P.S.—The Cabinet sat thirteen hours on Sunday.
The sweeping change so confidently anticipated did not take place; and probably when it became evident to some of the most daring of the political speculators of the time, that this was not so imminent as they desired, they resolved to expedite it in a fashion that should leave no necessity for a second experiment of the kind.
On the 23rd of February, the loyal citizens of the metropolis were startled by the intelligence of the timely discovery of a plot to assassinate his Majesty's Ministers while they were at dinner in the house of the Earl of Harrowby, Grosvenor Square, and of a sanguinary conflict of the police and military with the conspirators, when attempting to seize the latter at their place of rendezvous, in an obscure thoroughfare near Paddington, called Cato Street. The history of the Thistlewood Conspiracy,[5] ] as related in the criminal annals of the period, illustrates in a remarkable manner the diseased state of political feeling then existing in England. It was a small copy of the Irish rebellion,—marked by the same cut-throat policy,—having in view a similar overwhelming revolution, with the same absurdly inadequate means. Fortunately for the United Kingdom, the chief actors in both succeeded only in bringing upon themselves the destruction with which they had menaced a powerful Government.
Thistlewood proposed to slaughter the entire Cabinet at once, when assembled at Lord Harrowby's, which was assented to; "for," said he, "as there has not been a dinner for so long, there will no doubt be fourteen or sixteen there; and it will be a rare haul to murder them all together."[6] ]
The next communication refers to the same incident, as well as to the various rumours then in circulation:—
MARQUIS WELLESLEY TO MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Richmond, Tuesday, Feb. 29, 1820.
My dear Lord,
Not having received any commands from you, and having nothing to communicate beyond the rumours of the day, without any authentic information, I have not lately troubled your Lordship with any letter.
It was unnecessary to state that the stories of my being summoned to the King, &c. &c., were all absolutely false. If I had received any such summons, your Lordship would have been fully acquainted with the whole transaction by express from me at the earliest moment.