[7] [On the 18th of March Mr. Charles Villiers’ motion for a Committee to take into consideration the duties on corn was defeated in the House of Commons by 342 to 195 votes. I know not why Mr. Greville styles it the ‘final’ debate, which it certainly was not.

On the 21st of March Lord Roden carried in the House of Lords, by a majority of five, a motion for a Committee to inquire into the state of Ireland since 1835. This motion was directed against Lord Normanby’s Administration. Shortly afterwards this motion was met by a resolution of Lord John Russell’s in the House of Commons approving the Irish policy of the Government, which was carried by 318 to 296.]

The other affair is much more interesting, because more personal, and involving the existence of the Government. There seems to have been an abundance of angry feeling and a great lack of discretion and judgement on all sides: first of all in the House of Lords thus lightly and somewhat loosely pressing this vote, and going the length of appointing a Committee; and why the Duke of Wellington consented to it is difficult to see, unless it be that his mind is a little enfeebled, and his strong sense no longer exercises the same sway. They hardly seem to have intended what they did, for they made no whip up, and Lord Wicklow went away without voting. As it was, Government had better have rested upon their old declaration, that as long as they were supported by the House of Commons they should disregard the opposition of the House of Lords; and so in fact they would have done, if the next day Normanby had not flared up so violently and insisted on resignation or reparation. At the Cabinet there was a long discussion whether they should resign or not, and the Speaker, Ellice, and others of their friends, were strongly for their taking this opportunity of retiring with all their strength, and upon a question which would have rendered it next to impossible for their successors to go on if they took their places. The result, however, was the declaration of John Russell, and their determination to try their strength in the House of Commons. If the Radicals support them they will get their usual majority of from fifteen to twenty; but it does not appear that they will gain much by that, for the Lords will go on with their Committee and put Normanby on his trial without caring for the vote of the Commons.

With regard to the merits of the case, Normanby’s Government was no doubt on the whole carried on in a very good spirit; but as it was in an Irish spirit, it was of course obnoxious to the old dominant party. There is not the slightest suspicion that in his exercise of the prerogative of mercy he was ever influenced by any improper motives or showed any partiality; though Lord Wellesley said, that ‘he dramatised royalty, and made mercy appear blind instead of justice.’ But the system is of very questionable propriety, and on some occasions he probably was rather too free with it, and went a little further than in strict prudence he ought to have done. Generally speaking, however, on this point as well as on the other grounds on which he has been attacked, he has defended himself with great vigour and success. The night after the debate, he gave Brougham a heavy fall, and exposed his glaring inconsistency and falseness. Brougham is said to have appeared more annoyed and crestfallen than ever he did before. He certainly made a very poor and inefficient reply.

Nothing would be more unfortunate than a change of Government as the result of this blow aimed by the House of Lords, and under the auspices of Roden, the leader of the Orangemen. Ireland is the great strength of the present Government as it is the weak point of the Tories; and if they went out, and Peel came in upon Ireland, and the principle on which he should govern that country, he would never keep his place, and nobody could tell what troubles might not ensue. It is Peel’s interest that Irish questions should assume such a shape, and make such a progress, before he returns to office, as should render their final adjustment inevitable. If things were left alone, and time and the hour permitted us to run through the present rough days, it would be impossible to prevent great changes taking place before long. The country is beset with difficulties on all sides, if WEAKNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT. not with danger; besides the ever rankling thorn of Ireland, there are the Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law agitators, to say nothing of minor reformers in England, and the whole of our Colonial Empire in a most unsettled, precarious, and difficult state, requiring the utmost wisdom and firmness in dealing with Colonial interests, and our relations with America demanding firmness, temper, and sagacity. But, while the country has thus urgent need of all the ability and experience which can be enlisted in her service, from the curious position of parties in the House of Commons, and the mode in which power is distributed, we have at once a Government miserably weak, unable to exercise a will of its own, bolstered up by the interested and uncertain support of men more inimical than friendly to them; while the most distinguished statesmen and the men who are admitted to be the fittest to govern, are effectually excluded from office. While we have a Cabinet in which there is not one man who inspires confidence, and in which, with the exception perhaps of John Russell (who is broken in health and spirits), there is not one deserving to be called a statesman,—to this Cabinet is committed the awful task of solving the many difficult questions of domestic, colonial, and foreign policy which surround and press upon us; while the Duke of Wellington and Peel are compelled ‘to stand like ciphers in the great account.’ The great characteristic of the present time is indifference: nobody appears to care for anything; nobody cares for the Queen, her popularity has sunk to zero, and loyalty is a dead letter; nobody cares for the Government, or for any man or set of men. If there was such a thing as a strong public opinion alive to national interests, intent upon national objects, and deeply sensible to the necessity of calling to the national councils all the wisdom and experience that the crisis demands, its voice would be heard, the two parties would cease to hold each other at bay, there would be either a great change or a fusion in some reasonable spirit of compromise, and we should see a Government with some energy, independence and power, and this is what we want. But Melbourne seems to hold office for no other purpose but that of dining at Buckingham House, and he is content to rub on from day to day, letting all things take their chance. Palmerston, the most enigmatical of Ministers, who is detested by the Corps Diplomatique, abhorred in his own office, unpopular in the House of Commons, liked by nobody, abused by everybody, still reigns in his little kingdom of the Foreign Office, and is impervious to any sense of shame from the obloquy that has been cast upon him, and apparently not troubling himself about the affairs of the Government generally, which he leaves to others to defend and uphold as they best may. The only man besides John Russell in the Cabinet who stands high in estimation is Morpeth, and it is remarkable that in this Government the young ones or subordinates are its chief strength. Morpeth, Labouchere, George Grey, and Francis Baring are better men than almost any in the Cabinet, which is certainly the most second-rate one this country ever saw.

