I have refrained for a long time from writing down anything about the cholera, because the subject is intolerably disgusting to me, and I have been bored past endurance by the perpetual questions of every fool about it. It is not, however, devoid of interest. In the first place, what has happened here proves that ‘the people’ of this enlightened, reading, thinking, reforming nation are not a whit less barbarous than the serfs in Russia, for precisely the same prejudices have been shown here that were found at St. Petersburg and at Berlin. The disease has undoubtedly appeared (hitherto) in this country in a milder shape than elsewhere, but the alarm at its name was so great that the Government could do no otherwise than take such precautions and means of safety as appeared best to avert the danger or mitigate its consequences. Here it came, and the immediate effect was a great inconvenience to trade and commerce, owing to restrictions, both those imposed by foreigners generally on this country and those we imposed ourselves between the healthy and unhealthy places. This begot complaints and disputes, and professional prejudices and jealousies urged a host of combatants into the field, to fight about the existence or non-existence of cholera, its contagiousness, and any collateral question. The disposition of the public was (and is) to believe that the whole thing was a humbug, and accordingly plenty of people were found to write in that sense, and the press lent itself to propagate the same idea. The disease, however, kept creeping on, the Boards of Health which were everywhere established immediately became odious, and the THE CHOLERA IN ENGLAND. vestries and parishes stoutly resisted all pecuniary demands for the purpose of carrying into effect the recommendations of the Central Board or the orders of the Privy Council. In this town the mob has taken the part of the anti-cholerites, and the most disgraceful scenes have occurred. The other day a Mr. Pope, head of the hospital in Marylebone (Cholera Hospital) came to the Council Office to complain that a patient who was being removed with his own consent had been taken out of his chair by the mob and carried back, the chair broken, and the bearers and surgeon hardly escaping with their lives. Furious contests have taken place about the burials, it having been recommended that bodies should be burned directly after death, and the most violent prejudice opposing itself to this recommendation; in short, there is no end to the scenes of uproar, violence, and brutal ignorance that have gone on, and this on the part of the lower orders, for whose especial benefit all the precautions are taken, and for whose relief large sums have been raised and all the resources of charity called into activity in every part of the town. The awful thing is the vast extent of misery and distress which prevails, and the evidence of the rotten foundation on which the whole fabric of this gorgeous society rests, for I call that rotten which exhibits thousands upon thousands of human beings reduced to the lowest stage of moral and physical degradation, with no more of the necessaries of life than serve to keep body and soul together, whole classes of artisans without the means of subsistence. However complicated and remote the causes of this state of things, the manifestations present themselves in a frightful presence and reality, and those whose ingenuity, and experience, and philosophical views may enable them accurately to point out the causes and the gradual increase of this distress are totally unable to suggest a remedy or to foresee an end to it. Can such a state of things permanently go on? can any reform ameliorate it? Is it possible for any country to be considered in a healthy condition when there is no such thing as a general diffusion of the comforts of life (varying of course with every variety of circumstance which can affect the prosperity of individuals or of classes), but when the extremes prevail of the most unbounded luxury and enjoyment and the most dreadful privation and suffering? To imagine a state of society in which everybody should be well off, or even tolerably well off, would be a mere vision, as long as there is a preponderance of vice and folly in the world. There will always be effects commensurate with their causes, but it has not always been, and it certainly need not be, that the majority of the population should be in great difficulty, struggling to keep themselves afloat, and, what is worse, in uncertainty and in doubt whether they can earn subsistence for themselves and their families. Such is the case at present, and I believe a general uncertainty pervades every class of society, from the highest to the lowest; nobody looks upon any institution as secure, or any interest as safe, and it is only because those universal feelings of alarm which are equally diffused throughout the mass but slightly affect each individual atom of it that we see the world go on as usual, eating, drinking, laughing, and dancing, and not insensible to the danger, though, apparently indifferent about it.
