The Greville Memoirs Volume II Part 13

The second reading of the Reform Bill was carried at five in the morning by 136 majority, somewhat greater than the Opposition had reckoned on. Peel made a powerful speech, but not so good as either of his others on Reform. Goulburn told me that the speech in answer to the Lord Advocate on the Irish Bill, when not 100 people were in the House, was his best. The coronation fixed for the 23rd. Breakfasted with Rogers; went afterwards to the d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford's, where I met Lady Lyndhurst. I desired her to tell Lyndhurst all the Duke had said to me about him, for in these times it is as well they should draw together. He will be a match for Brougham in the House of Lords, for he can be concise, which the other cannot, and the Lords in the long run will prefer brevity to art, sarcasm, and anything else.

[Page Head: CONTEST IN POLAND.]

People are beginning to recover from their terror of the cholera, seeing that it does not come, and we are now beset with alarms of a different kind, which are those of the Scotch merchants for their cargoes. We have a most disagreeable business on our hands, very troublesome, odious, and expensive. The public requires that we should take care of its health, the mercantile world that we should not injure their trade. All evidence proves that goods are not capable of bringing in the disorder, but we have appointed a Board of Health, which is contagionist, and we can't get them to subscribe to that opinion. We dare not act without its sanction, and so we are obliged to air goods. This airing requires more s.h.i.+ps and lazarets than we have, and the result is a perpetual squabbling, disputing, and complaining between the Privy Council, the Admiralty, the Board of Health, and the merchants. We have gone on pretty well hitherto, but more s.h.i.+ps arrive every day; the complaints will grow louder, and the disease rather spreads than diminishes on the Continent. This cholera has afforded strong proofs of the partiality of the Prussians in the contest between the Russians and the Poles. The quarantine restrictions are always dispensed with for officers pa.s.sing through the Prussian territory to join the Russian army. Count Paskiewitch was allowed to pa.s.s without performing any quarantine at all, and stores and provisions are suffered to be conveyed to the army, with every facility afforded by the Prussian authorities and every relaxation of the sanitary laws. The Duke of Wellington says that the contest will very soon be over, that the Russian army could not act before June, and that between February and June the country is not practicable for military operations. They have now so many months before them that the weight of their numerical superiority will crush the Poles. Austria and Prussia, too, do their utmost by affording every sort of indirect a.s.sistance to the Russians and thwarting the Poles as much as they can.

July 10th, 1831 {p.157}

The last two or three days I have been settling everything for the coronation,[7] which is to be confined to the ceremony in the Abbey and cost as little money and as little trouble as possible; and yesterday I was the medium of great civilities from Lord Grey to the Duke. He desired me to go to the Duke and show him the course of proceeding we mean to adopt, and request him to make any suggestion that occurred to him, and to enquire if he would have any objection to attend the Council at which it is to be formally settled on Wednesday, to which Peel and Rosslyn are likewise invited. I spoke to the Duke and Peel, and they will both come. All this is mighty polite.

[7] [The arrangements for coronations are made by a Committee of the Privy Council, which sits as a Court of Claims.]

They have made a fine business of Cobbett's trial; his insolence and violence were past endurance, but he made an able speech. The Chief Justice was very timid, and favoured and complimented him throughout; very unlike what Ellenborough would have done. The jury were shut up the whole night, and in the morning the Chief Justice, without consulting either party, discharged them, which was probably on the whole the best that could be done. Denman told me that he expected they would have acquitted him without leaving the box, and this princ.i.p.ally on account of Brougham's evidence, for Cobbett brought the Chancellor forward and made him prove that _after_ these very writings, and while this prosecution was hanging over him, Brougham wrote to his son 'Dear Sir,' and requesting he would ask his father for some former publications of his, which he thought would be of great use on the present occasion in quieting the labourers. This made a great impression, and the Attorney-General never knew one word of the letter till he heard it in evidence, the Chancellor having flourished it off, as is his custom, and then quite forgotten it. The Attorney told me that Gurney overheard one juryman say to another, 'Don't you think we had better stop the case? It is useless to go on.' The other, however, declared for hearing it out, so on the whole it ended as well as it might, just better than an acquittal, and that is all.

July 11th, 1831 {p.158}

Dined with Lord Grey yesterday. In the middle of dinner Talleyrand got a letter announcing that Leopold's conditional acceptance of the Belgian throne had been agreed to by a great majority of the Chamber; and a Mr. Walker, who brought the news (and left Brussels at five o'clock the day before), came to Lord Grey and told him with what enthusiasm it had been received there. Lord Grey wrote to the Chancellor, with whom Leopold was dining, to tell him of the event.

