March 14th.—The manner in which Peel's measure was received was creditable to the Opposition; but they are beginning to recover from their quiescent state, to ask one another what they think of it, to suggest objections, and to speculate on its unpopularity. There is, however, a general disposition to accept the measure, and to acknowledge that Peel is entitled to a fair trial of what must be considered a great political and financial experiment. Labouchere owned this to me last night, though he thinks that he might have taken another and a better course; he might have raised a revenue, according to their plan, out of sugar, timber, and corn, not have made so great a sacrifice for Canadian timber, and have found means to get all the rest that they wanted by some tax less odious than his income-tax. Great differences of opinion of course there will be, and it remains to be seen how the country will take it. The press has been hitherto almost universally acquiescent. All men now admit Peel's power, and his superior fitness as a Minister. He has taken a very high line, and acted his part with great dignity as well as dexterity; he is also singularly favoured by fortune, for the misfortunes which are now befalling us, the disastrous events in India, are useful to his political power. In times, too, of difficulty, men feel the mighty advantage of having a strong Government with a real efficient head to direct its energies, and predominate in its councils; and the perpetual contrast which presents itself between the present and the late, both as to the leaders, composition of the Cabinets and condition of the parties by which each was supported, extends and strengthens the impression in favour of Peel. It will be necessary for him to make some changes. Gladstone has already displayed a capacity which makes his admission into the Cabinet indispensable, and he must find some means of getting rid of Knatchbull. The very look of the man, which is that of a twaddler approaching to the ridiculous, is enough to make his exclusion an object, and as he is entirely useless and has fallen into universal contempt in the House of Commons, the sooner some decent retreat is found for him, the better for himself as well as for the Government.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON CABUL.
The great interest excited by the Budget has in some degree absorbed that which the melancholy Indian news would otherwise produce, and we are still so imperfectly informed of the history of these transactions that we know not what to think of them. The Duke of Wellington told me at Court on Friday that there must have been either the grossest treachery, or the most inconceivable imbecility, and very likely a mixture of both, as they often go together. Auckland, who writes, as is natural, in great despondency, says that the whole thing is unintelligible to him, for, as far as they know, the 5,000 British troops at Cabul were never assailed by above 10,000 or 12,000 Afghans, irregularly armed with matchlocks and spears, while our force was provided with artillery, and all the appurtenances of war. According to all our notions and all former experience, a British force could always put to flight or destroy native tribes ten times more numerous. The Duke said that the captivity of the women would produce an effect from one end of Asia to the other, such as Europeans would form no idea of. But what reflexions this event gives rise to as to the uninterrupted current of our past successes, which has been so great that we had got to fancy no reverse of any sort, or in any quarter, could possibly befall us! It is a grievous thing to lose 5,000 men, cut off by a sudden insurrection and perishing, because circumstances beyond the control of man prevented their obtaining succour; but when we hear that such a disaster as this has not befallen us for above fifty years, and we think of all the tremendous defeats, wholesale destructions of men, and miseries inflicted on other lands and other nations, we may well, instead of repining, feel grateful for the impunity we have enjoyed from the evils and afflictions which have been so abundantly poured upon almost every other nation in the world.
DEATH OF LORD HERTFORD.
March 19th.—This day Lord Hertford[36] is buried at Ragley, a man whose death excited much greater interest than anything he ever did in his life, because the world was curious to learn the amount of his wealth, and how he had disposed of it. A pompous funeral left Dorchester House three days ago, followed by innumerable carriages of private individuals,[37] pretending to show a respect which not one of them felt for the deceased; on the contrary, no man ever lived more despised or died less regretted. His life and his death were equally disgusting and revolting to every good and moral feeling. As Lord Yarmouth he was known as a sharp, cunning, luxurious, avaricious man of the world, with some talent, the favourite of George IV. (the worst of kings) when Lady Hertford, his mother, was that Prince's mistress. He was celebrated for his success at play, by which he supplied himself with the large sums of money required for his pleasures, and which his father had no inclination to give him, and the son had none to ask of him. He won largely, not by any cheating or unfairness, but by coolness, calculation, always backing the best players, and getting the odds on his side. He was a bon vivant, and when young and gay his parties were agreeable, and he contributed his share to their hilarity. But after he became Lord Hertford and the possessor of an enormous property he was puffed up with vulgar pride, very unlike the real scion of a noble race; he loved nothing but dull pomp and ceremony, and could only endure people who paid him court and homage. After a great deal of coarse and vulgar gallantry, generally purchased at a high rate, he formed a connexion with Lady Strachan, which thenceforward determined all the habits of his life. She was a very infamous and shameless woman, and his love after some years was changed to hatred; and she, after getting very large sums out of him, married a Sicilian. But her children, three daughters, he in a manner adopted; though eventually all his partiality centred upon one, Charlotte by name, who married Count Zichy-Ferraris, a Hungarian nobleman. She continued to live with Hertford on and off, here and abroad, until his habits became in his last years so ostentatiously crapulous that her residence in his house, in England at least, ceased to be compatible with common decency. She was, however, here till within a week or ten days of his death, and her departure appears curiously enough to have led to the circumstances