Here Marquis Wellesley’s commission ended: but the ministers considered themselves as holding office only till their successors should be appointed; and in a few days the Marquis received full authority to form an administration on the two principles which he had laid down, and he was specially instructed to communicate with Lords Grey and Grenville. The Prince signified his pleasure that Marquis Wellesley should conduct the formation of the administration in all its branches, and should be first Commissioner of the Treasury; and that Earl Moira, Lord Erskine, and Mr. Canning should be members of the cabinet. A cabinet formed on an enlarged basis must be extended to the number of twelve or thirteen members; and the Prince wished Lords Grey and Grenville to recommend four persons if it consisted of twelve, five if it should consist of thirteen; these persons to be selected by the two lords without any exception or personal exclusion, and to be appointed by His Royal Highness to such stations as might hereafter be arranged. It was added, that entire liberty had been ♦The two Lords persist in their reply.
June 3.♦ granted to Marquis Wellesley to propose for the Prince’s approbation the names of any persons then occupying stations in His Royal Highness’s councils, or of any other persons. In reply, the two lords repeated their declaration, that no sense of the public distress and difficulty, no personal feelings of whatever description, would have prevented them from accepting with dutiful submission any situations in which they could have hoped to serve His Royal Highness usefully and honourably; “But the present proposal,” they said, “could not justify any such expectation. We are invited,” they pursued, “not to discuss with your lordship, or with any other public men, according to the usual practice in such cases, the various and important considerations, both of measures and of arrangements, which belong to the formation of a new government in all its branches; but to recommend to His Royal Highness a number, limited by previous stipulation, of persons willing to be included in a cabinet of which the outlines are already definitively arranged. To this proposal we could not accede without the sacrifice of the very object which the House of Commons has recommended, ... the formation of a strong and efficient administration.... It is to the principle of disunion and jealousy that we object; ... to the supposed balance of contending interests in a cabinet so measured out by preliminary stipulation. The times imperiously require an administration united in principle and strong in mutual reliance; possessing also the confidence of the Crown, and assured of its support in those healing measures which the public safety requires, and which are necessary to secure to the government the opinion and affections of the people. No such hope is presented to us by this project, which appears to us equally new in practice and objectionable in principle. It tends, as we think, to establish within the cabinet itself a system of counteraction inconsistent with the prosecution of any uniform and beneficial course of policy. We must therefore request permission to decline all participation in a government constituted upon such principles, satisfied as we are that the certain loss of character which must arise from it to ourselves could be productive only of disunion and weakness in the administration of the public interests.”

♦Earl Moira’s letter to Earl Grey.♦

This called forth an explanatory letter to Earl Grey from Earl Moira, who thought that the answer of the two lords conveyed an oblique imputation upon him, as a party involved in the procedure. “You represent the proposition,” said he, “as one calculated to found a cabinet upon a principle of counteraction. When the most material of the public ♦June 3.♦ objects which were to be the immediate ground of that cabinet’s exertion had been previously understood between the parties, I own it is difficult for me to comprehend what principle of counteraction could be introduced.... With regard to the indication of certain individuals, I can assert, that it was a measure adopted through the highest spirit of fairness to you and your friends. Mr. Canning’s name was mentioned because Marquis Wellesley would have declined office without him, and it was a frankness to apprize you of it; and Lord Erskine’s and mine were stated with a view of showing, that Marquis Wellesley, so far from having any jealousy to maintain a preponderance in the cabinet, actually left a majority to those who had been accustomed to concur upon most public questions; and he specified Lord Erskine and myself, that you might see the number submitted for your exclusive nomination was not narrowed by the necessity of advertence to us. The choice of an additional member of the cabinet left to you must prove how undistinguishable we consider our interests and yours, when this was referred to your consideration as a mere matter of convenience, the embarrassment of a numerous cabinet being well known. The reference to members of the late cabinet, or other persons, was always to be coupled with the established point, that they were such as could concur in the principles laid down as the foundation for the projected ministry; and the statement was principally dictated by the wish to show that no system of exclusion could interfere with the arrangements which the public service might demand. On the selection of those persons, I aver, the opinions of you, Lord Grenville, and the others whom you might bring forward as members of the cabinet, were to operate as fully as our own; and this was to be the case also with regard to subordinate offices. The expression that this was left to be proposed by Marquis Wellesley was intended to prove that His Royal Highness did not, even in the most indirect manner, suggest any one of those individuals. It is really impossible that the spirit of fairness can have been carried further than has been the intention in this negotiation. I therefore lament most deeply that an arrangement, so important for the interests of the country, should go off upon points which I cannot but think wide of the substance of the case.”

