[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
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 assembled 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. Nobody 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 quantity 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, LORD LYNDHURST AND THE GREAT SEAL. 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 amusement 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.
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 7,000ℓ. 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.
August 6th, 1828
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 passionate, 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 ambassador 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 SIR ROBERT ADAIR’S ANECDOTES. 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 passed 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.
There was another Council about a week ago. On these occasions the King always whispers to me something or other about his racehorses or something about myself, and I am at this moment in high favour. We had Howley and Bloomfield[8] at this Council, with the latter of whom I made acquaintance, to the great amusement of the Duke. He laughed at seeing me conversing with this bishop.