[1] [Lord Cranworth at this time occupied Holwood as a summer residence.]
I asked the Chancellor what was the real history of the Life Peerage last year, and he told me that it originated in his finding great inconvenience from himself and Lord St. Leonards frequently sitting together in the House of Lords without any third, and as St. Leonards invariably opposed his view of every case great injustice was often done to suitors, and he urged on Palmerston the expediency of giving them some assistance. Palmerston said it would be a good opportunity for making some Life Peers. Wensleydale was willing to retire from the Bench and to accept a Life Peerage, so it was determined to create him a Peer for life only, and they did this without the slightest idea that any objection would be made in any quarter. He owned that he regretted this design had not been abandoned at once when the storm of opposition began. I told him that I had no doubt there would have been no opposition if he had imparted the intentions of Government to some of the Law Lords, and obtained their acquiescence, for Lyndhurst would certainly not have objected, having himself told me that he meant to comply with Parke's request to him to introduce him to the House of Lords. The Chancellor said this was very likely true, but that he had never liked the attempt to force it through the House of Lords. He thought the opposition had originated with Campbell, who had probably forgotten that he had recorded his own opinion, in his 'Lives of the Chancellors,' that Life Peerages would be advisable in certain cases.
September 22nd.—I am just returned from Doncaster, Bretby, and Wilby. The Indian mail arrived on Monday last, just as I was starting for Doncaster. The news it brought at first appeared rather good, but when it all came out it seemed so chequered with good and evil, that it produced great despondency. Still it is a curious circumstance (which I have heard no one else remark) that, with all the deep interest universally felt on account of this Sepoy war, not only as it regards our national interests, but out of feeling and sympathy for the vast numbers of our countrymen and women exposed to its horrors and dangers, it does not produce the same degree of enthusiasm as the Crimean War did, in which we had no real interest concerned, and which was only a gigantic folly on our part. People are very anxious about this war, and earnestly desire that the mutiny may be put down and punished, but they regard the war itself with aversion and horror, whereas they positively took pleasure in the war against Russia, and were ready to spend their last guinea in carrying it on. A subscription has been set on foot, but although there never was an occasion on which it might have been expected that vast sums would be subscribed, the contributions have been comparatively small in amount, and it seems probable that a much less sum will be produced for the relief of the Indian sufferers than the Patriotic Fund or any of the various subscriptions made for purposes connected with the Crimean War. I was so struck with the backwardness of the Government in rewarding General Havelock for his brilliant exploits, that I wrote to George Lewis and urged him to press his colleagues to confer some honour upon him and promote him.
I am on the point of starting for Balmoral, summoned for a Council to order a day of humiliation.
VISIT TO SCOTLAND.
Gordon Castle, September 27th.—I left town on Tuesday afternoon, and slept that night at York, on Wednesday at Perth, and on Thursday posted to Balmoral, where I arrived between two and three o'clock. Granville, Panmure, and Ben Stanley formed the Council. Granville told me the Queen wished that the day appointed should be a Sunday, but Palmerston said it must be on a weekday, and very reluctantly she gave way. What made the whole thing more ridiculous was, that she gave a ball (to the gillies and tenants) the night before this Council. The outside of the new house at Balmoral, in the Scotch and French style, is pretty enough, but the inside has but few rooms, and those very small, not uncomfortable, and very simply decorated; the place and environs are pretty. In the afternoon I drove over to Invercauld with Phipps. On Friday morning came on here, by post, by rail, and by mail. Without any beauty, this is rather a fine place, and the house very comfortable.
September 28th.—Went to Elgin to see the fine old ruin of the Cathedral, which is very grand, and must have been magnificent. It was built in the beginning of the thirteenth century, burnt down, and rebuilt in the fourteenth. I see they have done all I wanted to have done for General Havelock. He has got a good service pension, is made Major-General and K.C.B.
Dunrobin Castle, October 2nd.—I came here from Gordon Castle on Wednesday, by sea from Burghead to the Little Ferry, a very tiresome way of travelling, the delays being detestable. Have long been most desirous of seeing this place, which has quite equalled my expectations, for it is a most princely possession, and the Castle exceedingly beautiful and moreover very comfortable. I start for London to-morrow morning with a long journey before me.
The Indian news of this week as bad and promises as ill as well can be, and I expect worse each mail that comes. We are justly punished for our ambition and encroaching spirit, but it must be owned we struggle gallantly for what we have perhaps unjustly acquired. Europe behaves well to us, for though we have made ourselves universally odious by our insolence and our domination, and our long habit of bullying all the world, nobody triumphs over us in the hour of our distress, and even Russia, who has no cause to feel anything but ill will towards us, evinces her regret and sympathy in courteous terms. Whatever the result of this contest may be, it will certainly absorb all our efforts and occupy our full strength and power so that we shall not be able to take any active or influential part in European affairs for some time to come. The rest of the Great Powers will have it in their power to settle everything as seems meet to them, without troubling themselves about us and our opinions. For the present we are reduced to the condition of an insignificant Power. It is certain that if this mutiny had taken place two years earlier, we could not have engaged at all in the Russian War.
London, October 6th.—I left Dunrobin after breakfast on Saturday morning, 3rd inst., and arrived in London on Monday (yesterday) at 11 a.m. My journey was after this wise: We (i.e. Mr. Marshall of the Life Guards, an aide-de-camp of Lord Carlisle's, who travelled from Dunrobin with me) got into the mail at Golspie and took our places to Inverness. At Tain, the first stage, we walked on, leaving the coach to overtake us. After walking three miles, and no coach coming, we got alarmed, and on enquiry of the first man we fell in with, found we had come the wrong way, and that the mail had gone on. We started on our return to Tain, and falling in with a good Samaritan in the shape of a banker in that place, who was driving in the opposite direction, he took us up in his gig, and drove us back to the inn, where we took post, and followed the mail to Inverness, where we arrived an hour after it. There we slept, and at five minutes before five on Sunday morning we were in the mail again, and arrived at Perth at six o'clock, making 117 miles in thirteen hours. In twenty minutes more we were in the mail train, and reached Euston Square safe and sound at eleven o'clock, doing the distance between Perth and London in seventeen and a half hours. I have seen a vast deal of very beautiful scenery of all sorts, but the most beautiful of all (and I never saw anything more lovely anywhere) is the road from Blair Athol to Dunkeld, which includes the pass of Killiecrankie.