This frank and manly remonstrance produced no effect upon the determination of the two lords. The objections stated in their joint letter “could not,” they said, “be ♦June 4.♦ altered by a private explanation, which, though it might lessen some obvious objections to a part of the detail, still left the general character of the proceeding unchanged. They were, however, happy to receive it as an expression of personal regard, and of that desire which they readily acknowledged in Lord Wellesley and Moira, and which was reciprocal on their own part, that no difference of opinion on the matter in question should produce on either side any personal impression which might obstruct the renewal of a conciliatory intercourse whenever a more favourable opportunity ♦M. Wellesley resigns his commission.♦ shall be afforded for it.” Marquis Wellesley then thought it indispensably necessary for his public and private honour to declare in parliament that he had resigned the commission with which the Prince had charged him. Something he lost in public opinion through the indiscretion of his friends, which had rendered it impossible for his former colleagues ever again cordially to unite with him; something on the other hand he gained by the unavoidable comparison which was drawn between the fair and explicit straight-forwardness of his overtures to the two lords, and the captious manner in which they had been received.

♦Negotiation with Earl Moira.
June 5.♦

Earl Moira now, after conferring with the Duke of Bedford, addressed a note to the two lords. “Venturing, as being honoured,” he said, “with the Prince Regent’s confidence to indulge his anxiety that an arrangement of the utmost importance to the country should not go off on any misunderstanding, he entreated them to advert to his explanatory letter, and desired an interview with them, if they thought the disposition expressed in that letter were likely to lead to any co-operation. Should the issue of the interview be according to his hope, he would then solicit the Prince’s permission to address them formally: the present mode he had adopted for the sake of precluding all difficulties in the outset.” The two lords replied, “That they were highly gratified by the kindness of the motive on which Earl Moira acted; that personal communication with him would always be acceptable and honourable to them, but they hoped he would be sensible that no advantage was likely to result from pursuing this subject by unauthorized discussion, and in a course different from the usual practice. Motives of obvious delicacy,” they said, “must prevent their taking any step toward determining the Prince to authorize Earl Moira to address them personally. They should always receive with dutiful submission His Royal Highness’s commands, in whatever manner and through whatever channel he might be pleased to signify them; but they could not venture to suggest to His Royal Highness, through any other person, their opinions on points on which His Royal Highness was not pleased to require their advice.”

Earl Moira reported this to the Prince, and being then provided with the required formalities, he renewed his overture, but with diminished hope. “Discouraged,” he said, “as he must be, he could not reconcile it to himself to leave any effort untried, and he had therefore adopted the principle of the two lords for an interview, though doubting whether the desired conclusion could be so well advanced by it as by the mode which he had suggested. He had now the Prince’s instructions to take steps for the formation of a ministry, and was specially authorized to address himself to Lords Grey and Grenville, with whom, therefore, in company with Lord Erskine, he requested an interview.” It was one characteristic of these remarkable negotiations, that whatever passed in conversation between the parties was minuted, and that publicity was given to those minutes and to all the notes which were interchanged ... a mode of proceeding neither prudent in itself nor as a precedent. At this meeting, what Earl Moira considered the preliminary points were satisfactorily disposed of; the two lords, it was declared, might pursue their own course of policy both with regard to Ireland and to the United States of America, and the majority which they were to have in the cabinet assured them the same preponderance upon other questions. There was, however, another preliminary which appeared to them of great importance, and which they thought it necessary to bring forward immediately, lest farther inconvenient and embarrassing delay might be produced, if this negotiation should be broken off in a more advanced state: no restriction was laid on their considering any points which they might deem useful for the Prince’s service; they asked, therefore, whether this full liberty extended to the consideration of new appointments to those great offices of the household which have usually been included in the political arrangements made on a change of administration; and they intimated their opinion, that it would be necessary to act on the same principle now. Earl Moira answered, “that the Prince had laid no restriction upon him in that respect, and had never pointed in the most distant manner at the protection of those officers from removal” but he added, “that it would be impossible for him to concur in making the exercise of this power positive and indispensable in the formation of the administration, because he should deem it on public grounds peculiarly objectionable.” To this Lords Grey and Grenville replied, “That they also acted on public grounds alone, and with no other feeling whatever than that which arose from the necessity of giving to a new government that character of efficiency and stability, and those marks of the constitutional support of the Crown, which were required for enabling it to act usefully for the public service; and that on these grounds it appeared indispensable that the connexion of the great offices of the court with the political administration should be clearly established in its first arrangement.” This decided difference having been thus expressed on both sides, the conversation ended here, with mutual declarations of regret: and here also, to the great satisfaction of the public, ended all negotiations with the two leaders of Opposition, at the very time when, but for their own marvellous mismanagement, the government would have been delivered into their hands.

