CHAPTER VII.
Review of the Session — Ministerial Changes — Effect of Changes in the Government — A Greenwich Dinner — Dover Dinner to the Duke of Wellington — A Toast from Ovid — Decay of Tory Loyalty — Unpopularity of Government — Brougham’s Letter to the Duke of Bedford — Character of John, Duke of Bedford — Brougham at the Dover Dinner — Brougham and Macaulay — The Duke’s Decline — Duke of Wellington consulted on Indian and Spanish Affairs — Baron Brunnow arrives in England — False Reports of Lord Brougham’s Death — Insulting Speeches of the Tories — Holland House — Lord Brougham and Lord Holland — The Queen’s Marriage is announced — Remarkable Anecdote of the Duke of Wellington — The Mayor of Newport at Windsor — Ampthill — Lord John Russell’s Borough Magistrates — Lord Clarendon’s Advice to his Colleagues — Prospects of the Government — Opening of the Session — Duel of Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Horsman — Lord Lyndhurst’s View of Affairs — Prince Albert’s Household — The Privilege Question — Prince Albert’s Allowance — Precedence of Prince Albert — Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel — Judgement on the Newport Prisoners — A Vote of Want of Confidence moved — The Newport Prisoners — Prince Albert’s Precedency — Sir Robert Peel and his Party — Sir Robert Peel’s Speech and Declaration — Precedence Question — The Queen’s Marriage — Illness of the Duke of Wellington — The Precedence Question settled — The Duke opposed to Peel on the Privilege Question — Change in the Health of the Duke — Prince Albert’s Name in the Liturgy — Success of Pamphlet on Precedence — Judicial Committee Bill — Lord Dudley’s Letters — Amendment of Judicial Committee — King’s Sons born Privy Councillors, other Princes sworn — The Duke returns to London — Lord Melbourne’s Opinion on Journals.
August 15th, 1839
This eventful Session and season has at length closed, Lyndhurst having wound up by a résumé of the acts of the Government, in one of those ‘exercitations,’ as Melbourne calls them, which are equally pungent for their severity, and admirable for their lucidity. Melbourne made a bitter reply, full of personalities, against Lyndhurst, but offering a meagre defence for himself and his colleagues. Those who watch the course of events, and who occasionally peep behind the curtain, have but a sorry spectacle to contemplate:—a Government miserably weak, dragging on a sickly existence, now endeavouring to curry a little favour with one party, now with another; so unused to stand, and so incapable of standing, on any great principles, that at last they have, or appear to have, none to stand on. Buffeted by their antagonists, and often by their supporters in Parliament, despised by the country at large, clinging to office merely to gratify the Queen, while they are just sufficiently supported in the House of Commons to keep their places, and not enough to carry their measures; for so meagre are their majorities, and so little do the public care for those majorities, or for the Ministers or their measures, that the Lords do not scruple to treat the Ministerial Bills with undisguised contempt. At the beginning of this Session, the weakness of the Government, and the impossibility of their going on, were so obvious, that the more wise and moderate of them began to prepare for their retirement, and Lord John Russell, by the publication of his Stroud letter, and the expression of those opinions which I was the means of conveying to Peel, evinced his determination to make the dissolution of the Government ancillary to the ascendency of true Conservative principles. The break-up came sooner than had been expected, and when Ministers resigned, on the majority of five on the Jamaica Bill (which they need not have done), they acted wisely, for they were enabled to retire with dignity, Peel and the Opposition having been clearly and flagrantly in the wrong upon this particular measure—so wrong, that it has been, and still is, matter of astonishment to me why they gave battle upon it, and I suspect that Peel was by no means elated at his own success on that occasion. However, out they went upon the Jamaica question, and though they fancy Peel did not really wish to form a Government, and that the difficulties he made were only a pretext for escaping from his position, this is not the case; he had no misgivings or fears, and was quite ready to undertake the task. However, Diis aliter visum: the Queen kept Lord Melbourne, and they came back to accumulated difficulties, and without any augmentation of parliamentary A SINKING MINISTRY. strength or popular sympathy to sustain them. They made one miserable effort, and tossed a sop to the Radicals, by making the Ballot an open question, the grace and utility of which were entirely