August 11th.—The other night, in the House of Lords, Lord Roden brought forward a motion about the law prohibiting Orange processions, and proposed either that it should be repealed or extended to the Catholics. He made a very good speech, in such an impressive tone that Wharncliffe told me it was very affecting. The Duke made a very good reply, in which he showed that Roden had mistaken the meaning of the Act, and on the part of the Government he declined to adopt either alternative. Brougham made one of his most effective speeches. This debate did good. There was another in the House of Commons on the third reading of the Irish Arms Bill; also a discussion on the landlord and tenant question, which were not without their separate utility. Peel made a pretty good speech, considerably better than he has lately been doing; but still he might have been more vigorous, have taken a loftier tone, vindicated himself and his acts in a more triumphant way, and have lashed his various opponents in the manner they deserve. The remarkable thing was the bitterness and insolence of his soi-disant friends and the civility of his adversaries. Moore O'Farrell and Morgan John O'Connell were even complimentary in what they said on the landlord question, while Disraeli and Smythe, who are the principal characters, together with John Manners, of the little squad called 'Young England,' were abusive and impertinent. As the session is drawing to a close, the clamour subsides, and as it really had no foundation in truth, justice, or sense, it will not have done Peel any material injury. People will find out that he has after all taken the wisest course about Ireland, and that the 'do-nothing policy,' which has excited so much indignation on one side and sneering on the other, is that which will be the least dangerous and most conducive to ultimate tranquillity. The Opposition leaders have disgraced themselves by the part they have acted through this session, both upon the Education Bill and the Irish questions. They began by supporting the former, but when they found that the Dissenters were getting up an opposition to it, which would render its success difficult, instead of helping the Government, they began finding fault, increased the difficulty, and finally compelled them to give the Bill up. Then, on the Irish question, instead of joining the Government against the repealers, and giving all the strength they could to the supporters of the Union, they joined in the senseless and unmeaning rant about Irish insults and injuries, and went on railing at the Government without ever accusing them of having done anything they ought not to have done, or left undone anything which they ought to have done. It is satisfactory to see that this conduct has brought no profit with it of any kind on either side of the Channel. England does not approve of those who sympathise with Irish repealers, and O'Connell, so far from being mollified or propitiated by this miserable following in his wake, only heaps contumely and abuse upon them, and in his very last speech he told his mob that he would rather have twenty Tories than one Whig, and of all the Whigs that the most pitiful and contemptible was Lord John Russell. This is all Johnny has got by coming down to the House of Commons, and opposing his own bills, and talking at the Government in a strain which is not sincere. How different is this from the conduct of the Duke of Wellington on all great national questions! But he is the only really great man.
August 26th.—The day before yesterday the Queen prorogued Parliament. She was received much as usual—that is, with indifference; the Speech was reckoned good, well written, and Ireland, the principal topic, properly alluded to. I reserve for another day to speak about the session and its events. On Wednesday I went with Adolphus FitzClarence on board the new yacht 'Victoria and Albert,' and steamed as far as Gravesend. It is luxuriously fitted up, but everything is sacrificed to the comfort of the Court, the whole ship's company being crammed into wretched dog-holes, officers included. I breakfasted with one of the lieutenants, and he showed me their berths. They are packed two officers in one berth, about seven feet by five at most, and, as he said, they have not room to move, or dress themselves. There is a large room, a sort of waiting-room allotted to the pages, who are in fact footmen, and round this on both sides their berths, one to each. It was pointed out that the room for the officers was insufficient, and suggested that one half of these berths should be allotted to them and the other half to the pages; the other pages they proposed to put on board the attendant steamers. This proposal, which was only to put the officers and the royal footmen on the same level as to accommodation, was rejected, because it might possibly be inconvenient not to have all the servants together. The Admiralty are much to blame for suffering the officers to be used with such indignity, but flattery seems to be the order of the day.
THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO FRANCE.
The Queen is to embark on Monday, and she is going to pay Louis Philippe a visit at the Château d'Eu. It is odd enough that till yesterday the Duke of Wellington knew nothing of this, for though it is an event in its way, and rather remarkable, it seems never to have been even incidentally discussed. On Thursday I happened to mention it to Arbuthnot, who said it could not be true. He asked the Duke the same day, who told him he had never heard a word of any such thing. On this Arbuthnot contradicted it to me in the most positive way; but yesterday he saw Peel, and asked him. Peel said it was so, and expressed his surprise that the Duke should not know it, as he thought he had told him. He, however, wrote to the Duke, and gave him a whole account of it. The Duke was surprised, but not at all angry. This is rather curious, because it shows how little they are in the habit of talking over the various miscellaneous matters that occur. It is the more remarkable in this instance, because a question arose whether she could go to a foreign land without appointing a Regency, and the lawyers have been consulted thereupon. The last interview between the Sovereigns of England and France was that between Henry VIII. and Francis I., and that, they say, took place within the English territory; the only occasion on which the King of England quitted his own dominions was when he went to Gravelines to pay a visit to the Emperor.[66]
September 10th.—I had intended to take something of a review of the session, and of the state of the Government at the end of it, but on looking back at what I have written, I do not know that I can add anything material to the opinion I have already expressed. The clamour against Peel has subsided, because people cannot go on for ever harping on the same tune, especially when there is really very small foundation for their reproaches and complaints. The Duke of Bedford, who has been in Ireland, and has conversed, he tells me, with people of all descriptions, and done his utmost to procure useful information about the state of the country, says he is quite convinced that Peel's do-nothing policy has been wise, but that Lord John was not pleased when he told him so. In a correspondence between them on the subject (which I saw) Lord John had, however, nothing to urge against Peel's Government more serious than this, that he might have made some more popular, and abstained from some unpopular, appointments. But Lord John hates Peel, thinks ill of him, and sees bad motives in all he does. He still remembers the Catholic question and his conduct to Canning, and latterly on the Irish Registration, which he considers a proof of his insincerity and disposition to trifle with principles for party purposes. I think Peel might make out a case for himself about the Registration, as to everything but prudence; but when he must himself have thought that his advent to office was not distant, he ought not to have hampered himself with a measure which he could neither abandon without disgrace, nor carry without danger. He had not sufficiently considered all the bearings and circumstances of the question, and he yielded with too great facility to the impetuosity of Stanley, whose measure it was, and to the blind zeal of his party. It cannot be denied that in so doing he evinced a want of prudence and foresight, for he was compelled to give up when in office what he had urged on when in opposition.