♦The old ministry is re-established.
June 8.♦

On the second day after this decisive interview, Lord Liverpool informed the House of Lords that the Prince had been pleased to appoint him first Commissioner of the Treasury, and had authorized him to complete the other arrangements of the administration. This led to a conversation, in which Earl Moira stated what his views had been in these transactions ... and declared his determination to support the ministry, so far as they might act consistently with the principles which had guided his political life. He had ♦M. Wellesley’s explanation.♦ called upon Marquis Wellesley to explain what he meant by asserting that dreadful personal animosities had manifested themselves in the course of the negotiation. The Marquis replied, “That he had used the words advisedly; and no better proof of the charge could be required than the language of Lords Liverpool and Melville, one of whom had expressly declined to be a member of any administration formed by him, and the other had stated his objection as a matter of personal feeling.” Lord Harrowby made answer to this: ... “On the very day,” he said, “on which Mr. Stuart Wortley’s motion was carried, he and his friends had agreed to form part of an administration of which Marquis Wellesley was to have had the lead; but subsequent circumstances had made them alter that determination. The statement in which the Marquis accused his late colleagues of incapacity to conduct the government had wounded them through the memory of him who had just fallen by the hand of an assassin, whom they had considered as the life and soul of their cabinet, and whom they in the highest degree respected and esteemed; ... a man of unimpeachable integrity, who never wanted defence in the eyes of those who knew his value. That statement had produced feelings in himself and his friends which rendered it impossible for them cordially to unite with the Marquis in any administration. Marquis Wellesley replied, “That what had been just said confirmed the truth of his assertion, but he acquitted himself of any part in the publication of the statement. As soon as his resignation was known, some of his friends,” he said, “took down in writing his account of it in the expressions which fell from him in the heat of conversation: though they had often been solicited to publish this, they had uniformly refused, and he himself was horror-struck when he saw it in the public newspapers: for the statement,” he said, “was not his; it contained expressions which he would not have used in a document intended for the public eye, more especially at a moment when the country had just lost a man of the most irreproachable character, of the most perfect integrity, of the mildest heart, of the most amiable qualities, having, indeed, been distinguished by every private virtue. But it was no reproach to any man to be thought unfit for the supreme direction of government; and though he looked upon the act which deprived Mr. Perceval of his life as a stain on humanity, he never considered him, when living, as a fit person to lead the councils of this great empire. He admitted that he had never formally dissented in the cabinet from the opinions of his colleagues, though he had frequently put them in full possession of his own: he declared also, that there were many of their measures which he highly approved, and that he would give them his cordial support, as far as that could be done consistently with the deliberate opinion which he had formed on the great points of national policy: but he concluded by repeating, that they had opposed obstacles to the establishment of an efficient administration, and that those obstacles originated in personal feelings.”

There was no tendency in this speech to conciliate, but it was not likely farther to displease those whom Marquis Wellesley had already wounded, nor to wound ♦Earl Grey.♦ others. Earl Grey then rose to make his explanation and his charges. “For himself,” he said, “no man could be more anxious than he was, even as far as was consistent with his honour, to outstretch a feeble but a ready hand to save a sinking nation. But a strong suspicion had operated on his mind throughout the recent negotiations, that he and his friends were either not to be admitted into the cabinet at all, or, if admitted, to be bound down in such a manner that the public should be secured against the influence of the principles and measures to which, during their whole parliamentary existence, they had been pledged.” Alluding then to Marquis Wellesley and Earl Moira, he said, “that though in his late intercourse with them he could discover nothing but an unceasing and earnest desire to conciliate, and a laudable anxiety for the general good, he nevertheless suspected that they themselves had been deceived, and were not aware of the secret management of which they had been made the instrument.” ♦Earl Moira’s reply.♦ Earl Moira replied with becoming warmth to the imputation, solemnly declaring, “that he had undertaken the negotiation without a single particle of reservation in the authority with which he was intrusted; that he had stated to Lords Grey and Grenville, beyond the possibility of misapprehension, that his instructions were of the most liberal and unlimited nature, and that the transaction from beginning to end had been conducted with a severity of fairness, if he might use the expression, which was perfectly unparalleled. I claim,” said he, “of the noble Earl a statement of the particular circumstances to which he alludes, that I may repel the assertion in as haughty a tone as he has ventured to make it. My lords, I feel that I have not deserved this reproach: it is a disgrace which I do not merit, and which I cannot bear. If he can bring forward but the shadow of a proof that even unknowingly I submitted to be made such an instrument, I shall bow my head to his reproof, and to the degradation which must ensue. If he cannot, I shall repel the imputation as proudly as it was made. There was never in the most insignificant point the slightest reservation or hint of reservation: the powers given to me were complete and ample; and whenever limited, they were limited only by me from a sense of what was due to the public. I now call upon the noble Earl more satisfactorily to explain his meaning.” But Earl Grey contented himself with hinting that he might find some future opportunity for a more distinct explanation; and he let it appear that he himself was the person to whom the authority for forming an administration ought, in his opinion, to have been intrusted. Lord Grenville, with more judgment, avoided all offensive topics in his speech; the points which Earl Grey and he had refused to concede were, he averred, of material and fundamental importance, and they never would consent to become members of a ministry founded on a principle which, in their deliberate opinion, was calculated to overthrow the practice of the constitution.