Breakfasted on Thursday with Rogers, and yesterday at the Athenæum with Henry Taylor, and met Mr. Charles Austin, a lawyer, clever man, and Radical. The Bills are jogging on and there is a comparative calm. The Whigs swear that the Reformed Parliament will be the most aristocratic we have ever seen, and Ellice told me that they cannot hear of a single improper person likely to be elected for any of the new places. [Their choice did not correspond with this statement of their disposition.] The metropolitan districts CHARACTER OF WILLIAM IV. want rank and talent. The Government and their people have now found out what a fool the King is, and it is very amusing to hear them on the subject. Formerly, when they thought they had him fast, he was very honest and rather wise; now they find him rather shuffling and exceedingly silly. When Normanby went to take leave of him on going to Jamaica, he pronounced a harangue in favour of the slave trade, of which he has always been a great admirer, and expressed sentiments for which his subjects would tear him to pieces if they heard them. It is one of the great evils of the recent convulsion that the King’s imbecility has been exposed to the world, and in his person the regal authority has fallen into contempt; his own personal unpopularity is not of much consequence as long as it does not degrade his office; that of George IV. never did, so little so that he could always as King cancel the bad impressions which he made in his individual capacity, and he frequently did so. Walter Scott is arrived here, dying. A great mortality among great men; Goethe, Périer, Champollion, Cuvier, Scott, Grant, Mackintosh, all died within a few weeks of each other.

June 25th, 1832

At Fern Hill all last week; a great party, nothing but racing and gambling; then to Shepperton, and to town on Saturday. The event of the races was the King’s having his head knocked with a stone. It made very little sensation on the spot, for he was not hurt, and the fellow was a miserable-looking ragamuffin. It, however, produced a great burst of loyalty in both Houses, and their Majesties were loudly cheered at Ascot. The Duke of Wellington, who had been the day before mobbed in London, also reaped a little harvest of returning popularity from the assault, and so far the outrages have done rather good than harm.

July 12th, 1832

The suttee case was decided at the Privy Council on Saturday last, and was not uninteresting. The Chancellor, Lord President, Graham, John Russell and Grant, Sir Edward East, the Master of Rolls, Vice-Chancellor, Lord Amherst, and Lord Wellesley were present (the latter not the last day). Lushington was for the appeal, and Home and Starkie against. The former made two very able and ingenious speeches; when the counsel withdrew the Lords gave their opinions seriatim. Leach made a very short and very neat speech, condemning the order[10] of the Governor-General, but admitting the danger of rescinding it, and recommending, therefore, that the execution of it should be suspended. Sir Edward East, in a long, diffusive harangue, likewise condemned the order, but was against suspension; Sir James Graham was against the order, but against suspension; Lord Amherst the same. The rest approved of the order altogether. John Russell gave his opinion very well. The Chancellor was prolix and confused; he hit upon a bit of metaphysics in one of the cases on which he took pleasure in dilating. The result was that the petition was dismissed.

[10] The order was a decree of the Governor-General of India abolishing the practice of suttee, against which certain Hindoos appealed to the King in Council. Another party, however, were in favour of the order, and the Rajah Rammohun Roy is acting in this country as their agent.

I know nothing of politics for some time past. The Reform fever having subsided, people are principally occupied with speculations on the next elections. At present there is every appearance of the return of a House of Commons very favourable to the present Government, but the Tory party keeps together in the House of Lords, and they are animated with vague hopes of being able to turn out the Ministry, more from a spirit of hatred and revenge than from any clear view of the practicability of their carrying on the Government. I conceive, however, that as soon as Parliament is up there will be a creation of Peers. In the House of Commons the Irish Tithe question has been the great subject of interest and discussion. O’Connell and the Irish members debate and adjourn just as they please, and Althorp is obliged to give way to them. When Stanley moved for leave to bring in his Bill, he detailed his plan in a speech of two hours. They thought fit to oppose this, which is quite unusual, and O’Connell did not arrive till after Stanley had sat down. Not having heard his speech he could not answer him, and he therefore moved the adjournment. O’CONNELL’S DREAD OF CHOLERA. Upon a former occasion, during the Reform Bill, when the Tories moved an adjournment after many hours’ debate, the Government opposed it, and voted on through the night till seven o’clock in the morning; now the Tories were ready to support Government against the Irish members, but they would not treat the Radicals as they did the Tories, and then on a subsequent occasion they submitted to have the debate adjourned.

