January 8th, 1835
On the whole the returns yesterday presented a gain to Government of about 10 votes, many elections turning out contrary to expectation both ways, and some very severe contests. The City was a great defeat: the lowest Whig beat the highest Tory by above 1,400. It is remarkable that many who signed the address to the King voted for the Radical candidates.
At dinner yesterday at Lord Chesterfield’s I met the Chancellor, whom I have not seen for some time. After dinner we talked about the state of affairs. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘will it do? what do you think?’ I said, ‘I don’t know what to think, but on the whole I am disposed to think it will not do. I don’t see how you are to get on.’ ‘What do you think of Peel?’ said he; ‘is he a fit man for the purpose?’ ‘He is a very able man, and prudent.’ ‘Aye, but is he enough of a man of the world? does he know enough of what is going on in the world?’ To which I said, ‘You have just hit upon the point that I have been lamenting. He has not lived in the world, and he has not about him those who do, and who can give him that particular sort of information and advice of which he stands in need; and I think he has, in great measure owing to this, committed a great blunder in forming such a Government as he has done; he has not been able to throw off the old prejudices of keeping to his party, and thought it necessary to depend upon them, when he ought to have seen that the case was one out of ordinary rules, that the support of the Tories alone could not maintain him, and that, if they would not give it him for their own interest, and in furtherance of their own principles, without insisting upon being in office, though he might not be able to get on without it, he would still less be able to get on with their support alone. In his place I should have told them I could not take them in, that if they would confide in me, and let me help the country out of its difficulties in my own way, I would do the best I could for it and for them.’ Lyndhurst said that ‘he was not much consulted;’ that if he had had the formation of the Government he should have gone to work very differently; that he would have had a small Cabinet, eight or ten at most, composed of new men, leaving out Aberdeen, Goulburn, Herries, and the rest of that description, employing them if possible abroad, or if not, telling them that it was necessary to lay them on the shelf for a time, and that he would do what he could for them at a future period; that Ellenborough had told Peel he had much better not take him into the Government; that he was aware he was not popular, and though he might be of some use with regard to details of business, his support out of office would (he thought), on the whole, be more serviceable than his being in the Cabinet. Peel said that his willingness to sacrifice himself only made it more incumbent on him not to permit him to do so, and insisted upon having him. Lyndhurst said he had hoped that Sandon would have been taken, and he had suggested Lord Carnarvon, to which Peel replied that he was still so young that he thought he might be passed over for the present I said, ‘Why it is the present for which it is necessary to provide, and it is now that he might have been made available.’ (Carnarvon would not join on account of ill-health.) We then talked over what sort of a Cabinet might have been got together, of new names, moderate men, few in number. He admitted that a great mistake had been committed, and that, as it was irreparable, so it would very probably be fatal. He praised the Duke of Wellington. I said I would not have taken him in, or have got him to go to Ireland, for he was ready to do anything to advance the cause. He liked this idea very much. I reminded him that the first day we had talked over the matter he had admitted that it would never do to bolster up the old concern again, and that Hardinge had told me the Tories were all ready to THE MOVEMENT AT HOLLAND HOUSE. make any sacrifices or postpone their claims, so that such a course as we suggested need not have been difficult. I told him of Barnes’s letter, and of his fears, and what he said of the effect produced by the composition of the Government. He said the ‘Times’ had behaved admirably to them, and the Government were under great obligations to me for what I had done in that matter. I told him I was glad to hear they were on such good terms, as having been instrumental to the connection, which I had no doubt had entailed an immediate loss on the proprietors of the paper.
He asked me if I thought the Opposition meant to refuse the Supplies. I said I had no doubt they did. ‘Then we must go.’ But he still expects they will have 300 votes in the House of Commons, and with that he calculates that they may struggle on with one-half of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the King, and a large proportion of the wealth and respectability of the country. It would be difficult, but he thought they might get on; but that the fact was, there was no going on after the transfer of power to another class, which the Reform Bill had effected. I said there was no doubt of that, and that the Reform Bill had produced virtually a complete revolution in this country. ‘Aye,’ said he, ‘much more than that of ’88.’