marred by Lord Howick’s speech, so that they got all the discredit of this concession without any compensatory advantage. They had begun the campaign by the abrupt expulsion of Glenelg (nobody has ever made out exactly why) and by bringing over Normanby in breathless haste to supersede him, without any reasonable probability of his giving such an accession of vigour and capacity to the Government as would justify this operation, and accordingly as more than ordinary success was requisite for a man promoted under such circumstances, the deeper were the mortification and disappointment at his failure. The Irish Committee, which put him on the defence of his administration there, distracted his attention and disturbed his mind, and he turned out to be unequal to his situation. His defence of himself upon Ireland was very weak, and his whole parliamentary conduct of colonial affairs lamentably inefficient. Then Mr. Spring Rice kept falling into continual discredit by his financial incompetence, so that day after day, from one cause or another, the Ministry sank in estimation, and got more weak and ridiculous. Of this they were not at all unconscious, and it was settled that something was to be done, though the difficulty both as to the manner and the matter was exceedingly great. Rice himself was eager to escape, and tried hard to be Speaker; but though the Cabinet had resolved he should be the Government candidate, it was found that no adequate support could be depended upon for him, and he was obliged, and they were obliged, to let Lefevre stand instead; at which Rice himself was so sulky that he showed his spite by contriving to arrive too late from Tunbridge for the division. They scrambled on till the end of the Session, when the changes which had long been discussed and battled were to take place, and then, naturally, came into play all the vanity, selfishness, and rival pretensions, which a sense of common danger could not silence. In the arrangement of all these things, Melbourne is said to have severely suffered, so repugnant is it to his nature and habits to be the arbiter and adjuster of rival claims and pretensions.
It seems to have been arranged long ago that Normanby and John Russell should change places, ostensibly that the Colonial Minister might be in the House of Commons, and really because Normanby broke down, so that it was necessary to harness Lord John to the Colonial machine. Then they determined to send Poulett Thomson to Canada, without any consideration of the effect such an appointment would produce, either here or there, and his vacancy opened a fresh embarrassment about the Board of Trade. Labouchere having quitted the Vice-Presidency, and gone to the Colonial Office to work for them when they were in difficulty, was considered to have made a sacrifice, and he demanded as its reward that he should step into Poulett Thomson’s place, and his seat in the Cabinet. Melbourne wanted to offer the Board of Trade to Clarendon, and wrote to him to beg he would not go abroad without seeing him, and intimated that he had something to propose to him. On the other hand, Howick put in a claim for Charles Wood, and argued that as he had long taken a labouring oar in the boat, and in this Session, when they had got into a scrape about the Navy, Wood had successfully defended the Government in the House of Commons in a very good speech,—this eminent service, together with a long career of usefulness, gave him a superior claim to promotion. The details of the contest between these various candidates I do not know, but the result was that Labouchere got the place, Howick and Charles Wood both resigned, and Clarendon had a conversation with Melbourne, in which the latter informed him, not without embarrassment, that he had been in hopes he should have had the Board of Trade to offer him, but that Labouchere’s claim had been deemed not postponable, and all he had to offer him was the Mint without the Cabinet. Clarendon refused this with perfect good humour, though certainly not much flattered at the offer, and he took the opportunity of putting Melbourne in possession of his thoughts, POULETT THOMSON SENT TO CANADA. both as to his own position and intentions, and the condition and prospects of the Government, with respect to which he did not mince matters, or fail to paint them in their true colours. He explained his own desire to try himself more in debate than he had been yet enabled to do, to see what he was fit for, and in the meantime owned that he had no particular desire to associate himself with such a rickety concern. The conversation was frank and characteristic, and must have been amusing. Melbourne acknowledged that he was quite right, and that the position of his Government was such as Clarendon described it.
