Hess’s affair was an atrocity of the Princess of Wales. She employed him to convey letters to her daughter while she used to ride in Windsor Park, which he contrived to deliver, and occasionally to converse with her; and on one occasion, at Kensington, the Princess of Wales brought them together in her own room. The Princess afterwards wrote him some letters, not containing much harm, but idle and improper. When the Duke of York’s affair with Mrs. Clark came out, and all the correspondence, she became very much alarmed, told Miss Mercer the whole story, and employed her to get back her letters to Hess. She accordingly wrote to Hess (who was then in Spain), but he evinced a disinclination to give them up. On his return to England she saw him, and on his still demurring she threatened to put the affair into the Duke of York’s hands, which frightened him, and then he surrendered them, and signed a paper declaring BELGIUM, SPAIN, FRANCE. he had given up everything. The King afterwards heard of this affair, and questioning the Princess, she told him everything. He sent for Miss Mercer, and desired to see the letters, and then to keep them. This she refused. This Captain Hess was a short, plump, vulgar-looking man, afterwards lover to the Queen of Naples, mother of the present King, an amour that was carried on under the auspices of the Margravine at her villa in the Strada Nova at Naples. It was, however, detected, and Hess was sent away from Naples, and never allowed to return. I remember finding him at Turin (married), when he was lamenting his hard fate in being excluded from that Paradiso Naples.
September 28th, 1832
At Stoke from the 22nd to the 26th, then to the Grove, and returned yesterday; at the former place Madame de Lieven, Alvanley, Melbourne; tolerably pleasant; question of war again. The Dutch King makes a stir, and threatens to bombard the town of Antwerp; the French offered to march, and put their troops in motion, but Leopold begged they would not, and chose rather to await the effect of more conferences, which began with great vigour a few days ago. What they find to say to each other for eight or ten hours a day for several consecutive days it is hard to guess, as the question is of the simplest kind. The King of Holland will not give up the citadel of Antwerp, nor consent to the free navigation of the Scheldt; the Belgians insist on these concessions; the Conference says they shall be granted, but Russia, Prussia, and Austria will not coerce the Dutchman; England and France will, if the others don’t object. A French army is in motion, and a French fleet is off Spithead; so probably something will come of it. Nothing has damaged this Government more than these protracted and abortive conferences.
Four days ago there was a report that the King of Spain was dead, accompanied with a good many particulars, and all the world began speculating as to the succession, but yesterday came news that he was not dead, but better. Pedro and Miguel are fighting at Oporto with some appearance of spirit; Miguel is the favourite. The French Government is represented to be in a wretched state, squabbling and feeble, and nobody is inclined to be Minister. Dupin was very near it, but refused because Louis Philippe would not make him President of the Council. The King is determined to be his own Minister, and can get nobody to take office on these terms. They think it will end in Dupin. The present Government declares it cannot meet the Chambers until Antwerp is evacuated by the Dutch and the Duchesse de Berri departed out of France or taken. This heroine, much to the annoyance of her family, is dodging about in La Vendée and doing rather harm than good to her cause. The Dauphiness passed through London, when our Queen very politely went to visit her. She has not a shadow of doubt of the restoration of her nephew, and thinks nothing questionable but the time. She told Madame de Lieven this. I talked to Madame de Lieven about war, and added that if any did break out it would be the war of opinion which Canning had predicted. She said yes, and that the monarchical principle (as she calls the absolute principle) would then crush the other.
I came up with Melbourne to London. He is uneasy about the state of the country—about the desire for change and the general restlessness that prevails. We discussed the different members of the Government, and he agreed that John Russell had acted unwarrantably in making the speech he did the other day at Torquay about the Ballot, which, though hypothetical, was nothing but an invitation to the advocates of Ballot to agitate for it; this, too, from a Cabinet Minister! Then comes an awkward sort of explanation, that what he said was in his individual capacity, as if he had any right so to speak. Melbourne spoke of Brougham, who he said was tossed about in perpetual caprices, that he was fanciful and sensitive, and actuated by all sorts of littlenesses, even with regard to people so insignificant that it is difficult to conceive how he can ever think about them; that he is conservative, but under the influence of his old connexions, particularly of the Saints. His friends are so often changed that it is not easy to follow him in this respect. CONVERSATION WITH LORD MELBOURNE. Durham used to be one; now he hates him; he has a high opinion of Sefton! of his judgment!! What is talent, what are great abilities, when one sees the gigantic intellect of Brougham so at fault? Not only does the world manage to go on when little wisdom guides it, but how ill it may go on with a great deal of talent, which, however, is different from wisdom. He asked me what I thought of Richmond, and I told him that he was ignorant and narrow-minded, but a good sort of fellow, only appearing to me, who had known him all my life, in an odd place as a Cabinet Minister. He said he was sharp, quick, the King liked him, and he stood up to Durham more than any other man in the Cabinet, and that altogether he was not unimportant; so that the ingredients of this Cabinet seem to be put there to neutralise one another, and to be good for nothing else; because Durham has an overbearing temper, and his father-in-law is weak, there must be a man without any other merit than spirit to curb that temper. He talked of Ireland, and the difficulty of settling the question there, that the Archbishop of Canterbury was willing to reform the Church, but not to alienate any of its revenues. ‘Not,’ I asked, ‘for the payment of a Catholic clergy?’ ‘No, not from Protestant uses.’ I told him there was nothing to be done but to pull down the edifice and rebuild it. He said you would have all the Protestants against you, but he did not appear to differ. To this things must come at last. Melbourne is exceedingly anxious to keep Lord Hill and Fitzroy Somerset at the head of the army, from which the violent of his party would gladly oust them, but he evidently contemplates the possibility of having occasion for the army, and does not wish to tamper with the service or play any tricks with it. It is curious to see the working and counterworking of his real opinions and principles with his false position, and the mixture of bluntness, facility and shrewdness, discretion, levity and seriousness, which, colouring his mind and character by turns, make up the strange compound of his thoughts and his actions.
CHAPTER XIX.
Foreign Difficulties — Conduct of Peel on the Resignation of Lord Grey — Manners Sutton proposed as Tory Premier — Coolness between Peel and the Duke — Embargo on Dutch Ships — Death of Lord Tenterden — Denman made Lord Chief Justice — Tableau of Holland House — The Speakership — Horne and Campbell Attorney- and Solicitor-General — The Court at Brighton — Lord Howe and the Queen — Elections under the Reform Act — Mr. Gully — Petworth — Lord Egremont — Attempt to reinstate Lord Howe — Namik Pacha — Lord Lyndhurst’s Version of what occurred on the Resignation of Lord Grey — Lord Denbigh appointed Chamberlain to the Queen — Brougham’s Privy Council Bill — Talleyrand’s Relations with Fox and Pitt — Negro Emancipation Bill — State of the West Indies — The Reformed Parliament meets — Russian Intrigues — Four Days’ Debate on the Address — Peel’s Political Career.