This Press may be bought, but we have no money. Five-sixths of the Foreign
Secret Service money are preoccupied by permanent old charges—the Secret
Service money of the Treasury is preoccupied in the same way.
There is a small sum of droits which may be turned over to the Privy Purse, and then by the King to the Government, but it is not more than 3,000£. It is thought that perhaps some of the pensions on the Secret Service money of the Treasury may be turned over to the Foreign Office. The Treasury money is the only money applicable to the purchase of newspapers.
We twaddled a great deal over the speech. It was proposed by Peel to insert a paragraph referring to the disturbed state of the country. He will write it, and we shall consider it in a Cabinet at St. James's to-morrow at one, before the Council.
Lord Bathurst is more alarmed than any one; but Peel is a good deal alarmed too.
There is danger, for there are many to attack and few ready to risk anything in defence. It was otherwise in 1793.
The Duke thinks that with every disposition to do mischief there is no conspiracy, or we should have heard of it.
November 1.
Cabinet at St. James's at one. The Lord-Lieutenant has prohibited, by Proclamation, the meeting of the Volunteer Society. Very properly and consistently. It was a much more dangerous society than the other. He is a firm man, not to be turned from the course he thinks right.
O'Connell has not been spoken to in the clubs he has entered. At Brookes's they turned their backs upon him.
There was no meeting at Maidstone. Probably they had intimation of the movements of troops. Lord Beresford told me there were 3,000 artillerymen at Woolwich, enough to serve guns for an army.