Nothing strikes one more forcibly in the contemplation of these things, than the manner in which the public interests are complimented away for the sake of individual pretensions, and even in this there is an apparent caprice which is inexplicable. Glenelg, an honourable and accomplished man, is thrust out under very humiliating circumstances. Poulett Thomson, we are told, ‘must have been’ Chancellor of the Exchequer, if not Governor of Canada (a post he is by way of taking as a favour to his colleagues), ‘he could not be passed over.’ Why he could not, and in what his right consisted, it is difficult to say, nor why he is entitled to such amazing deference, while poor Glenelg was so unceremoniously treated. Poulett Thomson is clever and industrious, but his elevation, when compared with that of others, and with his own merit, as well as original means of raising himself, exhibits a very remarkable phenomenon, and as Lord Spencer, his early patron, has pretty well withdrawn from public affairs, it is not very obvious how or why Poulett Thomson is enabled to render his small pretensions so largely available. The Duke would not believe they meant to send him to Canada, and said they had much better leave Colborne there; but this is what they fancy they can’t do, and that they must send out somebody who is to solve the political problem of settling the future form of government, and so Poulett goes to finish what Durham began.
September 4th, 1839
The changes in the Government have been received with considerable indifference, nobody much caring, and the generality of people finding fault with some or all of them. Normanby told me yesterday that he was fully sensible of the inconvenience of such changes, and of the bad effect they are calculated to produce, but that the appointment of Poulett Thomson was John Russell’s doing, that he had been bent upon it, and had carried it, and as he (Normanby) could not consent to it, and would not be immediately responsible for it, nothing was left but to change offices, and let the appointment of Poulett Thomson to Canada be Lord John’s own doing, who would thus administer the affairs of the Colony with a Governor of his own choice. He added, that it had been originally intended (when he left Ireland) that he should take his present office, but other circumstances had obliged him at that time to go to the Colonies. While Normanby quits the Colonies, because Thomson goes to Canada (as he says), Howick (as he says) resigns, because Normanby goes to the Home Office. But the world believes that the change of the one takes place, because Normanby is unequal to the work of the Colonies, and the resignation of the other, because Howick was not himself appointed Colonial Secretary. The ostensible ground for the change is, that the Minister who brings forward the Canada question in the House of Commons may be well versed in all the official details, and have immediate personal control over the local administration; and the excuse for sending out Thomson, and accepting Colborne’s resignation, is the necessity of appointing a Governor thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed both abroad and at home, cognisant of the intentions, and possessed of the confidence of the Cabinet. All this will appear to furnish inadequate grounds for recalling Colborne, who has acted with sense and vigour, albeit not pretending to be a statesman or a legislator. A story is told, which shows the levity of the Government people, and how they make game of what might be thought matter of anything but pleasantry to them. At the end of the season there is always a fish dinner at Greenwich, the whipper-in (Secretary of Treasury), Ben Stanley, in the chair; and this is on the plan of the Beefsteak Club, everybody A GREENWICH DINNER. saying what he pleases, and dealing out gibes and jests upon his friends and colleagues according to the measure of his humour and capacity. Normanby, still smarting from the attacks of Brougham, was made the mark for these jocularities, after his health being drunk thus: ‘Lord Normanby and the liberation of the Prisoners.’ At a subsequent period, Rutherford, the Lord Advocate, attacked the Attorney-General, and said he had long known his learned friend as the advocate of liberty, but he had lately seen him in quite a new capacity, prosecuting in the Tory fashion, and having people shut up in jail in all parts of the country. Campbell said it was very true that he had lately had a very unpleasant duty to perform, and that he had been the unwilling instrument of incarcerating many of Her Majesty’s subjects, but that he had all along been consoled by the reflexion that there was every probability of his noble friend Lord Normanby making a progress, during the recess, and letting them all out again. Normanby, however, did not like the witticism, and complained afterwards that the dinner was very dull, and the jokes exceedingly heavy.
The Dover dinner to the Duke of Wellington,[1] which took place the other day, did not present an agreeable spectacle. Brougham, who had thrust himself in among the party, was pitched upon, as having the best gift of the gab, to propose the Duke’s health, which he did in a very tawdry speech, stuffed with claptraps and commonplaces. It was a piece of bad taste to select Brougham (who had nothing to do with Dover) for the performance of this office, which would have been more appropriately discharged by the local authority in the chair, although he might not have been able to make such a flourish as the practised orator favoured the company with. The Duke himself hates to be thus bepraised, and it is painful to see Brougham and him in any way connected, though for so ephemeral a purpose. The Duke’s health might be proposed in three lines of Ovid, which express the position he fills more, and probably better, than the most studied oration could do:—