SIR ROBERT PEEL'S DIFFICULTIES.
In the course of the Irish battles the Government has been fiercely attacked from the most opposite quarters, and on the most opposite grounds, both in Parliament and out, in all societies, and by the whole of the press, the 'Times' especially having turned against them in articles of extraordinary violence; and on arriving here I find a universal opinion, just as strong among the friends as among the enemies of Government, that Peel has fallen immensely in public opinion, and has so signally failed in his general administration of affairs as to have shown himself unequal to a great emergency and extraordinary difficulties and dangers. I think there is exaggeration and unfairness in this sentiment, though it is not without some foundation. He took the government with a grand flourish of trumpets, great things were expected of him, and now people compare his performances with their own expectations, and give vent to their disappointment in reproaches of a very vague character, and with an acrimony which he does not deserve; for, in the first place, he took on himself to play a very difficult part, that of steering a middle course, which was sure to offend one extreme without conciliating the other, and this, superadded to his cold and unsocial character, speedily made him very unpopular. But the worst that can be said is that he took the reins of government when various causes of distress and difficulty were in active operation, and he has not been able to find universal remedies for every evil. On the other hand, it must be owned that his measures have not been as well concerted and arranged, not as firmly and vigorously executed, as they might have been. They have many of them failed, very little has been done, and latterly, especially, he has not taken that high and commanding tone which befits a great Minister. At all events, with whatever measure of justice, I find an impression greatly unfavourable to him, and the prestige of his Government is gone. Arbuthnot, sitting at Apsley House, and in constant communication with the Duke of Wellington, holds this language, and laments over the falling off of Peel. Not that there is any dissension or difference of opinion in the Government, both he and Wharncliffe assure me to the contrary; but he thinks Peel has spoken very ill, and has degraded his Government by the low tone which he has adopted. The Opposition are all cock-a-hoop about it: the sanguine among them fondly hoping that a door will be thereby opened for their return to office; the others, from a spirit of vengeance and rivalry, rejoicing in the discredit of their great antagonist.[65]
August 6th.—Since I have had time to look about me and hear what people say, I am of opinion that no serious injury has been done to the stability of the Government, whatever blows may have been inflicted on its credit; no other party, no other individuals, have gained, whatever they may have lost, on the score of popularity and character. The Court is entirely on their side. The Queen never cared for any individual of her old Government but Melbourne, and she knows that his political life is closed; she feels that her own personal comfort is much greater with Peel's Government and large majority, than it ever was, or is likely to be again, with the Whigs. She remembers what a state of continual agitation she was kept in, when they never knew from day to day whether they should not be beaten and turned out, and she infinitely prefers her present state of security and repose, especially as the present Ministers do all they can to please her, and her husband is their strenuous and avowed friend. I see nothing to alter my opinion that the principle on which Peel resolved to act, and has acted, was the wisest and best he could adopt—that of steering between extreme parties, of guiding, regulating, and restraining forward movements, the advance of which was, he knew, inevitable, and which he did not deem undesirable. He might have foreseen that this was a difficult part to play well. It was pretty sure to make him unpopular with his friends, as it has done, and it was equally sure not to conciliate his enemies, who, on the contrary, rejoiced to see him weakened by dissensions with his allies, and hastened to place him between two fires, and by embarrassing his march as much as they could to cast universal discredit upon him. The way to meet these difficulties was, in the first place, to be perfectly single-minded; to be open, bold, and resolute; and with his friends frank and conciliatory. Unhappily, Peel's character is not such as enabled him to display these qualities. He acts rather like the cautious leader of a party, than like a great and powerful Minister determined to do what he thinks right, casting himself upon public opinion, and trusting to its bearing them out in the long run. Then he is so cold, so reserved, and his ways are so little winning and attractive, that he cannot attach people to him personally, and induce them to bear with the Ministers for the sake of the man. Although I think his general views are sound, his way of working out his measures is not happy, and therefore the clamour against him is very general, and he finds very few defenders, admirers, and friends.
SIR ROBERT PEEL'S UNPOPULARITY.
