If I had no other ground for this opinion—and, unfortunately, there are a thousand good reasons for it—I should think it quite enough to look at the way in which, in such a moment, these Ministers are up, running about in every direction—the Duke of Wellington to Chester, Bathurst to Longleat and I know not where else, Harrowby to Dawlish, and letting the K—— himself go to Brighton, leaving everything at sixes and sevens, and trusting to live through the next month as they can, till the meeting of Parliament brings on the great crisis.

Truly, if they can, or think they can, do anything to prop up their Government, they ought to be actively employed in the measures for that purpose; and if they cannot, they owe it to him to tell him so at once, and plainly.

But as for any idea of their asking others to join them, in the very moment of their approaching, and, as they themselves seem to consider it, inevitable defeat, it does seem that they are not absurd enough to expect it; nor, if they did, could any reasonable man entertain the notion, without very different ideas of their personal fitness for taking their part in such a contest than the past can allow us to entertain.

I am sure you know I say this from no personal indisposition to them. My early habits and predilections were with them. I have long since and totally forgotten whatever of personal controversy the events of political life interposed between us, and I have with great pleasure resumed with some of them the course of old friendships. Nor am I indisposed—but quite the contrary—to the cause which, unhappily for itself and for us all, is now committed into their hands.

I wish it success; and as far as the conduct of an independent and disconnected man goes, I think you are bound to contribute to it if you can. But your worst enemy could wish you nothing worse than that you should mix yourself up with all the mischief which must, I fear, inevitably result from their unfitness to contend with such a storm, though in peace and in calm they might, as others far inferior to them in qualifications have done, navigate the vessel safely in a course already tracked and known.

So, here ends my sermon.—God bless you.

I have not read Grey's Durham speech—I have no pleasure in such reading, and abstain from it all I can. But it is only justice to say that Grey did in the House of Lords declare that his vote was given on the ground of not guilty—admitting and condemning what he thought great improprieties in her conduct, but not thinking the case of adultery sufficiently proved.

I do not agree with him, as you know, in this opinion; but it is not fair to impute it to him now as an inconsistency.

As for Bucks, I know not who your sheriff is, but I trust he is one who will refuse, as his Berkshire neighbour has done, to call a meeting; and if one is called by the four or five gentlemen of that party in this county, I should most strongly dissuade your giving it so much countenance as to attend it and make it the scene of a contest. You would be much stronger in the shape of a counter-Address in that case.

MR. W. H. FREMANTLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.