[Page Head: WELLINGTON AND THE GOVERNMENT.]

This morning I got a note from the Duke of Wellington declining to attend the Council on Wednesday, and desiring I would impart the same to Lord Grey and the King. He says that it would give rise to misrepresentations, and so it would. He is right to decline. It is, however, Peel who has prevented him, I am certain. When I told Peel on Sat.u.r.day, he looked very grave, did not seem to like it, and said he must confer with the Duke first, as he should be sorry to do otherwise than he did. Yesterday I know the Duke dined with Peel, who I have no doubt persuaded him to send this excuse. The Government are in exceeding delight at the Duke's conduct ever since he has been in opposition, which certainly has been very n.o.ble, straightforward, gentlemanlike, and without an atom of faction or mischief about it. He has done himself great honour; he threw over Aberdeen completely on that business about foreign policy which he introduced soon after the meeting of Parliament, and now he is a.s.sisting the Government in their Lieutenancy Bill, and is in constant communication with Melbourne on the subject.

July 13th, 1831 {p.159}

I took the Duke's note to Lord Grey, who seemed annoyed, and repeated that he had only intended the invitation as a mark of attention, and never thought of s.h.i.+fting any responsibility from his own shoulders; that as there was a deviation from the old ceremonial, he thought the Duke's sanction would have satisfied those who might otherwise have disputed the propriety of such a change. 'Does he then,' he asked, 'mean to attend _the Committee_?'

I did not then know; but yesterday in the House of Lords I asked the Duke, and he said 'No, for the same reasons,' that upon consideration he was sure he had better not go, that by so doing he might give umbrage to his own party, and he could only do good by exercising a powerful influence over them and restraining them, and that his means of doing good would be impaired by any appearance of approximating himself to Government, that when the general plan of the arrangements was settled, he should have no objection to lend a helping hand, if wanted, to the details with which he was very conversant. I wrote on a slip of paper that he would _not_ come, and gave it to Lord Grey, who said nothing. Peel did not write to me, but he and Rosslyn do the same as the Duke.

[Page Head: RESERVE OF MR. PEEL.]

The Belgian deputation came yesterday, and Lebeau and his colleagues were in the House of Lords. We had been promised a good day there between Londonderry and Brougham and Plunket, but the former made a tiresome, long speech; the latter spoke civilly and dully; and Brougham not at all, so it ended in smoke. In the other House on Monday the Ministers got a good majority (102) on the wine duties, to their great delight, but the Opposition were not only mortified at the defeat, but disgusted and enraged at the conduct of Peel (their leader, as they considered him), who came into the House, got up in the middle of Herries' speech, walked out and was heard of no more that night; never voted, nor gave any notice of his intention not to vote. The moral effect of this upon his party is immense, and has served to destroy the very little confidence they had in him before. It is impossible to conceive by what motives he is actuated, because if they were purely selfish it would seem that he defeats his own object; for what can he gain by disgusting and alienating his party, when although they cannot do without him, it is equally true that he cannot do without them? I walked home with William Banks, who went largely into the whole question of Peel's extraordinary disposition and conduct, and said how disheartening it was, and what a blow to those who looked to him as a leader in these troublous times. Henry Currey (no important person, but whose opinion is that of fifty other like him) told me that his conduct had been _atrocious_, and that he had himself voted in the minority against his opinion because he thought it right to sacrifice that opinion to the interests of his party. The fact is, if Peel had imparted his sentiments to his party he might have prevented their dividing on this question with the greatest ease. There is nothing they are not ready to do at his bidding, but his coldness and reserve are so impenetrable that n.o.body can ascertain his sentiments or divine his intentions, and thus he leaves his party in the lurch without vouchsafing to give them any reason or explanation of his conduct. In the meantime the other party (as if each was destined to suffer more from the folly of its friends than the hostility of its foes) has been thrown into great confusion by Lord Milton's notice to propose an alteration in the franchise, and a meeting was called of all the friends of Government at Althorp, when Milton made a speech just such as any opponent of the Bill might make in the House of Commons, going over the old ground of Fox, Pitt, Burke, and others having sat for rotten boroughs. They were annoyed to the last degree, and the more provoked when reflecting that it was for him Althorp had been led to spend an immense sum of money, and compromise his character besides in the Northamptons.h.i.+re election. His obstinacy and impracticability are so extreme that n.o.body can move him, and Sefton told me that nothing could be more unsatisfactory than the termination of the meeting. I guess, however, that they will find some means or other of quieting him.

