A blank month: to Newmarket, to Buckenham, back to Newmarket, to Cromer (fine, wild, bleak coast), Buckenham again, Newmarket, London, Norman Court, and here again; heard nothing, learnt nothing, altogether unprofitable, Durham’s resignation[2] the only event, the dénouement of which nobody can guess. The Ministers ought never to have sent him, knowing what he was, and this has not been their only fault. Norman Court[3] is a very enjoyable place; close to it was (for it has lately been pulled down) the house from which Lady Mary eloped with Mr. Wortley. There I met the doctor who attended young Sam Day (who won the St. Leger for me on Mango) after the fall of which he died, and he gave me a striking account of the deathbed scene, the actors in which, albeit of an humble and unpolished class, displayed feelings not the less intense from the simplicity of their expression, and the total absence of that morbid or conventional sensibility which gives a sort of dramatic dignity to the grief of the great ones. The boy himself died like a hero, with a firmness, courage, and cheerfulness which would have been extolled to the skies in some conspicuous character on whom the world has been accustomed to gaze, but which in the poor jockey boy passed unheeded and unknown, and it is only the few as obscure as himself who witnessed his last moments who are aware that, wherever his bones rest—

in that neglected spot is laid
A heart once pregnant with celestial fire.

[2] [Upon the receipt of the intelligence of the Declaratory Act, Lord Durham at once announced in Canada his determination to resign. The disallowance of the Ordinance and his official recall crossed this intimation on the road.]

[3] [Norman Court was at that time the seat of Mr. Baring Wall. After his death it passed to Mr. Thomas Baring.]

November 8th, 1838

At Newmarket, and at Euston for a day (probably for the last time), and to London on Monday. The stillness of the political atmosphere has been rudely broken in upon by Lord Durham’s astounding Proclamation: for once the whole of the press has joined in a full chorus of disapprobation, and this may be considered conclusive as to public opinion. Indeed there can scarcely be two opinions on the subject, for such an appeal to the people of the Colony over whom he is placed from the acts of the Government and the legislature of the mother country is as monstrous as it is unexampled.[4] It seems incredible that he should not have been deterred by the men who are about him, who are not deficient in capacity, from taking this desperate step; but as there is little doubt that Turton advised him not to issue the Ordinances, and got into disgrace with him for so doing, it is possible that they none of them were consulted, or if consulted did not dare, or did not choose, to give him any advice whatever. The dignity of the Government now demands that his insolence and misconduct should be visited with the WELLINGTON IN BATTLE. severest expression of disapprobation and reproof, and the harshest measures, even an impeachment, would be fully warrantable, if harsh measures did not generally defeat their own object. But if the Government mince matters with him, and evince any fear to strike, if they do not vindicate their own authority, and punish his contumacy with dignity and spirit, their characters are gone, and they will merit all the contempt with which their opponents affect to treat them.

[4] [Lord Durham’s conduct was arrogant and highly injudicious. On the 9th October he issued a Proclamation in Canada, in which he censured the conduct of the Home Government. It is printed in the ‘Ann. Reg.’ for 1838, Chron. p. 311. In fact his vanity was wounded, and his mission, of which so much was expected, had failed. But it will be seen further on that the first impression produced by his violence was considerably mitigated. Mr. John Stuart Mill defended his policy in the Westminster Review, and a certain amount of reaction took place in his favour.]

November 18th, 1838, Wolbeding

Came here to-day and brought Lord Fitzroy Somerset[5] with me, who told me a great deal about the Duke and their old campaigns. He never saw a man so cool and indifferent to danger, at the same time without any personal rashness or bravado, never putting himself in unnecessary danger, never avoiding any that was necessary. He was close to the Duke, his left arm touching the Duke’s right, when he was shot in the arm at Waterloo, and so was Lord Anglesey when he received his wound in the leg. When Lord Anglesey was shot he turned to the Duke and said, ‘By G— I have lost my leg.’ The Duke replied, ‘Have you? by G—.’ The only time the Duke ever was hit was at Orthez, by a spent ball, which struck him on the side and knocked him down. He and Alava were standing together having both dismounted, and they were laughing at a Portuguese soldier who had just passed by saying he was ‘offendido’ ... when the Duke was struck down, but he immediately rose and laughed all the more at being ‘offendido’ himself. During the battles of the Pyrenees Cole proposed to the Duke and his staff to go and eat a very good dinner he had ordered for himself at his house in the village he occupied, as he could not leave his division. They went and dined, and then the Duke went into the next room and threw himself upon a bed without a mattress, on the boards of which he presently went to sleep with his despatch-box for a pillow. Fitzroy and the aides-de-camp slept in chairs or on the floor scattered about. Presently arrived, in great haste and alarm, two officers of artillery, Captain Cairne and another, who begged to see the Duke, the former saying that he had just brought up some guns from the rear, and that he had suddenly found himself close to the enemy and did not know what to do. They went and woke the Duke, who desired him to be brought in. The officer entered and told his story, when the Duke said, very composedly, ‘Well, Sir, you are certainly in a very bad position, and you must get out of it in the best way you can,’ turned round, and was asleep again in a moment.

[5] [Afterwards Lord Raglan. He lost his arm at Waterloo, and commanded the British army in the Crimea, where he died in 1855.]