October 27.
Levée at two. Addresses from the Church of Scotland, and the Lord Mayor and Corporation of Dublin. Dr. Chalmers was with the Church of Scotland. The Recorder of Dublin, Mr. Shaw, who is member for Dublin, made a speech before he read the address—a thing quite unprecedented, and which might be very inconvenient. The speech itself was innocent. The levée by no means full.
Peel had an audience of the King, and in half an hour the King slept twenty minutes. He says he never knew any man so much altered in three months. His somnolency increases. He slept during an interview with Aberdeen yesterday. When the Duke saw him he was alive enough.
Cabinet. Prince at the Chancellor's. Some conversation respecting the burnings in Kent. Peel thinks they were effected by a chemical process, by some substance deposited hours before, and igniting when the perpetrators are far off. The persons who met Lord Winchilsea expressed detestation of the burnings, and went away to break threshing machines, but a man who committed persons for breaking threshing machines had his ricks burnt; another suffered the same thing who defended his threshing machines. I believe the two offences to be committed by the same persons. The magistrates are supine and terror-struck; but they have no police, no military. Sir E. Knatchbull doubts whether they would arm as yeomen. Peel does not seem to me to view with sufficient alarm the effect these burnings will produce upon men's minds, and the example of impunity. Nothing was said about Manchester. All seemed to think less seriously of our dangers than they did some days back.
The law officers mean to give in their report on the case put to them to- morrow. They will say it is not provided for. The Chancellor has the judges at dinner on Friday, and he will then obtain theirs.
October 28.
Captain Harvey of the 4th Dragoons called by the King's desire to say the King of Persia told him when he was at Teheran that he was hurt at not receiving a letter from the King. I told Captain Harvey the King had announced his accession to the Shah of Persia as he had to other sovereigns. Captain Harvey was interpreter to his regiment. It seemed to me that he rather wished to command the Persian troops. He is brother to the tutor to Prince George of Cambridge. He is a very gentlemanlike man.
The French insist on having the conferences respecting the settlement of Belgium at Paris, if there are to be any regular conferences. They cannot permit Talleyrand to act for them. The French would be jealous of him, &c. We had wished to have the conferences here for the very reason that we thought Talleyrand would do his utmost to have the credit of preserving peace. I see there will be no Congress. The French think that, if they stand still, the fruit will fall into their mouths. The folly of the Prince of Orange will ruin his party in Belgium. The ambition of the Belgians will induce them to attempt to form a separate State, which after much disorder will be found impracticable; and as they will not become Dutch, they will become French. Then we shall have a war, and present forbearance only postpones it. All the Volunteers who are acting in Belgium are French. All the forces in the field are commanded by Frenchmen. French money is employed. The French are really now carrying on the war covertly.
Russia is paralysed by the devastating progress of the cholera morbus which has reached Moscow. The Emperor is gone to Moscow to establish order and obedience, for the civil and military authorities are quarrelling, and the troops are unwilling to form the cordon. All cordons I believe to be fruitless. It would be as wise to form a cordon against the wind. The disease advances, however, along the high roads and navigable rivers. It is the most extraordinary plague we have had.
Prussia cannot act for fear of disorders at home, and Austria is literally the only power to which war is possible. The French dare not go to war for fear of a Republic.