The Opposition divided last night 187 against 284 on the question of hearing counsel for the condemned boroughs--not so good a division for the minority as they expected, and after a very powerful speech of Attwood's, to which n.o.body listened.

There is a fresh access of alarm on account of the cholera, which has broken out at St. Petersburg, and will probably spread over Germany. The cordon of troops which kept it off last year from St. Petersburg appears to have been withdrawn, which is no doubt the cause of its appearance there. We have constant reports of supposed cases of disease and death, but up to this period it does not appear to have shown itself here, though a case was transmitted to us from Glasgow exceedingly like it. The sick man had not come from any infected place. The Board of Health are, however, in great alarm, and the authorities generally think we shall have it. From all I can observe from the facts of the case I am convinced that the liability to contagion is greatly diminished by the influence of sea air, for which reason I doubt that it will be brought here across the water. If it does come it will pa.s.s through France first. The King of Prussia has at last insisted upon a rigid execution of the quarantine laws in his dominions. Marshal Paskiewitch was detained on his road to take the command of the army, and sent a courier to the King to request he might be released forthwith, urging the importance of the Emperor to have his report of the state of the army; but the King refused, and sent word that the Emperor himself had submitted to quarantine, and so his aide-de-camp might do the same.

July 14th, 1831 {p.162}

The effects of Peel's leaving the party to s.h.i.+ft for itself were exhibited the night before last. He went away (there was no reason why he should not, except that he should have stayed to _manage_ the debate and keep his people in order), and the consequence was that they went on in a vexatious squabble of repeated adjournments till eight o'clock in the morning, when Government at last beat them. The Opposition gradually dwindled down to twenty-five people, headed by Stormont, Tullamore, and Brudenell, while the Government kept 180 together to the last; between parties so animated and so led there can be no doubt on which side will be the success. The Government were in high spirits at the result, and thought the fatigue well repaid by the display of devotion on the part of their friends and of factious obstinacy on that of their enemies. After these two nights it is impossible not to consider the Tory party as having ceased to exist for all the practical and legitimate ends of political a.s.sociation--that is, as far as the House of Commons is concerned, where after all the battle must be fought. There is still a rabble of Opposition, tossed about by every wind of folly and pa.s.sion, and left to the vagaries and eccentricities of Wetherell, or Attwood, or Sadler, or the intemperate zeal of such weak fanatics as the three Lords above mentioned; but for a grave, deliberative, efficient Opposition there seem to be no longer the elements, or they are so scattered and disunited that they never can come together, and the only man who might have collected, and formed, and directed them begs leave to be excused. It is a wretched state of things and can portend no good. If there had not been prognostications of ruin and destruction to the State in all times, proceeding from all parties, which the event has universally falsified, I should believe that the consummation of evil was really at hand; as it is I cannot feel that certainty of destruction that many do, though I think we are more seriously menaced than ever we were before, because the danger is of a very different description.

But there is an elasticity in the inst.i.tutions of this country, which may rise up for the purpose of checking these proceedings, and in the very uncertainty of what may be produced and engendered by such measures there is hope of salvation.

[Page Head: PREPARATIONS FOR THE CORONATION.]

Yesterday a Council was held at St. James's for the coronation; the Princes, Ministers, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of London were present. The King read an address to the Lords desiring that his coronation might be short, and that all the ceremonies might be dispensed with except those in the church.

Lord Grey had composed a paper in which he had made the King say that these ceremonies were at variance with the genius of the age we live in, and suited to another period of society; but the Archbishop objected to these expressions, and thought it better to give the injunction without the comments; so Lord Grey wrote another and shorter paper, but he showed the first to Lord Lansdowne and me, and we both told him that we thought the Archbishop was right and that the second paper was the best. The Duke of Gloucester was very indignant at not having been summoned in a more respectful way than by a common circular, and complained to the Lord President.[8] I told him to throw it all on me. He had been grumbling to the Duke of Suss.e.x before, who did not care. Leopold was too much of a king to attend, so he came to the levee (but _en prince_ only) and not to the Council.

Lieven told me it was true that the Grand Duke Constantine was dead, and that it was a very good thing.

[8] [It is customary to summon the Royal Dukes to a Council by a letter This formality seems to have been overlooked in this instance.]

CHAPTER XV.

