At Court yesterday, the Speaker[1] was made a Knight of the Bath to his great delight. It is a reward for his conduct during the Session, in which he has done Government good and handsome service. He told them before it began that he would undertake to ride the new House, but it must be with a snaffle bridle. Bosanquet and Sir Alexander Johnston were made Privy Councillors to sit in the Chancellor’s new Court. The Privy Council is as numerous as a moderate-sized club, and about as well composed. Awful storms these last few days, and enormous damage done, the weather like the middle of winter.
[1] [Rt. Hon. Manners Sutton, afterwards Viscount Canterbury.]
September 6th, 1833
Yesterday the announcement of Lord LORD WELLESLEY. Wellesley’s appointment to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was received with as great astonishment as I ever saw. Once very brilliant, probably never very efficient, he is now worn out and effete. It is astonishing that they should send such a man, and one does not see why, because it is difficult to find a good man, they should select one of the very worst they could hit upon. It is a ridiculous appointment, which is the most objectionable of all. For years past he has lived entirely out of the world. He comes to the House of Lords, and talks of making a speech every now and then, of which he is never delivered, and he comes to Court, where he sits in a corner and talks (as those who know him say) with as much fire and liveliness as ever, and with the same neat, shrewd causticity that formerly distinguished him; but such scintillations as these prove nothing as to his fitness for business and government, and as he was quite unfit for these long ago, it is scarcely to be supposed that retirement and increased age and infirmities should have made him less so now.[2] They have judiciously waited till Parliament is up before the appointment was made known. Lord Wellesley is said to be in the hands of Blake the Remembrancer, a dangerous Jesuitical fellow.
[2] [This opinion of Lord Wellesley was, however, speedily changed by his successful and vigorous administration of Ireland. See infra, November 14th.]
September 10th, 1833
At Gorhambury on Saturday till Monday. Dined on Friday with Talleyrand, a great dinner to M. Thiers, the French Minister of Commerce, a little man, about as tall as Sheil, and as mean and vulgar looking, wearing spectacles, and with a squeaking voice. He was editor of the ‘National,’ an able writer, and one of the principal instigators of the Revolution of July. It is said that he is a man of great ability and a good speaker, more in the familiar English than the bombastical French style. Talleyrand has a high opinion of him. He wrote a history of the Revolution, which he now regrets; it is well done, but the doctrine of fatalism which he puts forth in it he thinks calculated to injure his reputation as a statesman. I met him again at dinner at Talleyrand’s yesterday with another great party, and last night he started on a visit to Birmingham and Liverpool.
After dinner on Friday I had rather a curious conversation with Esterhazy, who said he wanted to know what I thought of the condition of this country. I told him that I thought everything was surprisingly improved, and gave my reasons for thinking so. He then went off and said that these were his opinions also, and he had written home in this strain, that Neumann had deceived his Government, giving them very different accounts, that it was no use telling them what they might wish to hear, but that he was resolved to tell them the truth, and make them understand how greatly they were deceiving themselves if they counted upon the decadence or want of power of this country; a great deal more of the same sort, which proves that the Austrian Court were all on the qui vive to find out that we are paralysed, and that their political conduct is in fact influenced by their notion of our actual position. They probably hardly knew what they would be at, but their hatred and dread of revolutionary principles are so great that they are always on the watch for a good opportunity of striking a blow at them, which they know they can only do through England and France. They would therefore willingly believe that the political power of England is diminished, and Neumann, who wrote in the spirit of a disappointed Tory rather than of an impartial Foreign Minister, no doubt flattered their desires in this respect. Last night I sat by Dedel, the Dutch Minister, who told me he knew Neumann had given very false accounts (not intentionally) to his Government, that Wessenberg took much juster views, and he (Dedel) agreed with Esterhazy, who said that nobody could understand this country who had not had long experience of it, and that he found it impossible to make his Government comprehend it, or give entire credit to what he said. Dedel told me that Holland is ruined, that the day of reckoning will come, when they will discover what a state of bankruptcy they are in, that the spirit of the nation had QUEEN OF PORTUGAL IN ENGLAND. been kept up by excitement, and that therein lay the dexterity of the King and his Government, but that this factitious enthusiasm was rapidly passing away. They now pay fifty millions of florins interest of debt, about four millions sterling, and their population is not above two millions.
The young Queen of Portugal goes to Windsor to-day. The King was at first very angry at her coming to England, but when he found that Louis Philippe had treated her with incivility, he changed his mind, and resolved to receive her with great honours. He hates Louis Philippe and the French with a sort of Jack Tar animosity. The other day he gave a dinner to one of the regiments at Windsor, and as usual he made a parcel of foolish speeches, in one of which, after descanting upon their exploits in Spain against the French, he went on: ‘Talking of France, I must say that whether at peace or at war with that country, I shall always consider her as our natural enemy, and whoever may be her King or ruler, I shall keep a watchful eye for the purpose of repressing her ambitious encroachments.’ If he was not such an ass that nobody does anything but laugh at what he says, this would be very important. Such as he is, it is nothing. ‘What can you expect’ (as I forget who said) ‘from a man with a head like a pineapple?’ His head is just of that shape.
The history of the French King’s behaviour is that he wanted the young Queen of Portugal to marry the Duke de Nemours, and when he found that impossible (for we should have opposed it) he proposed Prince Charles of Naples, his nephew. This was likewise rejected. The Emperor Don Pedro wants the Duke of Leuchtenberg, his wife’s brother, to marry her.[3] This Duke went to Havre the other day, where the Préfet refused to admit him, though he went with (or to) his sister, pleading the law excluding Napoleon’s family. He went to the Préfet to say that he protested against such application of the law, but, as he would not make any disturbance there, desired to have his passports visé for Munich, and off he went. At the same time he wrote a letter to Palmerston, which George Villiers, to whom Palmerston showed it, told me was exceedingly good. He said that though he did not know Palmerston he ventured to address him, as the Minister of the greatest and freest country in the world, for the purpose of explaining what had happened, and to clear himself from the misrepresentations that would be made as to his motives and intentions in joining his sister; that it was true that Don Pedro had wished him to marry his daughter, and that he had written him a letter, of which he enclosed a copy. This was a very well written letter, begging the Emperor to pause and consider of this projected match, and setting forth all the reasons why it might not be advantageous for her; in short, Villiers says, exhibiting a very remarkable degree of disinterestedness, and of longsighted views with regard to the situation of Portugal and the general politics of Europe.