There has been what is called ‘a great Protestant meeting’ at Dublin, at which Winchilsea was introduced to the Irish Orangemen and made one of them. It was great in one way, for there were a great many fools, who talked a great deal of nonsense and evinced a disposition to do a great deal of mischief if they can. Winchilsea’s description of himself was undoubtedly true, only it is true always and of all of them, ‘that his feelings were so excited that he was deprived of what little intellect he possessed.’

August 26th, 1834

On Friday to Hillingdon, Saturday to Stoke; Lord John Russell, Medem, Dedel, Tommy Duncombe, D’Orsay. Lord John and I walked to Bulstrode on Sunday; talked about the Chancellor and the Government. He said that Lord Holland was struck with Brougham’s want of tact at hearing him press Lord Grey to go to a public dinner at Edinburgh because he was to be in the chair; that Lord Grey did not think Brougham had been engaged ab initio in a plot to get him out. Lord John talked of the House of Lords, and how it and the House of Commons were to be re-united. He thinks that the obstinacy of the House of Lords and its Tory spirit are attributable solely to the numerous creations of the last thirty or forty years.

Tommy Duncombe is the greatest political comedy going, he is engaged in a mediation between the master builders and the operatives, who have quarrelled about the unions, and an express came to him from Cubitt after dinner.

Sefton told me that Lord Grey, when he was at Windsor, had a long conversation with the King, in which his Majesty expressed no little dissatisfaction at what had recently occurred and at the present posture of his affairs. He told me that Lord Grey certainly would not have continued in office under any circumstances till Parliament met again, and that, in fact, his continual propositions to retire and expressions of consciousness of inability and unfitness had been very embarrassing and annoying both to his colleagues and the King, and that the latter had evidently been tired out by them, as was proved by his not making the slightest effort to induce Lord Grey to remain when he tendered his resignation. Grey acted very handsomely in giving his proxy to Melbourne, and the reason he stayed away from the House of Lords during the latter days of the session was that he was afraid of being compelled to say something indicative of the real state of his mind and feelings with regard to past occurrences.

When I got to town yesterday, to my great astonishment I found that the Vice-Chancellor had been at the office with a peremptory mandate from the Chancellor to bring on the Westmeath case on Friday next, sent up from Brougham Hall. In my absence the summonses had been issued, but I desired them all to be recalled, and the Vice-Chancellor soon after happening to call on me, I told him what had occurred before, and that the Lord President was opposed to the cause being thus hurried on. He acquiesced, and wrote to the Chancellor to say he had heard from me that it could not be; and so it ended, but I dare say the Chancellor will be in a violent rage, which I rather enjoy than not.[3] It is very clear that he intends to exercise paramount authority LORD WESTMEATH’S CASE. over the Judicial Committee, and to consider everything connected with it at his disposal. When first he had the Privy Council Bill drawn up by one of his devils, he intended to create a new tribunal, of which he should be the head, and though he was obliged to give up his original design, he still considers himself entitled to deal with the Judicial Committee as he pleases. If the Lord President had more of the spirit that is due to the office over which he presides, he would not suffer him to interfere, and I am resolved if I can to get Lord Lansdowne to assert his own authority. The Chancellor has promised Sefton that when Mr. Blackburn, now a judge at the Mauritius, comes home, he shall be made a Privy Councillor; that Sir Alexander Johnston, who now attends the sittings of the Council, shall be dismissed, and Blackburn invited to attend instead of him, and that he shall have 400ℓ. a year (which by the Act he may). This, if it takes place, will be one of the grossest and most barefaced jobs that ever were perpetrated; but I think it can never be. What makes it worse is that Brougham introduced this clause for the express purpose of meeting Blackburn’s case; so he told Sefton, but I suppose it means that he made the stipend receivable by an ex-judge in any colony, when the pretext for it was the power of obtaining the assistance of Indian judges.[4]

[3] [In addition to other reasons, which are obvious, against this proceeding, it would have been an unprecedented thing to call on an important appeal for hearing at the end of August, in the midst of the long vacation.]

[4] [No colonial judge has ever been appointed to one of the assessorships of the Judicial Committee, except Sir Alexander Johnston, who had been Chief Justice of Ceylon; but Sir Alexander refused to accept the stipend (400ℓ. a year) attached to the office, and never did receive it.]

September 4th, 1834

At Court yesterday. The King came to town to receive the address of the City on the Queen’s return—the most ridiculous address I ever heard. The Queen was too ill to appear. Her visit to Germany knocked her up, and well it might, considering the life she led—always up at six and never in bed till twelve, continual receptions and ceremonies. Errol told me she showed them her old bedroom in the palace (as they call it) at Meiningen—a hole that an English housemaid would think it a hardship to sleep in.