Preparations for the Coronation--Long Wellesley committed by the Chancellor for Contempt--Alderman Thompson and his Const.i.tuents--Prince Leopold goes to Belgium--Royal Tombs and Remains--The Lieutenancy of the Tower--The Cholera--The Belgian Fortresses--Secret Negotiations of Canning with the Whigs-- Transactions before the Close of the Liverpool Administration-- Duke of Wellington and Peel--The Dutch invade Belgium--Defeat of the Belgian Army--The French enter Belgium--Lord Grey's Composure--Audience at Windsor--Danger of Reform--Ellen Tree-- The French in Belgium--Goodwood--The Duke of Richmond--The Reform Bill in Difficulties--Duke of Wellington calls on Lord Grey--The King declines to be kissed by the Bishops-- Talleyrand's Conversation--State of Europe and France-- Coronation Squabbles--The King divides the old Great Seal between Brougham and Lyndhurst--Relations of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent to George IV. and William IV.--The Coronation--Irritation of the King--The Cholera--A Dinner at St. James's--State of the Reform Bill--Sir Augustus d'Este--Madame Junot--State of France--Poland.

July 15th, 1831 {p.165}

A Committee of Council sat yesterday at the Office about the coronation; present, the Cabinet, Dukes of Gloucester and Suss.e.x, Archbishop and Bishop of London; much discussion and nothing done. Brougham raised every sort of objection about the services and the dispensing with them, and would have it the King _could_ not dispense with them; finally, the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General were sent for to the House of Lords and desired to reconsider the Proclamation.

July 20th, 1831 {p.165}

I have been laid up with the gout these last few days, unable to move, but without violent pain. The Committee of Council met again on Friday last, when the Proclamation was settled. A Court of Claims is to sit, but to be prohibited from receiving any claims except those relating to the ceremonies in the Abbey. The Lords went to St. James's and held the Council, at which the King made a little speech, to the effect that he would be crowned to satisfy the tender consciences of those who thought it necessary, but that he thought that it was his duty (as this country, in common with every other, was labouring under distress) to make it as economical as possible. A difficulty arose about the publication of the Proclamation, usually done by heralds with certain ceremonies. The first proclamation is not the one to be acted on; the second does not announce the coronation, but refers to the first. I asked Brougham what was to be done. He said both must be read. Lord Grey suggested neither, which was done.

The other day Long Wellesley carried off his daughter, a ward in Chancery, from her guardians, and secreted her. The matter was brought before the Chancellor, who sent for Wellesley. He came, and refused to give her up; so Brougham committed him to the Fleet Prison. The matter was brought the next day before the House of Commons, and referred to their Committee of Privileges; and in the meantime Brougham has been making a great splutter about his authority and his Court both on the judicial bench and from the Woolsack. The lawyers in the House of Commons were divided as to Wellesley's right of privilege in such a case.[1]

[1] [Both the Chancellor and Mr. Wellesley wrote to the Speaker, and their letters were read to the House before the Committee of Privileges was appointed.

Meanwhile Mr. Wellesley remained at his house in Dover Street in charge of two officers of the Court of Chancery. There is, I believe, no doubt that the committal was good, and that Mr. Wellesley's privilege as a member of Parliament did not protect him, a contempt of the Court having been committed. A similar point has recently been raised in the Court of Queen's Bench upon the committal of Mr. Whalley.]

[Page Head: ALDERMAN THOMPSON AND HIS CONSt.i.tUENTS.]

There has been exhibited in the course of the last few days one of the most disgraceful scenes (produced by the Reform Bill) ever witnessed. On the question of the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of Appleby a certain Alderman Thompson, member for the City, who stood deeply pledged to Reform, voted for hearing counsel in defence of the borough, on which there was a meeting of his ward, or of certain of his const.i.tuents, to consider his conduct. He was obliged to appear before them, and, after receiving a severe lecture, to confess that he had been guilty of inadvertence, to make many submissive apologies, and promise to vote no more but in obedience to the Minister. It is always an agreeable pastime to indulge one's virtuous indignation, and wish to have been in the place of such an one for the sake of doing what he ought to have done but did not do, by which, without any of the risk of a very difficult and unpleasant situation, one has all the imaginary triumph of eloquence, independence, and all kinds of virtue; and so in this instance I feel that I should have liked to pour upon these wretches the phials of my wrath and contempt. If the alderman had had one spark of spirit he would have spurned the terrors of this plebeian inquisition, and told them that they had elected him, and that it was his intention, as long as he continued their representative, to vote as he thought proper, always redeeming the pledges he had given at his election; that he would not submit to be questioned for this or any other vote, and if they were not satisfied with his conduct when the Parliament should be over they might choose whom they would in his place. What makes the case the more absurd is, that this question of Appleby is monstrous, and it never ought (by their own principle) to have been put in Schedule A at all. There was a debate and a division on it last night, and a majority for the Ministers of seventy-five in a very full House; the worst division they have yet had. Every small victory in the House of Commons is probably equivalent to a great defeat in the House of Lords, unless they do what is now talked of--make as many Peers as may be necessary to carry the Bill, which I doubt their daring to do or the King consenting to do. The lapse of time and such difficulties and absurdities will probably obstruct the Bill, so as to prevent its pa.s.sing. G.o.d knows what we shall have instead.

