mixed up with it in all who are acquainted with the surly reformer who is my adversary a lively pleasure at his being baffled and mortified.

July 23rd, 1835 {p.280}

[Page Head: IRISH CHURCH BILL.]

Dined with Bingham Baring[13] yesterday, and met Whateley, Archbishop of Dublin, a very ordinary man in appearance and conversation, with something of pretension in his talk, and telling stories without point, which smelt of the Common room; nevertheless he is a very able man, and they told me that when he is with such men as Senior, and those with whom he is very intimate, he shines. I was greatly disappointed with what I saw and heard of him. The Church Bill has been in the House of Commons these two nights. Peel introduced his motion for dividing the Bill in a very able speech, well adapted to the purpose, if anything was to be gained in such a House of Commons; but the fact is, both parties look beyond the immediate question: one wants to bolster up the present system, the other to overthrow it, and though I go along with Peel on his _point_, I go along with his opponents on their _principle_. He stated, however, very forcibly the dilemma in which his opponents are placed, and said, 'Why don't you make the Establishment Catholic at once, openly and avowedly, or abstain from doing what has that inevitable tendency?' Melbourne said there was no escape from this, and I replied that I would take him at his word, and that it must come to this, and he might immortalise himself by settling the question. It certainly would be a glorious field for a statesman to enter upon to brush away all the obstacles which deeply rooted prejudices and chimerical fears founded on false reasoning throw in his way, and bend all his energies to a direct and vigorous course of policy, at once firm and determined, looking the real evil in the face, and applying the real remedy to it. If I were Prime Minister I would rather fall in the attempt than work on through a succession of expedients none of which were satisfactory to myself, to hold language at variance with my opinions, and to truckle to difficulties which it is now time boldly to face. I am as satisfied as of my existence that if the heart's core of Peel could be laid open, it would be found that he thinks so himself.

His is not the conduct of conviction, and he has been led into contradictions and inconsistencies which must ever beset and entangle those who persist in the attempt to maintain positions which have ceased to be tenable.

[13] [Afterwards the second Lord Ashburton.]

Goodwood, July 29th, 1835 {p.281}

To Petworth on Sat.u.r.day and here on Monday; a smaller party than usual, and no women on account of the d.u.c.h.ess of Argyll's death; far better not to have women at a racing party. Tavistock told me that a man (he did not say who) had been to Lord John, evidently commissioned, though not avowedly, to tell him on the part of Peel and Lord Stanley that they would both support him if he would bring forward a proposition to pay the Irish Catholic clergy. John, however, 'timet Danaos et dona ferentes,' and hinted that his own popularity would be sacrificed if he did.

This is curious, however. John also told him that he never saw Peel laugh so much as during Graham's speech the other night, and he meant (but forgot it) to ask him why he laughed so. To Peel it is nuts to see Stanley and Graham drawing down unpopularity on themselves and every day widening the breach between them and their old friends; but I was somewhat struck with the apparent intimacy which was evinced in what John Russell said about Peel, and asked his brother if they were on very good personal terms.

He said, 'Oh, excellent'--a sort of House of Commons intimacy.

Peel told John all he meant to do in the Committee on the Church Bill--that he should propose so and so, and when they came to the appropriation clauses he should make his bow and leave them.

Tavistock remarked (which had escaped me) that Peel had in his last famous speech (certainly one of extraordinary ability) omitted all mention of the principle of appropriation, and confined himself to the proof that there was no surplus; but what is most remarkable perhaps of all is this: Peel said to John, 'If you _will_ appropriate, I will show you a much better plan than your own,' and he accordingly did show him a plan by which there would be a considerably greater surplus, and John acknowledged that Peel's plan would be better than his own. I wonder what the High Tories and the King would think of all this. While he is quarrelling with Johnny and his friends for Peel's sake, and undergoing martyrdom in his social relations with them, there they are hand and glove, and almost concerting together the very measures which are the cause of all the animosities and all the political violence which agitate and divide the world. There is something extremely ludicrous in all this.

I hear to-day that Peel is going into the country for good, and leaves the Lords to deal with the Bills. He probably expects them to commit some follies, and fancies he may as well be out of the way.

August 4th, 1835 {p.283}

[Page Head: TORY PEERS AND THE CORPORATION BILL.]

Came to town on Sunday, having slept at Winchester on Sat.u.r.day night to see the town and the cathedral, and hear the service in the latter, which was very moderate; the cathedral, however, is worth seeing. When I got to town I found the Tory Lords had been worked into a frenzy by Wetherell and Knight[14] at the bar of the House of Lords (the latter of whom is said to have made a very able speech), and Newcastle and Winchelsea bellowed and bl.u.s.tered in grand style. Lord Rosslyn had told me some time ago that the Duke would have great difficulty in managing his people, but that I think was _a propos_ of the Church Bill. Yesterday at two o'clock there was a great a.s.semblage of Peers at Apsley House to determine what was to be done, and amazed was I when I learnt at about five o'clock that they had resolved to move that evidence should be heard against the principle of the Munic.i.p.al Corporation Bill, which was accordingly moved by Carnarvon last night. At dinner I met Stuart, to whom I expressed my astonishment at the course they had adopted, and he owned that it was 'rather hazardous,' and said that it was adopted at the suggestion of Lyndhurst, who had insisted upon it at Apsley House, and that the Duke had given way. He said that this had followed as a necessary consequence of Brougham proposing that counsel should be heard upon the details, as it appeared that the evidence on which the Bill was founded was not to be relied on. He owned that it was probable Peel would disapprove of the proceedings of the Lords, and a breach between him and them be the consequence. He told me that at a dinner on Sat.u.r.day, at which the Dukes of Wellington and c.u.mberland, Peel, and Wetherell were present, the question had been argued; that Sir Charles Wetherell had urged all the leading arguments he had used in his speech, and Peel had contested every part and particle of his argument, while the Duke of c.u.mberland did not utter a word. Stuart added that he heard the Government meditated something very strong, and I repeated what Hobhouse had told me in the morning, when I met him in the Park--that Melbourne would probably adjourn the House, that there would be a call of the House of Commons, and some strong resolution proposed there.

Some Whigs, however, who were present last night, suggested that it would be better to adjourn the House of Commons, and let the Lords go on with their evidence while they pleased to hear it, and then rea.s.semble the Commons in case the Bill was sent back to them. Hobhouse said, 'Depend upon it, it is the _commencement de la fin_'. It does certainly appear to me that these Tory Lords will never rest till they have accomplished the destruction of the House of Lords. They are resolved to bring about a collision with the House of Commons, and the majority in each House grows every day more rabid and more desperate. I am at a loss to comprehend the views by which Lyndhurst, the ablest of the party, is actuated, or how he can (if it be so, which from Stuart's account is probable) fancy that any object is attainable which involves in it a breach or separation between Peel and the great body of the Tories. I would give much to see the recesses of his mind, and know what he really thinks of all these proceedings, and to what consequences he believes that they will lead.

[14] [Mr. Knight Bruce, afterwards Lord Justice in Equity.]