George Villiers is going Minister to Madrid, instead of Addington, who is so inefficient they are obliged to recall him, and at this moment Madrid is the most important diplomatic mission, with reference to the existing and the prospective state of things. The Portuguese contest, the chance of the King of Spain’s death and a disputed succession, the recognition of the South American colonies, and commercial arrangements with this country, present a mass of interests which demand considerable dexterity and judgment; besides, Addington is a Tory, and does not act in the spirit of this Government, so they will recall him without ceremony. There is another Ambassador (Frederic Lamb) whose principles are equally at variance with those of Palmerston, and who is completely be-Metternich’d, but his removal is out of the question; he knows it, and no doubt conducts himself accordingly. George Villiers told me that he touched incidentally one day with Palmerston on Lamb’s conduct in some matter relating to Lord Granville, and he found that it was sacred ground, and he only got, ‘Ah, aw—yes, Metternich is, I suppose, too old to mend now.’
July 21st, 1853
The Duke of Wellington did not vote on Friday night, but he made a bitter speech against Government, and attacked Lord Anglesey very unnecessarily, when Melbourne retorted on him very well. Lord Grey’s reply DUKE OF RICHMOND. appears to have been exceedingly good. I met the Duke of Richmond last night, and talked to him about the prospects of Government, and suggested that if Stanley (when Althorp retires) does not make it a sine quâ non that better discipline should be observed in their ranks, the Government cannot go on. He agreed, and said Stanley would, but he thought the House of Lords were going on in such a way that before three years there would be none. It appears to me totally impossible for Stanley or anybody to go on without remodelling the Government, and one of his difficulties would be in getting rid of Richmond himself. He is utterly incapable, entirely ignorant, and his pert smartness, saying sharp things, cheering offensively, have greatly exasperated many people against him in the House of Commons, and these feelings of anger have been heightened by his taking frequent opportunities of comporting himself with acrimony towards the Duke of Wellington, though he always professes great veneration for him, and talks as if he had constantly abstained from anything like incivility or disrespect towards him. It is remarkable certainly that his colleagues appear to entertain a higher opinion of him than he deserves, and you hear of one or another saying, ‘Oh, you don’t know the Duke of Richmond.’ He has, in fact, that weight which a man can derive from being positive, obstinate, pertinacious, and busy, but his understanding lies in a nutshell, and his information in a pin’s head. He is, however, good-humoured, a good fellow, and personally liked, particularly by Stanley and Graham, who are of his own age, and have both the same taste for sporting and gay occupations. The Tories threaten mighty things in the Committee, but I don’t think they will attempt much.
July 24th, 1833
Divisions in both Houses last night. The Duke of Wellington proposed an important amendment (which he would afterwards have withdrawn, but his friends would not let him), and he was beaten by fourteen. A great division for Government in the House of Lords. In the Commons 166 minority for triennial Parliaments, and by every sort of whipping and Billy Holmes’s assistance a majority, but only of sixty or seventy; fine work this.
July 25th to 26th.—Half-past two in the morning
Just come home, having heard of the division in the House of Lords, in which Ministers were beaten on what they call the Suspension clause by two. Alvanley, Belhaven, and Clanricarde got there too late. Gower could not attend, nor Lord Granville. Lyndhurst came all the way from Norwich (being on the circuit) to vote. The question is, what Ministers will do—go on with the Bill, or throw it up, resign, make Peers, or what? Nothing can be more silly than the amendment, although it may be questioned whether it signifies very materially; but the light in which Ministers see it is this: are they to submit night after night to the vexatious insolence of the Tories, who are constantly on the watch to find some vulnerable point, and without intending or daring to throw over their great measures, to mangle their details as much as they can venture to do, and hold the Government in a sort of subjugation and in a state of sufferance? The Tory lords are perfectly rabid, and reckless of consequences, regardless of the embarrassment they cause the King, and of the aggravation of a state of things they already think very bad, they care for nothing but the silly vain pleasure of beating the Government, every day affording fresh materials for the assaults that are made upon them by the press, and fresh cause for general odium and contempt. The Duke of Wellington has no power over them for good purposes, and they will only follow him when he will lead them on to some rash and desperate enterprise. This event has affected people differently according to their several views and opinions, but all are in eager curiosity to see what the Government will do.
