March 8th.—I dined on Wednesday at Grillon's, and was received with vast civility and cordiality. A large party, much larger than usual—amongst them Harrowby, Granville, Graham, Sir Thomas Fremantle, Rutherford, Pusey, Sir Thomas Acland, &c. Sat next to Graham, and had much talk on affairs. I told him that Labouchere had said to me a day or two before that John Russell was uneasy about the House of Commons, and expected that he should be beaten on more than one item in the financial accounts; that people told him he must expect to be beaten; but he replied that repeated defeats on such details materially impaired his influence and authority in the House, and made it difficult to carry on the business. Graham said this was very true, and that he probably would be beaten. He thought the position of the Government unsatisfactory and precarious; they had got into some scrapes about both Army and Naval estimates, unnecessarily and injudiciously. Then there were the questions of the African squadron and the Greek business behind. Stanley is very bitter and active, and eager to fight. He thinks Gladstone, Goulburn, and Aberdeen would all join Stanley in taking office. I asked him how it was possible. He said the Protectionists would make some concessions, and for various reasons and on different pretexts they would be easily satisfied. He congratulated himself on his foresight in refusing to take office. This Greek question was just one of those cases in which he must have refused to obey the orders of the Foreign Office, very different now from Lord Grey's time. Then when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, he used to be every day at the Foreign Office, and Lord Grey was paramount, allowing nothing to be done without his full knowledge and assent, and constantly altering Palmerston's despatches as a tutor might a boy's exercise. He talked a good deal about the abolition of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, of which he approves, but said the arrangement of the details, especially about the Chancellor, would be very difficult. Arbuthnot told me the other day that the Protectionists are doing all they can to disgust the Yeomanry with the service, and to induce them to resign, not without success. This is their patriotism.
I met Brunnow a few days ago coming from Palmerston, where he had been (though he did not say so) to present the Emperor's indignant note. He was laughing as he always does when he speaks of Palmerston; said of this affair, 'que c'était une bêtise; qu'il ne pouvait pas faire comprendre à Palmerston l'humiliation de l'affaire.' So far from acknowledging this, or evincing the least sign of regret or shame, when Hume asked him a question in the House the other night, he replied with the utmost effrontery, and with rather more than his usual insolence and audacity. As on every occasion, the House laughed and nobody said a word. All that relates to him, his character, conduct, and career, will hereafter form one of the most curious passages in history and the most astounding and unaccountable.
THE GORHAM JUDGEMENT.
March 9th.—Yesterday judgement was given in Gorham's case at the Council Office. The crowd was enormous, the crush and squeeze awful. I accommodated my friends with seats in court, and there were Wiseman and Bunsen sitting cheek by jowl, probably the antipodes of theological opinions. The Lords met an hour before. They made some alterations in the judgement, and some judicious omissions. The Bishop of London, after much vacillation, half assenting and half dissenting, being on and off, by turns against Gorham and against the Bishop, disagreeing with everybody and everything, finally sent his determination through Lushington, and announcing (as was said in the judgement) that he could not concur. He did not, however, concur in the statement of Gorham's doctrine as gathered by the Lords, a difference of construction which shows how impossible it would have been to condemn Gorham on the score of heterodox, if not heretical, opinions, when a number of very able men, laymen and clergymen, after careful examination, could not agree what his opinions really were. Knight Bruce dissented altogether, wrote to Lord Langdale to that effect, and declined coming. The Archbishop agreed in both judgement and reasons. There was a preliminary discussion about costs. Langdale, Campbell, and Lushington were for giving Gorham costs in the Court below; Pemberton Leigh was against it; and the three eventually yielded to the one, and it was agreed to say nothing about costs. Langdale read the judgement well, and the people who heard it (at least those I talked to) thought it able and judicious; but of course all the highflyers and Puseyites will be angry and provoked, and talk of schisms and secessions, which will be, I am firmly convinced, bruta fulmina.
Reeve received yesterday afternoon from Paris the Russian Note—not the Note itself, but the whole substance of it, textual evidently, and copied from the note.[111]
March 19th.—Last Friday Aberdeen and Stanley had determined to bring on the Greek affair in the House of Lords, and Stanley gave notice to Lord Lansdowne he would ask for information. Lord Lansdowne, however, before Stanley rose, got up and begged he would not discuss a question which was in course of negotiation, and Stanley was obliged to acquiesce. They were both of them provoked and disappointed, but there was no help for it. Stanley then contented himself with asking for the date of the orders to Parker to stop coercive measures, and it turned out that Palmerston had delayed sending them for a week upon miserable pretexts. Lord Lansdowne, as usual, attempted some lame excuses, and there the matter ended.
To-night comes on the question of the African squadron, on which the Government have acted a very unwise part.[112] They have determined (of course in obedience to Palmerston's will and pleasure) not only to make it a Government question, but to stake their existence on it; and they have been moving heaven and earth to obtain support and avert the defeat with which they were threatened. Their representations and appeals will probably succeed, but I have already seen several people who are excessively disgusted at being compelled to vote against their clear and strong convictions, and support what they think wrong and foolish in order to bolster up the Government and carry them through the difficulty in which they have been involved by their own perverseness and obstinacy.
LORD JOHN THREATENS TO RESIGN.
March 20th.—John Russell convoked a meeting in Downing Street yesterday, and made them a speech which gave equal offence in manner and in matter. He told them if he was beaten on Hutt's motion he should resign. Palmerston made another speech, and announced the same intention. The people came away furious and indignant, and several came into my room complaining of the hardship of being compelled to vote against their conscientious opinions on such a question, and on the unjustifiable conduct of the Government in threatening to resign at it. It seems to me that John Russell is demented at taking this violent course in reference to so unpopular a question, and one so entirely fallen into disrepute. He has given deep offence and prepared great difficulties for himself hereafter. Baring Wall told me he sent Labouchere to him the night before to remonstrate, but he made no impression, and his reply was too ridiculous; that he could not abandon the course pursued by Mr. Fox and all the great men of the time, who had striven to put down slavery. He succeeded in cajoling or frightening people into submission, and after a debate in which few people spoke, and Palmerston not at all, leaving it all to Lord John, Hutt's motion was rejected by a majority of seventy. A great many were absent, not expecting a division, most of whom would have voted with Hutt. I never saw anything like the surprise of some people and the indignation of others at the course which John Russell took.
April 23rd.—More than a month without a single line. The Government are supposed to have been going on badly, having been left in minorities on several occasions, but it is of no real consequence. The most serious affair was the Stamp Bill, but it has been partly compromised and partly patched up, and Charles Wood does not seem to care.[113] I saw him the other day, when he said that he thought they should not be placed in any more difficulties, for some were ashamed and some were sorry for having deserted the Government already. They have made up their minds not to stand repetitions of this fast and loose treatment on the part of their friends and soi-disant supporters. Wood is uneasy about the continued low price of corn, and owned to me that it has continued much longer and had fallen lower than he had ever contemplated or at all liked. All the accounts represent that the farmers are behaving well, paying their rents, and employing the people; but there is a strong feeling of dissatisfaction and disaffection amongst them.