Prince Leopold started on Sat.u.r.day, having put his pension into trustees' hands (by the advice of Lambton), to keep up Claremont and pay his debts and pensions, and then hand over the residue to the Exchequer, the odds being that none of it ever gets there, and that he is back here before the debts are paid. It seems that, desirous as he had been to go, when the time drew near he got alarmed, and wanted to back out, but they brought him (though with difficulty) to the point. He has proposed to the Princess Louise, King Louis Philippe's daughter.

Halford has been with me this morning gossiping (which he likes); he gave me an account of his discovery of the head of Charles I.

in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, to which he was directed by Wood's account in the 'Athenae Oxonienses.' He says that they also found the coffin of Henry VIII., but that the air had penetrated and the body had been reduced to a skeleton. By his side was Jane Seymour's coffin untouched, and he has no doubt her body is perfect. The late King intended to have it opened, and he says he will propose it to this King. By degrees we may visit the remains of the whole line of Tudor and Plantagenet too, and see if those famous old creatures were like their effigies. He says Charles's head was exactly as Vand.y.k.e had painted him.

July 26th, 1831 {p.168}

At Oatlands on Sat.u.r.day, and came back on Sunday night. n.o.body there but my father, mother, Walpole, Sneyd, and Alava; very different from what I once remember it. There has been a great deal of talk about the Duke of Wellington giving Lord Munster the Lieutenancy of the Tower, the truth of which is as follows:--It is in the King's gift, and he sent to the Duke and desired him to name somebody. The Duke would have liked to name one of three--Fitzroy Somerset, Colin Campbell, or Hardinge. The latter would not have been agreeable to Government, and therefore it would have occasioned the King an embarra.s.sment; the second was provided for, and Lord Hill advised the first to remain as he is (though I don't see why he could not have had both); so the Duke thought it would gratify the King if he was to name Munster.

Munster wrote a very civil letter to the Duke, full of thanks and saying that he begged he would not think of him if he had anybody else to give it to, and that he would take upon himself to explain to the King his not accepting it. The Duke persisted, and so he had it. I must say he might have found some one out of the number of his old officers to give it to rather than Munster.

The King of France's Speech arrived yesterday, but nothing was said in the House of Lords, because Lord Grey was at Windsor. It will make a stir--the general tone of it, and the demolition of the fortresses which cost us seven millions. Not one of the papers made a remark upon it; nothing will do for them but Reform.

[Page Head: THE CHOLERA.]

Fresh claims have been raised about cholera morbus. A man at Port Glasgow insists upon it, without much apparent reason, that it prevails there; so we have sent a medical man down, in order to quiet people's minds and to set the question at rest. Lord Grey, who is credulous, believes the Glasgow man's story, and spread the news in his own family, who immediately dispersed it over the rest of the town, and yesterday n.o.body could talk of anything else; not believing it very much, and not understanding it at all, for if they did they would not be so flippant. Lady Holland wrote to Lord Lansdowne to desire he would recommend her the best _cholera_ doctor that he had heard of. I have just received a letter from Moore, saying he has ordered his publisher to send me a copy of 'Lord Edward Fitzgerald,' and that he only sends copies to the Duke of Leinster and me, but begs I will send him no opinion, for 'opinions fidget him'--'genus irritabile vatum.'

July 27th, 1831 {p.169}

Yesterday Aberdeen asked Lord Grey some questions in a very few words, accompanied as usual with a sneer, which is very unbecoming, and of course gave Lord Grey the advantage of repelling it with scorn. The Duke spoke, and pretty well, but laid some stress more on Portugal than upon Belgium, which is what I cannot understand, but Alava told me that when he came to town yesterday he had said to him that, as an Englishman, he had never felt so deeply affected for the honour of his country as in this transaction. I met him after the debate, and he said he thought he had done some good by what he said. The question of the Belgian fortresses is not without great difficulty, and the strong part of it for Government is that their demolition was agreed to by all the Powers interested (except Holland), and without the presence of the French Plenipotentiary at the meeting when it was decided. I am inclined to think that the manner in which it was blurted out in the King of France's Speech, as a clap-trap for him, will have made the princ.i.p.al difficulty, though the policy may be very questionable.