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

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 nobles—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 nobles by enormous donations as formerly. When to these circumstances 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. THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER I. 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 passed 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

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 Ambassador was coming here to overhaul Lieven, a M. Matuscewitz. He is the principal 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 sex 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 Duchess 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 hitherto 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 (400ℓ.) 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.

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. THE STATE PAPER OFFICE. Every day has brought to light documents of importance and interest which as they are successively found are classed 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.]