April 4th, 1832
Charles Wood[2] came to me yesterday, and brought a paper showing the various effects of a different qualification from 10ℓ. to 40ℓ. for the metropolitan districts, to talk over the list, but principally to get me to speak to Harrowby about a foreseen difficulty. The first clause in the Bill enacts that fifty-six boroughs be disfranchised. This gave great offence in the House of Commons, was feebly defended, but carried by the majority, which was always ready and required no reason; it was an egregious piece of folly and arrogance there, here it presents a real embarrassment. I told him I knew Harrowby had an invincible repugnance to it, and that the effect would be very bad if they split upon the first point. He said he should not defend it, that all reason was against it, but that there it was, and how was it to be got rid of? I suggested that it should be passed over, and that they should go at once to the boroughs A DIFFICULTY AT SCHEDULE A. seriatim. He said if that clause was omitted a suspicion would immediately arise that there was an intention of altering Schedule A, and nothing would avert that but getting through a great part of it before Easter, and that this might be difficult, as the longest time they could expect to sit would be three days in Passion Week. He talked a great deal about the country expecting this, and that they would not be satisfied if it was not done, and all the usual jargon of the Reformers, which it was not worth while to dispute, and it ended by my promising to talk to Lord Harrowby about it. This I did last night, and he instantly flew into a rage. He said ‘he would not be dragged through the mire by those scoundrels. It was an insolence that was not to be borne; let them make their Peers if they would, not Hell itself should make him vote for fifty-six; he would vote for sixty-six or any number but that, that he would not split with the Tories on the first vote; if indeed they would consent to fifty-six he would, or to anything else they would agree to, but if the Government brought this forward no consideration on earth should prevent his opposing it.’ We then discussed the whole matter, with the proposed amendments which Wood and I had talked over with reference to the metropolitan members and town and county voting, and I am to go to-day and propose that after the second reading is carried they should adjourn till after Easter, and give a little time for the excitement (which there must be) to subside, and to see how matters stand, and what probability there is of getting the thing through quietly.
[2] [Mr. Charles Wood, afterwards Viscount Halifax, but at this time private Secretary to Earl Grey, whose daughter he married.]
April 6th, 1832
I called on the Duke of Richmond on Wednesday morning, and told him what had passed between Wood and me, and Lord Harrowby and me afterwards. He was aware of the difficulty, and regretted it the more because he might have to defend it in the House of Lords. He wished me very much to go to Downing Street and see Lord Grey himself if possible before the levee, and he suggested that the words fifty-six might be left in blank by Lord Grey’s own motion, that this would be in conformity with the forms of the House. I set off, but calling at home on my way found Lord Harrowby at my door. He came in, and was anxious to know if I had said anything; he was more quiet than the night before, but still resolved not to agree to fifty-six, though anxious to have the matter compromised in some way. Lord Harrowby wanted to adjourn after the second reading, but owned that the best effect would be to get through Schedule A before Easter. Yesterday I saw Wood; he harped upon the difficulty and the old strain of the country. I suggested the point of form which Richmond had mentioned, but he said that could not be now in the Bill, as it was sent up from the Commons, that if they were beaten on fifty-six the country would consider it tantamount to throwing out Schedule A, and would highly approve of a creation of Peers, and that, in fact (if they wished it), it would be the best opportunity they could have. I told him that it would heap ridicule upon all the antecedent proceedings, and the pretext must be manifest, as it would appear in the course of the discussions what the real reason was. In the middle of our conversation Ellice came in, and directly asked if my friends would swallow fifty-six, to which I said, ‘No.’ We had then a vehement dispute, but at last Wood turned him out, and he and I resumed. We finally agreed that I should ask Lord Harrowby whether, if Lord Grey of his own accord proposed to leave out the words fifty-six, but with an expression of his opinion that this must be the number, he (Lord Harrowby) would meet him with a corresponding declaration that he objected to the specification of the number in the clause, without objecting to the extent of the disfranchisement, it being always understood that what passes between us is unauthorised talk, and to commit nobody—‘without prejudice,’ as the lawyers say.