March 28th, 1839

It is amusing to see the nervous consciousness on both the Tory and the Whig side of blunders having been committed by each in this demonstration of the Lords and retort of the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer came into my room yesterday, and told me that Lord Spencer had expressed his strenuous approbation of the course they had taken, just the right medium, neither too much nor too little; and this sanction he seemed to think very valuable, though in fact worth nothing, for Lord Spencer lives among oxen, and not among men. On the other hand, I met Graham, and said to him, ‘A pretty scrape you would have been in if Government had resigned upon this vote.’ He shrugged up his shoulders and said, ‘I own I am better pleased as it is.’ No great party should do things by halves and doubtingly: if the leaders thought the case was so grave as to call for the interference of the House, and that they were justified in taking this matter into their own hands, they ought to have brought down all their forces, and have given their vote all the authority it would derive from an imposing majority. No maxim is more clearly understood than that any party having generally a large majority, and DEFECTION OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. only carrying some particular question by a very small one, suffers something like a defeat, because it implies that they have not the concurrence on such question of many of their usual supporters. This was, therefore, a false move one way or the other. The Government, however, have no doubt of carrying their point by as large a majority as they ever can have.

They are in a great rage, and in no small dismay at the same time, at the conduct of the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ which has turned half against them in a most extraordinary manner, that is, it is urging the Radicals to seize this opportunity of compelling the Government to go their lengths, and to make such compliance the condition of their support. Government are so indignant that they want to break off with the ‘Chronicle’ altogether; but then they will be left in the awkward predicament of having no morning paper whatever in their service. What nettles them the more is, that they made the ‘Chronicle’ what it is, and raised it by their exertions from the lowest ebb to its present very good circulation. Just before Peel’s hundred days it was for sale, and had then fallen to about a thousand a day. Easthope was persuaded by Ellice to buy it, which he did for 15,000ℓ. or 20,000ℓ. The Whigs set to work, and Hobhouse, Normanby, Poulett Thomson, Le Marchant, and several others, wrote day after day a succession of good articles which soon renovated the paper and set it on its legs. The circulation increased daily till it got up to three thousand, and now it has reached six thousand. Easthope makes a clear 10,000ℓ. a year by the speculation; but now, seeing (or thinking he sees) greater advantages to be got by floating down the Radical stream than by assisting in the defence of this Government, he forgets past favours and connexion, and is ready to abandon them to their fate. It is rather an ominous sign and marks strongly their falling estimation. They think it is Durham who has got hold of Easthope, and persuades him to take this course. He declares he is so beset with applications, advice, and threats, that he has no alternative, and must take the line he does, or ruin the sale of his paper.

Newmarket, March 29th, 1839

Poor De Ros[8] expired last night soon after twelve, after a confinement of two or three months from the time he returned to England. His end was enviably tranquil, and he bore his protracted sufferings (more from oppression and annoyance than acute pain) with astonishing fortitude and composure. Nothing ruffled his temper or disturbed his serenity. His faculties were unclouded, his memory retentive, his perceptions clear to the last; no murmur of impatience ever escaped him, no querulous word, no ebullition of anger or peevishness; he was uniformly patient, mild, indulgent, deeply sensible of kindness and attention, exacting nothing, considerate of others and apparently regardless of self, overflowing with affection and kindness of manner and language to all around him, and exerting all his moral and intellectual energies with a spirit and resolution that never flagged till within a few hours of his dissolution, when nature gave way and he sank into a tranquil unconsciousness in which life gently ebbed away. Whatever may have been the error of his life, he closed the scene with a philosophical dignity not unworthy of a sage, and with a serenity and sweetness of disposition of which Christianity itself could afford no more shining or delightful example. In him I have lost (half lost before) the last and greatest of the friends of my youth, and I am left a more solitary and a sadder man.