In the House of Commons things are no better than in the House of Lords. Stanley was nearly beaten on the Apprenticeship clause in the West Indian Bill on Wednesday night, Macaulay opposing him; so yesterday morning he came down to the House and gave it up. It is remarkable that he made an admirable speech in defence of his clause, GOVERNMENT DEFEATED. was unusually and enthusiastically cheered, Macaulay’s speech falling very flat, and to all appearance the whole House with Stanley, yet upon division he only carried it by some seven or eight votes. It is said that after the vote he could not do otherwise than give it up, but that if he had taken a higher tone in his speech, and treated it as a compact fixed and agreed upon, which nothing could shake, and to which he was irrevocably pledged, he would have carried the House with him, and have got a larger majority. But the truth is that the House of Commons is in such a state that it is next to impossible to say what Ministers can or ought to do, or what the House will do. There is no such thing as a great party knit together by community of opinion, ‘idem sentientes de republicâ.’ The Government conciliate no attachment, command no esteem and respect, and have no following. Althorp is liked, Stanley admired, but people devote themselves to neither; every man is thinking of what he shall say to his constituents, and how his vote will be taken, and everything goes on (as it were) from hand to mouth; by fits and starts the House of Commons seems rational and moderate, and then they appear one day subservient to the Ministers, another riotous, unruly, and fierce, ready to abolish the Bishops and crush the House of Lords, and to vote anything that is violent. The Tories in the House of Commons are lukewarm, angry, frightened: they say, Why should we come and support a Government that won’t support itself? the Government from weakness or facility, or motives of personal feeling and partiality, suffers itself to be bearded and thwarted by its own people, and does nothing. Duncannon, on the triennial motion the other night, stayed in the House of Lords and would not vote, there are some half-dozen of them whose votes the Ministerial bench cannot count upon. Then it is no small aggravation to the present difficult state of things that Stanley does not appear to be a man of much moral political firmness and courage, a timid politician, ignavus adversum lupos. He is bold and spirited against individuals, but timid against bodies, and with respect to results. Labouchere went to him some time ago, and told him that it was evident a feeling was growing up in the House of Commons against this Apprenticeship clause, and that he had better make up his mind early what course he should pursue, that if he meant to stand to it they would support him, but if not, he had better give it up early and from foresight rather than from necessity at last, but above all, not to drag them through the mire by making them support him, and then throwing them over. He declared he would stand to his clause. They supported him, and he threw them over. This will not do for a man who aspires to be leader, and Sandon told me last night that men would not be led by him, in spite of his talents, that when Althorp went under Stanley’s banner the friends of Government would not enlist. God only knows how it all will end, and out of such a mass of confusion, of so much violence and folly and weakness, and the working of so many bad passions, what will result, but any day the chance becomes less of the elements of disorder being resolved into a state of tranquillity and good government. It is every day more apparent that with such a House of Commons, so elected, so acted upon, no Government can feel secure; none can undertake with confidence to carry on the affairs of the country. It is difficult to describe the state of agitation into which the minds of people of all persuasions are thrown by the continual recurrence of these little events, of the feeling of insecurity, of doubt, of apprehension which pervades all classes. Nobody thinks the present Government can go on, at the same time they can see no party and no individual who could go on as well if they were to retire. The present House of Commons it is found impossible to manage, but it is believed that in the event of a dissolution another would be much worse; in short, all is chaos, confusion, and uncertainty, and the only thing in which all parties agree is that things are very bad, and every day getting worse.
I dined the day before yesterday with old Lady Cork, to meet the Bonapartes. There were Joseph, Lucien, Lucien’s daughter, the widow of Louis Bonaparte, Hortense’s son,[5] the THE BONAPARTES. Dudley Stuarts, Belhavens, Rogers, Lady Clarendon, and Lady Davy and myself; not very amusing, but curious to see these two men, one of whom would not be a King, when he might have chosen almost any crown he pleased (conceive, for instance, having refused the kingdom of Naples), and the other, who was first King of Naples and then King of Spain, commanded armies, and had the honour of being defeated at Vittoria by the Duke of Wellington. There they sat, these brothers of Napoleon, who once trampled upon all Europe, and at whose feet the potentates of the earth bowed, two simple, plain-looking, civil, courteous, smiling gentlemen. They say Lucien is a very agreeable man, Joseph nothing. Joseph is a caricature of Napoleon in his latter days, at least so I guess from the pictures. He is taller, stouter, with the same sort of face, but without the expression, and particularly without the eagle eye. Lucien looked as if he had once been like him, that is, his face in shape is like the pictures of Napoleon when he was thin and young, but Lucien is a very large, tall man. They talked little, but stayed on in the evening, when there was a party, and received very civilly all the people who were presented to them. There was not the slightest affectation of royalty in either. Lucien, indeed, had no occasion for any, but a man who had ruled over two kingdoms might be excused for betraying something of his former condition, but, on the contrary, everything regal that he ever had about him seemed to have been merged in his American citizenship, and he looked more like a Yankee cultivator than a King of Spain and the Indies. Though there was nothing to see in Joseph, who is, I believe, a very mediocre personage, I could not help gazing at him, and running over in my mind the strange events in which he had been concerned in the course of his life, and regarding him as a curiosity, and probably as the most extraordinary living instance of the freaks of fortune and instability of human grandeur.
[5] [This must have been the Emperor Napoleon III.]