Culzean Castle, Dec. —.
I received your letter, my dear Lord Buckingham, when writhing under a fit of the gout, the legacy of the Bill of Pains and Penalties which you made me vote for. God help us! as the saying is; for what is to become of us, He only knows. There seems nothing but chaos and desolation whatever way a man turns himself: the middle classes of the people waging war upon the higher orders; the tenantry taking advantage of the times to conspire against their landlords; and the lower orders existing only from the circumstance of the produce of land being unmarketable: barley two shillings a bushel, oats nearly the same, and no sale for wheat at any price. The weavers are certainly all employed here, but cannot earn more than from six to eight shillings a week. Such is our state. The finance of the country is "opportunely" a little improved. Had it retrograded a little, the King was over with us; and there yet hangs out insurmountable evil. I think I hear you say, "What a gloomy dog!" And so I am, because I cannot see daylight in any direction. I cannot agree about a reduction of our army: a soldier less, and we shall have revolution and civil war. Those people under whose protection we should be put if the army was reduced, would, as Rollo says, "cover and devour us." It's all really dreadful. I have not since I saw you heard a reasonable conjecture even about the Administration's fate or plans. I think that Canning will stick to Liverpool; Morley told me he would positively. I should not be displeased to see a separation between Liverpool and Castlereagh. I think it very probable that the Opposition will take the King by storm, backed as they are and will be by the people, as they are called. The Addresses to the King as yet are feeble and poor, nothing like heart appearing. If the Opposition get in, they will let fly a set of measures calculated to secure popularity at starting, but which in the end will bring ruin, absolute, upon the country. It does not appear possible to me for the Government to get on, when Parliament meets, if the present fever in the public mind does not abate. I will not bore you any more with my lamentations. Pray do give me some consolation if you can, and at any rate be kind enough to let me know when anything political is stirring. What would I not have given to have been behind the screen at Lord Grenville's audience!—The weather here is nearly as bad as the times.
Ever, my dear Lord Buckingham,
Your truly faithful
Cassilis.
MR. CHARLES W. WYNN TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Llangedwin, Dec. 31, 1820.
My dear B——,
I hear from Phillimore that the successor to Canning still remains undetermined. If Peel would accept it, or were rather to succeed Vansittart, my opinion of the probability of the present Government standing would be more strengthened than by any other event whatever. My estimate of Peel is, I am aware, higher than yours. I agree with you that he cannot supply the effect of one of Canning's glittering, eloquent speeches; still, he combines greater advantages at this moment than any other man in the House of Commons.
Talent, independent fortune, official habits and reputation, and, above all, general character both in and out of Parliament, have, I am persuaded, disposed more men to follow and more to unite with him than any person whom you can name among us. I do not deny the objections arising from want of family and connexion, from the irritability he has shown of late, and from the drubbing which Brougham gave him last year; but still you must remember that you can name no one who has not greater difficulties to encounter, and fewer advantages to assist him. Phillimore tells me that he hears that he has refused to connect himself with the Administration, from disapprobation of their gross mismanagement during the late business. If this were true, I should have more hope of the possibility of forming a fresh Government, in the event of the present falling, than I have yet entertained. I think he is not ill-inclined to back out of the Catholic question, and that that was the meaning of his proposed going abroad for a twelvemonth after his marriage; but I have no personal acquaintance with him to make my opinion on this subject worth anything.