O’Connell is supposed to be horridly afraid of the cholera. He has dodged about between London and Dublin, as the disease appeared first at one and then the other place, and now that it is everywhere he shirks the House of Commons from fear of the heat and the atmosphere. The cholera is here, and diffuses a certain degree of alarm. Some servants of people well known have died, and that frightens all other servants out of their wits, and they frighten their masters; the death of any one person they are acquainted with terrifies people much more than that of twenty of whom they knew nothing. As long as they read daily returns of a parcel of deaths here and there of A, B, and C they do not mind, but when they hear that Lady such a one’s nurse or Sir somebody’s footman is dead, they fancy they see the disease actually at their own door.

July 15th, 1832

I had a good deal of conversation yesterday with Lord Duncannon and Lord John Russell about Ireland. The debate the night before lasted till four o’clock. O’Connell made a furious speech, and Dawson the other evening another, talking of resistance and of his readiness to join in it. This drew up Peel, who had spoken before, and who, when attacked with cries of ‘Spoke!’ said, ‘Yes, I have spoken, but I will say that no party considerations shall prevent my supporting Government in this measure, and giving them my cordial support.’ He was furious with Dawson, and got up in order to throw him over, though he did not address himself to him, or to anything he had said expressly. John Russell spoke out what ought to have been said long ago, that the Church could not stand, but that the present clergyman must be paid. Both he and Duncannon are aware of the false position in which the Government is placed, pretending to legislate with a knowledge that their laws cannot be enforced, and the latter said that, whatever might be done, the Irish would take nothing at the hands of Stanley. It is unfortunate that his attachment to the Church makes him the unfittest man in the country to manage Irish affairs, and he has contrived to make himself so personally unpopular that with the best intentions he could not give satisfaction. Under these circumstances his remaining there is impossible, but what is to be done with him? He is of such importance in the House of Commons that they cannot part with him. I asked John Russell why they did not send Hobhouse to Ireland and make Stanley Secretary of War. He said would he consent to exchange? that he was tired of office, and would be glad to be out. I said I could not suppose in such an emergency that he would allow any personal considerations to influence him, and that he would consent to whatever arrangement would be most beneficial to the Government and conducive to the settlement of Irish affairs. The truth is (as I told him) that they are, with respect to Ireland, in the situation of a man who has got an old house in which he can no longer live, not tenable; various architects propose this and that alteration, to build a room here and pull down one there, but at last they find that all these alterations will only serve to make the house habitable a little while longer, that the dry rot is in it, and that they had better begin, as they will be obliged to end, by pulling it down and building up a new one. He owned this was true, but said that here another difficulty presented itself with regard to Stanley—whether he would, as a leading member of the Cabinet, consent to any measures which might go so much further than he would be disposed to do. I said that I could not imagine (whatever might be his predilections) that his mind was not awakened to the necessity of giving way to the state of things, and that he might consent to measures which he felt he was not a fit person to introduce and recommend. He assented to this. He then talked of the views of the Protestants, of the Lefroys, &c., that they began to admit the necessity of IRISH TITHES. a change, but by no means would consent to the alienation of Church property from Protestant uses, that they were willing where there was a large parish consisting entirely of Catholics that the tithes should be taken from the rector of such parish and given to one who had a large Protestant flock—an arrangement which would disgust the Catholics as much as or more than any other, and be considered a perfect mockery. The fact is we may shift and change and wriggle about as much as we will, we may examine and report and make laws, but tithe, the tithe system is at an end. The people will not pay them, and there are no means of compelling them. The march of events is just as certain as that of the seasons. The question which is said to be beset with difficulties is in fact very easy—that is, its difficulties arise from conflicting interests and passions, and not from the uncertainty of its operation and end. Those conflicting passions are certainly very great and very embarrassing, and it is no easy matter to deal with them, but it seems to me that the wisest policy is to keep our eyes steadfastly fixed on the end, and, admitting the inevitable conclusion, labour to bring it about with the smallest amount of individual loss, the greatest general benefit, and the best chance of permanence and stability. By casting lingering looks at the old system, and endeavouring to save something here and there, by allowing the Church to remain in the rags and tatters of its old supremacy, we shall foster those hostile feelings which it is essential to put down for ever, and leave the seeds of grievance and hatred to spring up in a future harvest of agitation and confusion.