January 9th, 1835
Dined at Holland House; they are satisfied with the elections. Mulgrave said that, out of the present return, they had to add thirty to their list and to deduct thirteen of their original calculations, giving them seventeen more than they expected. There is a small gain to the Tories, but nothing like enough. It cannot do; all the moderate Whigs (for it is not a question of Tories) are beaten in the metropolitan districts. Spankie’s admirable addresses have ensured his defeat. Duncombe, immediately after an exposure of the most disgraceful kind, will be returned by a majority doubling that of any of the other candidates; and it is not a little remarkable that Duncombe is supported by all the Dissenters, even the Quakers, with whom austerity of morals and a decent behaviour are supposed to have weight—but the rabid spirit of disaffection to government and rule bears down every other consideration, and these ‘enlightened electors’ (as their flatterers always call them) are frantic with passion against everything belonging to what they call ‘the aristocracy’ of the country. But who can wonder at these people, when we see the great Whig Lords smiling complacently at their brutal violence and senseless rage? At Holland House they talk in the same strain; not that they utter any indecent language, but they are passionate for the success of the movement. One single object have they—to eject Peel and the Tory Government; they own they don’t know what is to follow; they do not deny that the movement must be accelerated, but they don’t care; they say the Duke is responsible, for he ought not to have accepted the King’s commission, and then Melbourne must have been sent for again the next day. Now they must take the consequences—that is, the King and the Tories. They said last night that by the old Government the movement might have been checked; by any that can be formed on the downfall of the new it cannot—or at least that it must go farther than it would have done. I asked, ‘Then is there anything you think worse than advancing the movement?’ ‘Yes,’ cried out Lord Holland, ‘making the movement stand still.’ ‘And do you mean that you believe there is any danger of that, and that the movement (the progress of improvement) ever can stand still?’ ‘Yes, I do believe it,’ &c.... Such a miserable apology for their insane violence puts argument and reasoning out of the question; they are resolved to fight for power, ‘to let slip the dogs of war,’ ignorant whither they will go, and careless what shall be their prey.
January 10th, 1835
Nothing is more remarkable in these elections than the confidence of both parties in the result, and the difference of their statements as to actual numbers, Bonham, who is now, faute de mieux, the man-of-all-work of the Tories, told me last night that they had an actual majority on the returns of about twenty, whereas I went through the list, and after detecting some errors, made out that there is a majority of about thirty the other way. The Whig language CONTEST AT ROCHESTER. is still the same always, and everywhere—that they do not see what is to happen when this Government is out; that no daylight appears, but still that out it shall go. They own that they must (if they return to power) do a great deal more than they would otherwise have done, but that while they obey that necessity, they make it easy to their consciences, because it is the other party which has imposed it upon them.
January 11th, 1835
The Government people still declare their satisfaction at the result of the elections, and make out that the numbers are tolerably even. The contests are curious from their closeness. Charles Wellesley lost at Rochester by one, Lushington by four. There is a great number of similar cases; in that of Rochester it is more remarkable from the accident by which the election was lost. There were two ships in quarantine, one of which had one voter on board and the other two; they had both sailed the same day from the port they left, but one had been longer on the voyage. The ship with one voter had a right to be released on the 9th, the last day of the election, the other not till three days later. As the circumstances were the same. Sir J. Marshall, the Superintendent, suggested that both might be released together, but I did not dare relax the severity of the restriction.[4] Rosslyn was rather for doing it, but I persuaded him it would be dangerous, as, if the election should turn upon it, we should never hear the last of it, especially the Duke, to whose charge it would be laid; and the election actually turned on those two votes. The best chance that I see is, that when the hour of struggle arrives there may be more moderate men than the Whig leaders are aware of—more who, without supporting, still less joining, the new Government, will abstain from taking a violent part against them. This is my only hope, for as to a majority, I have not the slightest expectation of any such thing, and am at a loss to conceive on what they count.