I heard yesterday, however, from Keate, who is attending me (and who is the King’s surgeon, and sees him when he is in town), that he saw his Majesty after the levee on Wednesday, and that he was ill, out of sorts, and in considerable agitation; that he enquired of him about his health, when the King said he had much to annoy him, and that ‘many things passed there (pointing to the Cabinet, out of which he had just come) which were by no means agreeable, THE KING’S RELUCTANCE TO MAKE PEERS. and that he had had more than usual to occupy him that morning.’ Keate said he was very sure from his manner that something unpleasant had occurred. This was, I have since discovered, the question of a creation of Peers again brought forward, and to which the King’s aversion has returned so much so that it is doubtful if he will after all consent to a large one. It seems that unless the Peers are made (in the event of the necessity arising) Brougham and Althorp will resign; at least so they threaten. I have seen enough of threats, and doubts, and scruples, to be satisfied that there is no certainty that any of them will produce the anticipated effects, but I am resolved I will try, out of these various elements, if I cannot work out something which may be serviceable to the cause itself, though the materials I have to work with are scanty. The Ministers were all day yesterday settling who the new Peers shall be, so seriously are they preparing for the coup. They had already fixed upon Lords Molyneux, Blandford, Kennedy, Ebrington, Cavendish, Brabazon, and Charles Fox, Littleton, Portman, Frederick Lawley, Western, and many others, and this would be what Lord Holland calls assimilating the House of Lords to the spirit of the other House, and making it harmonise with the prevailing sense of the people.
April 8th, 1832
Lord Harrowby was out of town when I called there on Friday, so I wrote to him the substance of my conversation with Wood. Yesterday he returned. In the evening I met Wood at dinner at Lord Holland’s, when he told me that he found on the part of his friends more reluctance than he had expected to give up the fifty-six, that he had done all he could to persuade them, but they made great objections. Moreover he had had a conversation with Sandon which he did not quite like, as he talked so much of holding the party together. All this was to make me think they are stouter than they really are, for I am better informed than he thinks for.
Yesterday morning I got more correct information about what had passed with the King. Lord Grey went to him with a minute of Cabinet requiring that he should make Peers in case the second reading was thrown out.[3] To this he demurred, raised difficulties and doubts, which naturally enough alarm the Government very much. However, when he got back to Windsor he wrote two letters, explaining his sentiments, from which it appears that he has great reluctance, that he will do it, but will not give any pledge beforehand, that he objects to increasing the Peerage, and wants to call up eldest sons and make Irish and Scotch Peers, that he did not say positively he would make the Peers, but that he would be in the way, and come up when it was necessary. They think that he has some idea that his pledging himself beforehand (though in fact he did so two months ago) might be drawn into an improper precedent. However this may be, his reluctance is so strong that a great deal may be made of it, as it is probable (if he continues in the same mind, and is not turned by some violence of the Opposition) that he will resist still more making Peers when the Bill is in Committee to carry the details, some of which he himself wishes to see altered, but the difficulty is very great. It is impossible to communicate with the Tory leaders; they will not believe what you tell them, and if they learnt the King’s scruples they would immediately imagine that they might presume upon them to any extent, and stand out more obstinately than ever. I went to Harrowby last night, and imparted to him the state of things, which I shall do to nobody else. To Wharncliffe I dare not. He is not indisposed to Wood’s compromise, and I trust this will be settled, but he still leans to putting off the second reading till after Easter, and if the Tories also resolve upon that (which they are mightily disposed to do) he will not separate from them on that point, and they are sure to carry it. Unless this was accompanied with some declaration from them that they would be disposed to concede the great principles of the Bill, I think the Government would consider it such an indication of hostility as to call for an immediate creation ‘THE HUNCHBACK.’ of Peers, and I doubt whether the King could or would resist. There are many reasons why it would be desirable to make the second reading a resting-place, and adjourn then till after Easter, provided all parties consented, but it would be very unwise to make it the subject of a contest, and nobody would ever believe that the real reason was not to get rid of Schedule A by hook or by crook, or of a good deal of it. Harrowby will, I am sure, not divide against them on this, and they will not give it up; that there are means of resistance, if they were judiciously applied, I am sure, and if there were temper, discretion, and cordiality, the Bill might be licked into a very decent shape.