“The Grove,”
Sunday.
“My Dear Rutherfurd,
I rejoice at the prospect of your being here early this year, when we shall, I trust, spend many hours together, the more so if I become a member of Brooke’s,[[J]] where the “Bear”[[K]] took me to dinner one day, against all rules and principles, and then said I ought to become a member, and put down my name, and the good lord of this house[[L]] gladly seconded it, and I suppose no one will object to me as far as I can guess.
As to the important part of your letter, respecting public affairs and the late hubbub, I, first of all, agree with you that, although things have not gone quite right, they are not so bad as some thought (they don’t think so now, and will think better of them every day, after the first week of the session).
It seems to me evident, whatever may be said by those whose ambition or greediness warps the judgment, that the Whigs ought not to have taken office if they could help it. It is better that the world should see that it is they, out of office and on principle, who help a government to carry their (I mean the opposition’s) measures, than that they, the Whigs, should be at the mercy of their opponents for going on at all.
Peel would have brought them about 25 members, and with those, and great exertions and excitement, the Corn Laws might have been repealed; but then would they not have been in their enemies’ hands on all other questions, and on the most trifling measure unpalatable to the Tories? Would not Peel then have left them? And do you think that he would not have made his peace with the Tories, and be brought back by them and by those who would attribute, though Tories, the carrying of the good measure repealing the Corn Laws, to his support out of office, of his opponents? For you must not forget there are many friends of Peel who are against the Corn Laws; whereas there is not one Corn Law friend who is a friend of the Whigs, and who would, soon at all events, forgive them for repealing that Corn Law. The Whigs who join the Tories on this question would, unquestionably, have joined them in opposing Lord John’s Government, now and for some time to come; then, had you Whigs failed even in carrying the repeal of the Corn Laws, and being obliged to resign reinfecta, you would have been the object of universal hatred and contempt from both friends and enemies. From the former for having done too little, from the latter for having done too much, and shown you are not either powerful friends or terrible enemies.
But out of office you are 250. You can set your enemies by the ears; the public will see that it is you who command the measures, though your opponents carry them through by your patronage of them; and when once this, the greatest of all changes, is completed by the leader of those who oppose it most, the two great divisions or parties of Whigs and Tories will be left in their natural position, without any extraneous element to alter their essence; but the Whigs will be united, with the Reform Bill fairly working in town and country, and the Tories would be at sixes and sevens amongst themselves, and with a leader who has insulted, deceived, and crushed them.
But if it were to be wished that the Whigs had not undertaken to form a Government, it were also desirable that they should not have been obliged to give up on account of a crotchety nobleman, who
“Mal del corpo intero