It will be seen from the foregoing communication how extremely anxious were Lord Buckingham's uncles, at this crisis, that he should act with the utmost circumspection on every possible contingency.
THE MARQUIS WELLESLEY TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
My dear Lord,
Many thanks for your note by Lord Cassilis; I do not credit any of the rumours to which you refer. I believe that all is now quiet in those quarters. I understand that the Secret Committee is to meet in our House on Wednesday, and on its Report a Bill is to be introduced; in the Commons, a delay of ten days is to be proposed, for the purpose of waiting for our Bill. You have heard of the proceedings in our House to-night: a petition from the Queen, praying against a Secret Committee, and for a delay of any proceedings, in order to enable her to collect her witnesses; Brougham and Denman called in and heard in support of the petition, and the House adjourned until to-morrow, when Lord Grey is to make his motion for rescinding the order respecting the Secret Committee. When this motion is disposed of, Lord Liverpool will move that the Secret Committee shall meet on Wednesday. I cannot ascertain the temper of the House positively, but I perceive no alteration in it of any description.
Yours, my dear Lord, sincerely,
W.
LORD GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Dropmore, July 2, 1820.
I am glad you are so near the end of your labours, though that end is to be the beginning of a fresh and very painful scene. I am clear, however, that in the state to which the matter is now brought, the course at last adopted was the only one which affords any hope of concluding it without the most alarming consequences. And if the House of Lords manifests, as I trust it will, a temperate and truly judicial spirit in the conduct of the trial, I am sanguine enough to believe that much lost ground may still be recovered.
I am utterly at variance with Charles's notion, that such proceedings ought to commence in the House of Commons; and I am sure in this case it was of unspeakable importance that the matter should first undergo a judicial investigation, before it was brought any more under the cognizance of a body so liable to act on momentary impressions, in place of the settled rules and permanent principles of legal proceeding.