[4] [The administration of the Quarantine Regulations is vested in the Privy Council, and exercised by the Clerk of the Council]
January 12th, 1835
Up to the latest returns the Tories make out that they have a majority, or at least an equality; the Whigs, that they have a majority of about seventy. The latter calculation is nearer to the truth, and it only remains to be seen how many of their people will refuse to support extreme measures. Last night at Holland House Mulgrave was perfectly furious with Charles Fox for saying he would not oppose Manners Sutton being put in the chair. It has been asserted all along by some of the opposite party that Peel’s measures have been influenced (especially in the composition of his Government) by a desire to keep the Tories together, and prepare a strong Opposition. I suspect there is some truth in this, for I can account in no other way for the strange appointments he makes, and the undiluted Toryism of his Government. He goes on the old aristocratic principle of taking high birth and connection as substitutes for other qualifications, and he never seems to consider the former avowed sentiments of any man in weighing his fitness for office. He has just made Sydney Herbert Secretary to the Board of Control, an office of great labour and involving considerable business in the House of Commons.[5] He is about twenty-two or twenty three years old, unpractised in business, and never spoke but once in the House of Commons, when he made one of those pretty first speeches which prove little or nothing, and that was in opposition to the Dissenters. He may be very fit for this place, but it remains to be proved, and I am surprised he did not make him begin with a Lordship of the Treasury or some such thing, and put Gladstone, who is a very clever man, in that post. Praed is First Secretary to the Board of Control, and will do the business.
[5] [The injustice of this remark has since become very obvious, for no man was better qualified to enter upon official life, or to run a great career in it, than Sydney Herbert. It must also be said of Sir Robert Peel that he was ever on the watch for the young and rising statesmen who, he said, were hereafter to govern the country; and a very large proportion of the men who have since played a most conspicuous and useful part were introduced by Sir Robert Peel to public life—Sydney Herbert, the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Cardwell, and others.]
I very much incline to believe that, although Peel says SIR JOHN HOBHOUSE’S VIEW OF AFFAIRS. he is satisfied with the returns, he does not expect the thing will last, and that upon this conviction he is determined to secure a retreat with such a force as shall make him formidable hereafter. Such as the appointments are at home, so are they abroad: Londonderry to St. Petersburg, Stuart to Vienna, and in all probability Strangford to Constantinople—the three men who are considered the great upholders of the Anti-Liberal system. (Stuart told everybody he had the offer, but it was not true.)
The Duke of Leuchtenberg arrived last night. The picture of the young Queen of Portugal (which is probably flattered) does not make her very tempting.
January 15th, 1835
The day before yesterday I fell in with Hobhouse, and we walked together for some time. He said he could not understand what the Government people meant by claiming a majority, as he heard they did; that on the Borough returns the Opposition had a majority of 100 more or less, but that the difference could only be accounted for by one party including all those who call themselves Whigs, and who supported the late Government, and by the other party counting those who, though not supporters, would be disposed to give them a trial. He wondered at and blamed the constitution of the Government, ridiculed the idea of Stanley succeeding Peel, acknowledged that he saw no possibility of any other Government being formed on the dissolution of this, and had no conception what would happen—that another dissolution would be indispensable. I said that I did not see any more than he did what they were to do when they had got Peel out; that their junction with the Radicals must end there, unless (which I could not believe) they meant to come into office on the principle of supporting and carrying all the measures they had opposed last year. He said, ‘I for one will go no farther than I did then; no, that is out of the question.’ He said the restoration of Melbourne’s Government was impossible after what had passed; they could not look the King in the face again, nor he them, after such a clear intimation on his part that he disliked them, and dreaded their principles. Soon after, however, he said that any other Government must be formed on a more popular principle, and especially must make the arrangement of the House of Lords a condition, for it was impossible to go on as things were, between the two houses; that it might have been discovered when the Reform Bill was proposed that this would be the inevitable consequence of passing that measure, but that all this he did not expect to be accomplished without a violent collision, which would very likely lead to a republic; that he should be sorry for the disturbance, but was prepared for it, and if a sacrifice was to be made, he could not hesitate in choosing the object of it.
Yesterday morning I met Duncannon, and talked it all over. I asked him if he saw any chance of forming a Government, and if he figured to himself what the King would do. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he will send for Stanley.’ ‘What next?’ ‘He may send for Lord Grey.’ ‘Will Lord Grey propose such measures as you think indispensable?’ ‘If he will not return, or won’t go the length, he may send for Melbourne again; but it is clear he—the King—must be prepared for a more Radical Government.’ I said, ‘I don’t think he will ever consent to take such a one, or to agree to the measures they will propose to him.’ ‘Oh, but he must, he can’t help himself.’ ‘Well, but my belief is that, happen what may, he will not.’ ‘Why, you don’t think he will abdicate?’ ‘Yes, I do, rather than agree to certain things.’ ‘Well, but then he must abdicate.’ Such is the language of the leaders of the other party, and so calmly do they contemplate the possibility of such a consummation. The point on which all this turns is evidently the destruction of the House of Lords. The Whigs find it necessary to finish the work they began, and to destroy the last bulwark of Conservative power. Stanley’s speech at his election, which was very able and eloquent, has evidently disappointed them. They had cherished a hope that he would unite with them at last, which they now find he will not do. There has been a great debate in their camp whether they shall attack the Speaker or not, but it seems fixed that THE COUNTY ELECTIONS. they shall, and probably they will be beaten. I am glad they do this.
Theodore Hook, whom I met at dinner the other day, and who is an âme damnée of the Speaker’s, said that he was ready to give up the chair if it was thought imprudent to fight for it; he also said (which I don’t believe) that the Home Office had been offered him, and that he had declined it because he could not quit the chair without a peerage, and that he should be of more use in it than in the House of Lords.