In the evening.—Called on Lord Bathurst in the morning; met him going out, and stopped to talk to him. He knew of the meeting in Downing Street; that Lords Harrowby, Wharncliffe, and Chandos were to meet the Chancellor and Lords Althorp and Grey; that Chandos had gone to Brighton, ostensibly to talk to the King about the West Indies, but had taken the opportunity to throw in something on the topic of Reform; that the King desired him to speak to Palmerston, and allowed him to say that he did so by his orders. (The King, it seems, knows nothing of what is going on, for he reads no newspapers and the Household tell him nothing.) Accordingly Chandos did speak to Palmerston, and the result was a note to him, begging these three would meet the three Ministers above mentioned. Lady Harrowby told me that they went. Brougham did not arrive till the conference was nearly over. There was an abundant interchange of civilities, but nothing concluded, the Ministers declining every proposition that Lord Harrowby made to them, though Lord Grey owned that they did not ask for anything which involved an abandonment of the principle of the Bill. They are, then, not a bit nearer an accommodation than they were before.
George Bentinck told me this evening of a scene which had been related to him by the Duke of Richmond, that lately took place at a Cabinet dinner; it was very soon after Durham’s return from abroad. He was furious at the negotiations and question of compromise. Lord Grey is always the object of his rage and impertinence, because he is the only person whom he dares attack. After dinner he made a violent sortie on Lord Grey (it was at Althorp’s), said he would be eternally disgraced if he suffered any alterations to be made in this Bill, that he was a betrayer of the cause, and, amongst other things, reproached him with having kept him in town on account of this Bill in the summer, ‘and thereby having been the cause of the death of his son.’ Richmond said in his life he never witnessed so painful a scene, or one which excited such disgust and indignation in every member of the Cabinet. Lord Grey was ready to burst into tears, said he would much rather work in the coal-mines than be subject to such attacks, on which the other muttered, ‘and you might do worse,’ or some such words. After this Durham got up and left the room. Lord Grey very soon retired too, when the other Ministers discussed this extraordinary scene, and considered what steps they ought to take. They thought at first that they should require Durham to make a public apology (i.e. before all of them) to Lord Grey for his impertinence, which they deemed due to them as he was their head, and to Althorp as having occurred in his house, but as they thought it was quite certain that Durham would resign the next morning, and that Lord Grey might be pained at another scene, they forbore to exact this. However, Durham did not resign; he absented himself for some days from the Cabinet, at last returned as if nothing had happened, and there he goes on as usual. But they are so thoroughly disgusted, and resolved to oppose him, that his influence is greatly impaired. Still, his power of mischief and annoyance is considerable. Lord Grey succumbs to him, and they say in spite of his behaviour is very much attached to him, though so incessantly worried that his health visibly suffers by his presence. There is nothing in which he does not CONFESSION OF A BODY-SNATCHER. meddle. The Reform Bill he had a principal hand in concocting, and he fancies himself the only man competent to manage our foreign relations. Melbourne, who was present at this scene, said, ‘If I had been Lord Grey, I would have knocked him down.’
December 13th, 1831
Lord John Russell brought on his Bill last night in a very feeble speech. A great change is apparent since the last Bill; the House was less full, and a softened and subdued state of temper and feeling was evinced. Peel made an able and a bitter speech, though perhaps not a very judicious one. There are various alterations in the Bill; enough to prove that it was at least wise to throw out the last. Althorp, who answered Peel, acknowledged that if the old Bill had been opposed in its earliest stage it never could have been brought forward again, or made an avowal to that effect. In fact, Peel is now aware (as everybody else is) of the enormous fault that was committed in not throwing it out at once, before the press had time to operate, and rouse the country to the pitch of madness it did. On what trifles turn the destinies of nations! William Bankes told me last night that Peel owned this to him; said that he had earnestly desired to do so, but had been turned from his purpose by Granville Somerset! And why? Because he (in the expectation of a dissolution) must have voted against him, he said, in order to save his popularity in his own county.
Met Melbourne at Lord Holland’s; they were talking of a reported confession to a great extent of murders, which is said to have been begun and not finished, by the Burkers, or by one of them. Melbourne said it was true, that he began the confession about the murder of a black man to a Dissenting clergyman, but was interrupted by the ordinary. Two of a trade could not agree, and the man of the Established Church preferred that the criminal should die unconfessed, and the public uninformed, rather than the Dissenter should extract the truth. Since writing this I see Hunt put a question to George Lamb on this point, and he replied that he knew nothing of any other confession, which is not true. I have heard, but on no authority, that some surgeons are so disagreeably implicated that they choose to conceal these horrors.
December 14th, 1831
People generally are mightily satisfied at the tone of the discussion the other night, and, what is of vast importance, the press has adopted a moderate and conciliatory tone, even the ‘Times,’ which, is now all for compromise. It is clear as daylight that the Government will consent to anything which leaves untouched the great principles of the Bill, and the country desires to see the question settled, and, if possible, rest from this eternal excitement.
December 20th, 1831
The second reading of the Reform Bill was carried at one o’clock on Saturday night by a majority of two to one, and ended very triumphantly for Ministers, who are proportionately elated, and their opponents equally depressed. Croker had made a very clever speech on Friday, with quotations from Hume, and much reasoning upon them. Hobhouse detected several inaccuracies, and gave his discovery to Stanley, who worked it up in a crushing attack upon Croker. It is by far the best speech Stanley ever made, and so good as to raise him immeasurably in the House. Lord Grey said it placed him at the very top of the House of Commons, without a rival, which perhaps is jumping to rather too hasty a conclusion. He shone the more from Peel’s making a very poor exhibition. He had been so nettled by Macaulay’s sarcasms the night before on his tergiversation, that he went into the whole history of the Catholic question and his conduct on that occasion, which, besides savouring of that egotism with which he is so much and justly reproached, was uncalled for and out of place. The rest of his speech was not so good as usual, and he did not attempt to answer Stanley.