Nevertheless the Opposition pretenders to power are mistaken if they think he is at all near his downfall, or themselves likely to succeed him. The Tories and landlords do not want to turn him out; none of the great interests which support him and look to him for protection have begun to turn their thoughts and wishes to any other quarter; and if the 'volvenda dies' brings about a better state of things, if trade revives, and Irish agitation stagnates, it will be found that the clamour against Peel's Government had no great foundation of facts to rest upon. Ward's motion about the Irish Church revenues fell to the ground in such a ridiculous way, and in one so little creditable to the Opposition, that they will not be anxious to fight any more this year; and Lord John Russell is gone out of town. It would have been so inconvenient to the leaders to express any opinion on this question, that everybody will believe they contrived to let it drop as it did, or, at all events, rejoiced in its sudden conclusion.
Since I have been away nothing very interesting has occurred. The King of Hanover has been the great lion of London, all the Tories feasting and entertaining him with extraordinary demonstrations of civility and regard; but not so the Court, for the Queen has taken hardly any notice of him. He seems to have behaved very well, taking great pleasure in the attentions he has received, but giving no cause for complaint by any indecorous or imprudent language; in fact, he seems not to have meddled with politics in any way whatever. They tell a story of him, that one day at Buckingham Palace he proposed to Prince Albert to go out and walk with him. The Prince excused himself, saying he could not walk in the streets, as they should be exposed to inconvenience from the crowd of people. The King replied, 'Oh, never mind that. I was still more unpopular than you are now, and used to walk about with perfect impunity.'
August 8th.—Yesterday morning I found the Duke of Wellington in my brother's room and in high good-humour. I began talking to him about the discovery lately made at Woodstock of the Duke of Marlborough's correspondence, which Sir George Murray had told me of; and this led him to talk of the Duke of Marlborough, of his character and military genius, and so on to other things. He said that he considered the principal characteristic of the Duke of Marlborough to have been his strong sound sense and great practical sagacity. That it was a mistake to say he was illiterate. People fancied so because of the way in which his words were misspelt, but in his time they spelt them as they were pronounced. He thought the errors he had committed were owing to his wife. As to his character, we must not judge of it according to the maxims by which men in our time were governed; besides that, they were less strict in his day; the condition of affairs itself produced a laxity; and though it was true he communicated with the Pretender and acted a double part, that was no more than many men in France did during Napoleon's reign, and he told a curious anecdote of Talleyrand. He said that at the Congress held at Erfurt, not long before Napoleon's marriage, he and the Emperor Alexander met for the purpose of discussing what should be done with Austria, Napoleon being anxious to plunder and degrade her to a great extent. He brought Talleyrand with him to this meeting, and Talleyrand completely threw him over. Every evening there was a meeting at the house of the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, between Alexander, Talleyrand, and Vincent, the Austrian Minister, at which they concerted what should be said to Napoleon the next day, and how they should parry his propositions. The Duke said that both Vincent and the Emperor Alexander had given him an account of all this transaction. He added, that though it was a sort of treachery on the part of Talleyrand towards Napoleon, he had no doubt he was really of opinion that it was very fit he should be thwarted, and that it was inexpedient to destroy the Austrian empire. He said many men, and respectable ones, in employment under Napoleon had been in constant communication with the Duke of Orleans, and he mentioned Royer Collard and some other names I have forgotten.
MARLBOROUGH AND NAPOLEON.
The Duke then talked of the military genius of Marlborough, and said that though he was a very great man, the art of war was so far advanced since his time that it was impossible to compare him with more modern generals; and unquestionably Napoleon was the greatest military genius that ever existed; that he had advantages which no other man ever possessed in the unlimited means at his command and his absolute power and irresponsibility, and that he never scrupled at any expenditure of human life; but nevertheless his employment of his means and resources was wonderful. I told him that I remembered to have heard him say that he considered Napoleon's campaign of '14 to have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of his exploits, and that he was then ruined by his own impatience. He said it was quite true, and then repeated (what he had once before told me) that nothing could exceed the ability of Napoleon's operations, and if he had continued to act for a little longer in the same way, he would have forced the Allies to retreat, which they were in fact preparing to do. He said he should not have had time to get up, but his intention had been to act upon the Loire. If this retreat had taken place, it would not have been disastrous, and they would have had their choice of renewing the invasion in another campaign, or making peace on the Rhine, which he thought they would have done. From this we got to Espartero and Spain, and the recent bombardment of Seville, which he said was inexcusable, and he told us that he never had fired off a single mortar while he was in Spain. He also mentioned, that though he had taken about 3,000 pieces of cannon of different sorts, he had never in his life lost a single gun.
FACTIOUS CONDUCT OF THE WHIGS.