ENDOWMENT OF THE CATHOLIC CLERGY.
To return, however, to the Duke of Bedford, he thinks O'Connell is extremely puzzled to know what to do next. He sent various civil messages to him through Blake, and he said if the aristocracy had anything to propose, he should be ready to listen to it. The Duke thinks that the Church question is of less importance than the landlord and tenant question, and that, difficult as it is to do anything on the latter, something must be attempted. Both he and Stradbroke, who has lately returned from visiting his Irish estates, told me that, with few exceptions, the absentee landlords were the best in Ireland; and the latter said that his tenants were in the greatest alarm lest he should sell his property, and that they paid him his rents very regularly, because he always threatened to sell it if they did not. The Duke of Bedford thinks that the sooner Lord de Grey quits the Government of Ireland the better, for he is not popular, and his Church appointments are supposed to be influenced by his wife. They have been, at all events, very hostile to the Education system, and in so far very injurious to the Government, who are accused, with some show of reason, of not being hearty in the cause which ostensibly they support. Eliot[67] too, though well-meaning and liberal, and not wanting in ability, is timid. He told the Duke that the temper of England would not allow of any provision for the Roman Catholic clergy. A more solid difficulty presents itself in the fact which Stradbroke told me, viz., that the emolument which the clergy derive from voluntary contributions is so large, that no State endowment they could obtain would be anything like an equivalent, and therefore they never would consent to the measure; but it is suggested in reply to this, that in the first place they would accept glebes, and if the State would liberally endow the Church, the people would leave off paying, and the priests would in the end be obliged to acquiesce. Stradbroke said that the priest of his parish told him he got 500l. a year; some get as much as 800l. A great part of their emoluments is made up of marriage fees, and when a rich man is married, the priest gets presents from all the relations, sometimes to the amount of above 100l. There is certainly a wide field open for improvement, enough to do to allay discontent, relieve distress, reform abuses, improve establishments, to mitigate the ferocity and soften the animosities of the people; but the difficulties are enormous, because all the remedies that calm and dispassionate prudence suggest would infallibly raise a storm of antagonist interests and of sectarian hatred, and produce a frenzy of national and religious violence. On the other hand there is a growing disposition to look the great evils of Ireland in the face, and to try some remedies to cure them. Peel's policy appears to me to be in everything continually to advance, but to do so by such slow and insensible degrees, that existing interests, or rather existing powers, may be as little frightened and as little hurt as possible. I do not think, whatever sins he may have committed on former occasions, that he is acting dishonestly now, or that the principle which he has laid down for his own guidance is unwise or unfair. It is not to do nothing, but to do gradually and safely all he can venture to do, to feel his way; not to shock and alarm old prejudices which have long been cherished and deferred to, and old interests which have long been fostered and protected, but to reconcile those prejudices and those interests by degrees to the changes which times and circumstances and the progress of sound systems have put in motion, and the advance of which it is, he well knows, neither desirable nor possible to arrest.
September 15th.—There has just appeared in the 'Quarterly Review' a defence of Peel's policy, supposed to be by Croker, but which is very feeble and ill-done, and has been lashed by the 'Times' with great severity and in a most contumelious tone.
The Queen's visit to Eu went off with complete success, and she left a good impression. On her return she stopped a few days at Brighton and then went off to Ostend. Aberdeen had a great deal of conversation with Louis Philippe and with Guizot, mostly on the affairs of Spain. The King declared that he considered the late revolution and fall of Espartero the greatest evil that could have happened, repudiated the idea of having any purpose of marrying one of his own sons to the Queen, and they came to a regular agreement that neither France nor England should interfere, or endeavour to influence the choice of a husband for her in any way.[68] As soon as Aberdeen returned to London, and before he started again for Ostend, he sent for Delane and told him this, for, notwithstanding the hostile and offensive tone which the 'Times' has adopted towards the Government generally, particularly Peel and Graham, this formidable paper is in a sort of alliance with the Foreign Office, and the communications between Lord Aberdeen and Delane are regular and frequent.
THE AGREEMENT AT EU.