which immediately occasioned it. There has been, as far as I know, no example of undisguised debauchery exhibited to the world like that of Lord Hertford, and his age and infirmities rendered it at once the more remarkable and the more shocking. Between sixty and seventy years old, broken with various infirmities, and almost unintelligible from a paralysis of the tongue, he has been in the habit of travelling about with a company of prostitutes, who formed his principal society, and by whom he was surrounded up to the moment of his death, generally picking them up from the dregs of that class, and changing them according to his fancy and caprice. Here he was to be seen driving about the town, and lifted by two footmen from his carriage into the brothel, and he never seems to have thought it necessary to throw the slightest veil over the habits he pursued. For some months or weeks past he lived at Dorchester House, and the Zichys with him; but every day at a certain hour his women, who were quartered elsewhere, arrived, passed the greater part of the day, and one or other of them all the night in his room. He found the presence of the Countess Zichy troublesome and embarrassing to his pleasures, and he made her comprehend that her absence would not be disagreeable to him, and accordingly she went away. He had then been ill in bed for many days, but as soon as she was gone, as if to celebrate his liberation by a jubilee, he got up and posted with his seraglio down to Richmond. No room was ready, no fire lit, nevertheless he chose to dine there amidst damp and cold, drank a quantity of champagne, came back chilled and exhausted, took to his bed, grew gradually worse, and in ten days he died. And what a life, terminating in what a death! without a serious thought or a kindly feeling, lavishing sums incalculable on the worthless objects of his pleasures or caprices, never doing a generous or a charitable action, caring and cared for by no human being, the very objects of his bounty only regarding him for what they could get out of him; faculties, far beyond mediocrity, wasted and degraded, immersed in pride without dignity, in avarice and sensuality; all his relations estranged from him, and surrounded to the last by a venal harem, who pandered to the disgusting exigencies lassatæ sed nondum satiatæ libidinis. He left vast sums to the Strachan family, a considerable legacy to Croker, to whom he had been formerly under obligations, largely provided for his servants, and, with the exception of a few bequests to his executors and one or two other people, and a very large property to an old mistress (formerly Lady Strachan's maid), he left everything to his son Lord Yarmouth, with whom he had always been on very moderate terms.
THE WHIGS ON PEEL'S MEASURES.
March 20th.—Peel's financial measures are, of course, discussed in every quarter, but the general feeling in the country about them is not yet known. The Opposition, who, at first, had not made up their minds what to do, have now resolved to oppose the whole scheme, and they took the field in force on Friday night, and flatter themselves, so John Russell told me, that they had the best of the debate. The 'Times' opposes the income-tax and supports the tariff. Various objections are raised in different quarters with more or less reason, the principal one with regard to the income-tax being the unfairness of taxing incomes derived from temporary to the same extent as those which are derived from permanent sources, and there is a great disposition to criticise his measure with regard to timber, and the sacrifice he has made for the sake of Canadian timber. As to sugar, it is pretty clear that he is preparing for a great measure, and if it succeeds, it will be a very fine stroke of policy. He will make a treaty with the Brazils, imposing conditions (which they will not keep) for the abolition of slavery, and then let in their sugar. This will give him all the advantage of the plan of the late Government, without compromising his own consistency or the character of the country.
March 23rd.—Dined on Sunday at Lady Holland's, with Melbourne and a number of Whigs. Much talk about Peel and his measures, and what would be the conclusion. Melbourne, to do him justice, is destitute of humbug, does not see things through the medium of his wishes or prejudices, but thinks impartially, and says what he thinks. He said Peel would carry all his points, and that there would be no serious opposition in the country, for if any public meetings were called, the Chartists would be sure to outvote any resolution against the income-tax. Then he thought the regular war which the Opposition had declared was very useful to him, as it was the very thing which would keep his own party together, silence their objections, and make them come down and vote steadily with him. The rest would not gainsay this, though they don't like such a view of the state of the case. They all said Peel lost his temper the other night, and so he seems to have done. He has certainly taken a very imposing attitude, but he ought carefully to avoid any appearance of domineering, and to keep his temper under constant restraint. They will do all they can to provoke him. On Monday night the Opposition were very troublesome and factious, but that, however inconvenient to public business, will do him no harm, and he was so well aware of it that he never lost his self-command.
Death has been busy here of late, sweeping away men of very different estimation, and leaving behind them very unequal regrets. A few days ago died Archdeacon Singleton, a man who will be more remembered as the correspondent of Sydney Smith in his inimitable letters on Church Reform than for any acts of his own; but he was nevertheless a very excellent and valuable man. He was the intimate friend and counsellor of the Duke of Northumberland; and if that dullest of all bores was enabled to get through the Irish Lieutenancy with credit, it was because Singleton's sense informed him, and directed every act of his official career.
On Sunday Lord Munster[38] shot himself. He had been in low spirits for some time, and was tainted with the hereditary malady. He was a man not without talent, but wrongheaded, and having had the folly to quarrel with his father, and estrange himself from Court during the greater part of his reign, he fell into comparative obscurity and real poverty, and there can be no doubt that the disappointment of the expectations he once formed, together with the domestic unhappiness of a dawdling, ill-conditioned, vexatious wife, preyed upon his mind, and led to this act. The horror of the deed excited a momentary interest, but he will be soon forgotten.