Last night was a terribly damaging night to the Government, and fully justifies all that I, in common with almost everybody else, thought of that miserable appointment of Londonderry.[3] Shiel brought it forward, and a storm burst from every side. Stanley made a strong speech against it, and Mahon totally broke down. Peel spoke cleverly, as usual, but fighting under difficulties, and dodging about, and shifting his ground with every mark of weakness. The result is that Londonderry cannot go, and must either resign or his nomination be cancelled. This is miserable weakness on the part of the Government, and an awkward position to be placed in. It is very questionable if the Duke of Wellington will not resign upon it, which would make another great embarrassment, for there is nobody to fill his place. It serves the Government right, and the Duke especially, for having built up such a wall to run their heads against. They knew the loathing people had for the man, how odious and ridiculous he had made himself, how obnoxious and indefensible the appointment would be, and yet, though there was no reason or occasion for it, and their circumstances were so difficult that the utmost caution and prudence were requisite in all their subordinate and collateral proceedings, as well as in the great and essential ones, they had the blind and obstinate folly to make this appointment. It is not contempt of public opinion in the Duke, but it is that ignorance or indifference, or disregard of it, which has been the besetting sin of his political life, and has so largely affected his political sayings and doings. Peel ought to have known better, and have taken a more correct view of his position, and the effect such an appointment would have on it. It is difficult to say what consequences may flow from this affair. The Government can stand no shocks and buffets; if they go on, it can only be by the most dexterous management, and by obtaining constant advantages in the petty and daily warfare of Parliament, and thus gathering confidence by degrees, that they can accomplish it. It would be too mortifying if such a man should be the cause of the downfall of the Government and of all the evils that would result therefrom. Knatchbull, who was dragged into the discussion by Peel (in order to make a diversion), defended himself and spoke remarkably well. He is the only Cabinet Minister who has shown anything like a faculty to support Peel. It was rather amusing to see the attempt of Peel to take the dogs off the scent of Londonderry and throw them on that of Knatchbull; but they were soon whipped off, and put again upon the right track. There was one good hit. A Sir George Strickland, attacking Knatchbull, said, ‘Talk of the Right Honourable Baronet as a Reformer, indeed, when I remember his coming down night after night during the Reform Bill, and opposing every part and particle of it, clause after clause,’ when Knatchbull took his hat off and said, ‘I was not a member of that Parliament.’

[3] [The Marquis of Londonderry had been appointed Ambassador to St. Petersburg.]

March 15th, 1835

The Londonderry debate has made a great sensation, and is a source of prodigious triumph and exultation to the Opposition. In the morning I met Lady Peel, who was full of compassion for Londonderry, and said, ‘He had behaved very nobly about it.’ Nobody doubts that he cannot go, whether he resigns voluntarily or not; but, end how it may, it is a disastrous occurrence. If Government should persist in the appointment, they would be beaten by a great majority, and the House of Commons would vote him out; if it is given up, it is a monstrous concession to the violence and power of the House of Commons, for however objectionable the appointment may have been, it is not so outrageous as to call for the interference of Parliament with the King’s undoubted prerogative, and on the whole the principle of such interference may be considered more inconvenient THE DUKE ON LORD LONDONDERRY. than submitting to the appointment itself. It will probably lead before long to other encroachments upon the Executive power, and we shall soon see the House of Commons interfering about everything.

In the evening I met the Duke of Wellington at Lady Howe’s, who talked about the affair, and said that he was not particularly partial to the man, nor ever had been; but that he was very fit for that post, was an excellent Ambassador, procured more information and obtained more insight into the affairs of a foreign Court than anybody, and that he was the best relater of what passed at a conference, and wrote the best account of a conversation, of any man he knew. I said this might be all true, but that though he knew it, the generality of people did not, and the public could only judge of him by what they heard or read of his speeches, and what was related of his conduct on former occasions; that on that account he was very obnoxious, and that his violent and intemperate attacks upon the foreign policy of the late Government, the sentiments he had displayed generally, had raised a great prejudice against him, and I had therefore been sure from the moment I heard of the appointment that it would be severely attacked, and regretted exceedingly for that reason that it had ever been made. I had told Lady Peel the same thing, for it is difficult to resist telling them the real truth; and I know not why it should not be told them.

