April 5th, 1838
Lord Charles Fitzroy, Vice-Chamberlain, who had voted against Government on the Negro question, was turned out for his vote, not angrily and violently, but it was signified to him that he must go, and yesterday he came to Buckingham House, where there was a Council, to resign his key. They could not do otherwise, for Peel had sent a message to Lord John Russell to know whether Government did mean in earnest to oppose this motion with all their force and influence, because, if they did, he would support them with as many of his friends as he could bring to their aid; and the reply was that such was their intention. After this they could not pass over such a vote in one of their own household.
The night before last Government had the narrowest possible escape of being beaten upon a motion of Lord Chandos’s about Lord Durham’s expenses.[21] They carried it by two, and that only because Lord Villiers (Durham’s first cousin, and whose brother is one of his aides-de-camp) VOTE ON LORD DURHAM’S EXPENSES. stayed away, together with Dawson Damer, from motives of personal friendship; Castlereagh, because Durham and Londonderry are knit together by the closest of all ties,—a community of coal interest; and one of the Hopes, because he is going with his regiment to Canada, and did not choose to incur the personal animosity of the great man there: but for these secessions the question would have been carried. Durham would probably have refused to go, and it is not impossible the Government might have resigned. Nobody expected this close division, and the Secretary of the Treasury was greatly to blame in not securing a larger attendance of the Government people and guarding against all chances. However, in these days a miss is as good as a mile, and such a division, which in former times would have been fatal to a Government, does not signify a straw, except as an additional exhibition of weakness and proof of their precarious tenure of office. Melbourne yesterday looked very grave upon it, and he had an unusually long audience of the Queen before the Council. Palmerston treated the matter with great levity. As generally happens, there is much to blame in the conduct of all parties. In the first place the Colonial Minister should have made some arrangement upon his own responsibility, and not have produced the ridiculous correspondence with Durham, and nobody ever before heard of a Minister asking a Governor what establishment he intended to have. Then Durham might as well have laid aside his ostentation and grandeur, and have shown a determination to apply himself manfully to the work entrusted to him without any desire for pomp and expense. He would have gone out more effectively, have acquired more reputation, and have avoided the odium and the ridicule which now in no small degree attach to his mission. On the other hand, the Opposition had no business to take the matter up in this way. In such a momentous affair it is immaterial whether there is a secretary more or less, and whether an establishment, which is only to exist for one year, costs 2,000ℓ. or 3,000ℓ. more or less, and to declare that the sum actually spent by Lord Gosford shall be the maximum of Lord Durham’s expenditure, is so manifestly absurd that it proves the pitiful and spiteful spirit in which the motion was conceived. Suppose they had succeeded, and that after such a vote Durham (as he well might) had resigned the appointment. This must have been an enormous embarrassment to the public service, incurred without any object of commensurate importance. It is not the least curious part of this matter that the Government were not at all sorry that the question of Durham’s expenses was mooted in the House of Commons in order that his extravagance might be checked; while the Opposition had no expectation, and probably no desire, to carry a vote upon it against the Ministers.
[21] [Lord Chandos moved, on the 3rd of April, that the expenditure on Lord Durham’s mission should be limited to 12,000ℓ., the sum allowed to Lord Gosford. The resolution was rejected by 160 to 158 votes.]
April 8th, 1838
It would have been well for Durham if he had started for Canada the day after he made his speech in the House of Lords, for he made upon that occasion a very favourable impression, and the world was disposed to praise the appointment. Since this his manifestation of a desire for pomp and grandeur and an expensive display has drawn ridicule and odium upon him. His temper has been soured by the attacks both in Parliament and in the press; he has been stung, goaded, and tormented by the diurnal articles in the ‘Times,’ and he has now made himself obnoxious to universal reproach and ridicule by an act which, trifling in itself, exhibits an animus the very reverse of that which is required in the pacificator and legislator of Canada. He was engaged to dine with Bingham Baring on Friday last, but in consequence of his having voted in the minority the other night, on Chandos’s motion, Durham chose to construe this vote into a personal offence towards himself, and sent an excuse saying that ‘he had no alternative.’ He wrote to Lady Harriet Baring a very civil note, and conveyed his motive by implication, but quite clearly. The note was, of course, handed about for the amusement of the company, and the story, subsequently, for that of the town.
April 12th, 1838
Dined with Lord Anglesey yesterday, to meet Wolff, the missionary. I had figured to myself a tall, gaunt, severe, uncouth man; but I found a short, plump, WOLFF THE MISSIONARY. cheerful person, with a considerable resemblance to the Bonaparte family, and with some to old Denon, with one of the most expressive countenances I ever saw, and so agreeable as to compensate for very plain features; eyes that become suddenly illuminated when he is warmed by his subject, and a voice of peculiar sweetness and power of intonation. He came prepared to hold forth, with his Bible in his pocket, and accordingly after dinner we gathered round him in a circle, and he held forth. It would be no easy matter to describe a discourse which lasted a couple of hours, or indeed to say very precisely what it was about. It was a rambling, desultory reference to his travels and adventures in fluent and sometimes eloquent language, and not without an occasional dash of humour and drollery. He illustrated the truth of the Scriptures by examples drawn from his personal observation and the habits, expressions, and belief of the present inhabitants of Palestine, and he spoke with evident sincerity and enthusiasm. He sang two or three hymns as specimens of the psalmody now in use at Jerusalem. The great fault of his discourse was its length and desultory character, leaving no strong and permanent impression on the mind. He subsequently gave us a second lecture upon the Millennium, avowing his belief that it is near at hand; he ‘hoped and believed that it would take place in 1847,’ and he proceeded to show that this was to be inferred from the prophecies of Daniel, and that the numbers in that book, rightly explained, bore this meaning. He told us that he had learnt fourteen languages, and had preached in nine.
May 7th, 1838
For three weeks past entirely engrossed by Newmarket, with the same mixed feelings of disgust at the nature of the occupation, and satisfaction at the success attending it. I won 2,000ℓ. by the two weeks, and if I meet with no reverse am rapidly acquiring the means of paying off my debts. Then I propose to live not for myself alone (as I earnestly hope), but that I may feel the desire of contributing to the enjoyments of others. I hope as I become rich (and if I get out of debt I shall be rich) I may not become grasping and avaricious, and acquire a taste for hoarding money merely for hoarding’s sake. When I see how insensibly, and under what plausible pretexts, this passion steals upon others, I tremble lest I should become a victim to it myself.