Last night I met Lord Howick, who is bitter enough against the Ministers, and expressed his earnest desire that they might be well dragged through the mire, but not be turned out. I asked, ‘Why, if he wished they should stay in, he desired that they should be discredited?’ and he replied, ‘That it would be very difficult at present to replace them, but that he saw the prospective means, and he would have them go on till the time was ripe for change, but that they should be made every day more odious.’ These means, I doubt not, are the reconciliation of Stanley with the Whigs, which is clearly contemplated by both one and the other. Hobhouse’s speech the other night was very civil to Stanley, no doubt with that view, and much personal intimacy is affected between him and the Whig leaders. Then much light is thrown upon it in my mind by the account I have just heard from Charlton (who enlisted under the Stanley banner) of the tone and animus displayed at the last meeting at Stanley’s. There Stanley was pressed by Mr. Young to declare in strong terms his want of confidence in the Government; and Patrick Stewart said that if Hume’s motion, for limiting the supplies to three months, was placed in the hands of Lord John Russell, he thought he must vote for it. Stanley opposed this suggestion, and declared his disapprobation (let who would bring it on) of so strong a measure as stopping the supplies, and he said he thought the want of confidence might be sufficiently evinced without having recourse to any murderous measures, anything absolutely destructive of the Government. The general tone and disposition of the meeting was very inimical to the present Ministry, and Charlton was himself so little satisfied with what passed, and especially with Stanley’s apparent bias and feeling, that he wrote to him to say that he had joined his party on the express notion that he was prepared to give the Government a fair trial, and to ask whether he did not understand him correctly in attributing to him still such an intention. He replied very courteously, and tolerably satisfactorily, but it certainly seems probable that he is more disposed to reunite with his old friends than to form any connection with these men, though what is uppermost in his mind is to raise his own consequence and authority, and make the best bargain he eventually can. Charlton says that he has since tried to engage him in conversation upon the subject of the democratic tendency of the times, but that he has no mind to discuss the subject. Charlton is such a violent, foolish, dangerous fellow, that it is no wonder if Stanley kept aloof from him, and was not disposed to be more than merely civil to him.

March 17th, 1835

Londonderry made a good speech in the House of Lords last night, gentlemanlike and temperate. He got a good deal of empty praise in both Houses in lieu LORD LONDONDERRY’S DEFENCE. of the solid pudding he is obliged to give up. He said ‘that he had had no communication with the Government, nor had sought any advice, neither had any been tendered to him; that he had after due deliberation determined on the course he should pursue.’ All this is untrue; he went to Peel on Saturday morning, and told him he was ready to do what he pleased; but Peel said he could give him no opinion. He then consulted various people, the Dukes of Cumberland and Buckingham inter alios, who advised him not to resign. It appeared to be his object to obtain opinions to that effect, and up to late yesterday afternoon nobody knew what he meant to do; so much so, that the Duke left the Foreign Office without being apprised of his intentions, and desired if any letter came from him that it might be sent after him to the House of Lords. He received the letter on the stairs, which he read and instantly sent to Peel. It has altogether been a miserable affair, and it is certainly true what John Russell said, that in ‘the experiment they are now making, that which the Right Honourable Baronet called a fair trial, they were running considerable hazard that the most useful prerogatives of the Crown would lose that dignity and respect in which they had formerly been held.’ It is clearly true that this most dangerous precedent of interference has occurred because the Government has not strength to prevent it, and because we have the anomaly of a Government beating up against a hostile majority. The man was utterly unfit, and ought never to have been appointed, but the case against him (such as it appears in their hands) is quite insufficient to warrant the interference of Parliament.

I take it that the effect abroad will be prodigious, for though Londonderry resigns of his own accord, and Peel says he would have stood by him if he had not, the simple case is (and such will be the appearance of it all over Europe) that the King appointed Londonderry Ambassador to Russia, and the House of Commons cancelled the appointment.

Everything meanwhile continues in a state of uncertainty. The Opposition is not united; the Stanley party, with their leader, observe a suspicious and suspected neutrality, but the Government is at their mercy whenever they join the Opposition, or, indeed, if they keep aloof. Such a state of things cannot go on very long, and the fate of the Government must be settled one way or the other. Every day produces fresh indications of Peel’s superiority, and his capacity for the lead in the House of Commons, but he does not appear to have gained much in those points where he was most deficient—cordiality and communicativeness. Francis Egerton came to me to-day and complained that on the Londonderry debate, finding that nobody spoke on the Treasury Bench, he went and sat by Peel and offered to speak, but could get no answer from him; and Ashley was furious because when Hume asked for some information on some point of Navy estimates, on which he (Ashley) had taken pains to prepare himself, Peel would not let him give it, but took it out of his hands. All this is very impolitic, and shows that whatever else he has gained by experience, he has not gained the art of making himself popular with his own adherents in the way that Castlereagh and Canning used to be; and therefore, however he may be looked up to as a Minister, he will never be followed with the same personal devotion that they commanded.