Chapter XVI (2)

_November 14th._--I broke off to go and attend my poor aunt's funeral, who was buried in the most private way possible at Kensal Green. I never saw the place before, and liked the appearance of it, for I have never seen any reason why none but gloomy images and symbols should be accumulated round the graves of our departed friends. I am not surprised that people who go to visit this spot, and see the cheerfulness and the beauty it exhibits, feel a longing to take their last rest in it. Such was her case, poor soul. A more kind-hearted being never lived, one more inoffensive, or who passed a more uneventful and innocent life. She was one of the

Unlettered Christians who believe in gross,
Plod on to Heaven and ne'er are at a loss--

and so much the better for her. I suppose few people ever had fewer sins to repent of, none probably, unless some infirmities of temper amounted to such. For the last two years she was afflicted with a cancer, and under the exhaustion produced by this disease she at last sank. She died full of devout sentiments, and uttering that language, at once self-accusing, humble, and grateful, which the orthodox forms of religion indiscriminately prescribe. God only can judge how far they are sincere.

_November 25th._--We are all occupied with the trials in Ireland. It was very generally thought by the lawyers here that the plea of abatement put in by O'Connell would be admitted, and the indictment quashed; but the judges unanimously admitted the demurrer, and overruled the plea. Baron Parke told me on Saturday last that the plea was certainly good, and that was Rolfe's opinion also. The majority of the lawyers, though there was much difference of opinion, I believe inclined that way, and the Irish judges seem to have decided it rather in conformity with the practice of their predecessors, than upon their own construction of the statutes. There are many speculations as to the duration of the trial, various calculations from a fortnight to two years, and a strong belief that there is small chance of a conviction. However, as far as the business has gone, the measures taken by the Government seem justified by the results, and public opinion goes with them.

[Sidenote: VISIT OF THE DUC DE BORDEAUX.]

It is now decided, I suspect after much doubt and discussion, that the Queen is not to receive the Duc de Bordeaux, which will give rise to a great deal of chatter and abuse and many conflicting opinions.[74] I have always thought she ought to receive him, and think so still. The Whigs are provoked, at least some of them, at the Queen's visit to Peel, and try hard to persuade themselves and others that it is no mark of favour to him, and that she is still very fond of them. It won't do, however; they will persuade nobody else, if they can themselves; she cares really for nobody but her husband. The Tories have got fast hold of him, and through him of her, and this provokes the Whigs to death.

A rascally attorney has brought actions against a parcel of people for penalties for excessive gaming under an old statute of Anne, which has never been acted upon, at least as to bets on horse-races. The penalties are laid at a great amount, and the object is supposed to be vindictive. They have threatened me, but not served me with a writ. All the lawyers say that it is necessary to bring in a Bill to repeal the Act, or as much of it as may be necessary, and quash the proceedings. I suppose there is no doubt of its passing, but there will be found people to oppose it, and who would think it right to leave jockeys and bettors to their fate, under any circumstances, in order to put down gambling, and, if it were possible, horse-racing itself, although it is the policy of the Legislators to encourage the latter, and it does so by annual votes of money for prizes to be run for.

[Footnote 74: [The visit of the Duc de Bordeaux to England led
to a great demonstration of the Legitimist party, who flocked to
Belgrave Square where he had taken a house. It had been intended to
receive the Prince at Windsor, but when his visit assumed a strong
political character, which gave great umbrage to the French Court,
this design was abandoned, and he was not presented to the Queen.]]

_November 29th._--Yesterday Lord Wharncliffe told me the present state of the Education question, and the intentions of Government. They will not burn their fingers with any more bills, but are going to extend the present system and dispense more money. But they are quarrelling with the British and Foreign School Society, who kick at the appointment of an inspector independent of themselves, and claim that he shall be removeable at their pleasure. The Government, in order to conciliate them, have removed Mr. Tremenheere, who is an excellent man, but who was on bad terms with them; but the fact is, they are not to be conciliated. Their success in defeating the Government measure last session has increased their notions of their own consequence, and nothing will satisfy them now but being put on a level with the Church. I have for some time past expected that the Government would be driven to cast themselves entirely on the Church, and it would be no bad thing for them if they were. With fair and liberal intentions, they give satisfaction to no party at present; they would then at least act on an intelligible principle, and would have the support of the most powerful and influential interest there is. Wharncliffe is mightily pleased with his own management of the Council Office, the principal part of which is the Education Department. He really has reason, for he has taken great pains, and has shown fairness, liberality, and, I believe, firmness too. His intentions are certainly good, and I am inclined to think that justice is done to him. He really too does the business _himself_.

[Sidenote: THE DUC DE BORDEAUX'S RECEPTION.]

_December 7th._--There has been a great botheration about the Duc de Bordeaux. When he came here the question arose whether the Queen should receive him or not, and most people thought she ought, for his friends declared that he came without any political object or pretension, merely to amuse and inform himself. When the Queen was at Eu, the Duke's intended visit to England was known and discussed, and at that time Guizot told Aberdeen that, so far from objecting, it was their wish that every civility should be shown him. But it subsequently appeared that, whether with or without his cognisance, his adherents intended to make his residence in London instrumental to a great political demonstration, and they had previously endeavoured to negotiate for his reception by the Emperor of Russia at Berlin through M. de St. Priest, who went there for that purpose. This entirely changed the nature of the case, and Guizot wrote to Aberdeen, stating these facts, and expressing a wish that under such circumstances the Queen would not receive him, and it was decided that she should not. The Prince began by a tour in the provinces, and a visit to Alton Towers, where he was very royally treated. He went to Chatsworth and Trentham to see the places, and wrote his name in the books of visitors as _Henri de France_, which might mean anything or nothing. About a week ago he arrived in London, and at the same time every Carlist in France, to the number of several hundred, flocked over to attend his Court. The town has ever since swarmed with monstrous beards of every cut and colour, and every night he receives a succession of them. A few days ago three hundred gentlemen waited on old Chateaubriand, and harangued him through the Duke de FitzJames, whom they unanimously elected as their mouthpiece. He began in these terms: 'These gentlemen who have been to render their homage _to the King of France_,' &c. Soon after this ceremony was concluded, the Duc de Bordeaux came into the room, and made a speech, in which he talked of looking towards the throne of his ancestors, and if he did so, it was for the good he might do to France. Such language as this was sure to make a great sensation; it showed what the pretensions and objects of these very foolish people were, and how indispensable it was that the Queen should have nothing whatever to say to him. The French Court were well pleased that they had thrown aside the mask, and committed him and themselves so entirely, and they immediately resolved to attack such of the Carlist faction as are members of the Chamber of Deputies, as soon as the Chambers shall meet. St. Aulaire told me this the other night at Lady Holland's, where I had a long conversation with him on the whole subject, and Guizot took the trouble to write a letter to Reeve of two sheets of paper, in which he went at great length into the conduct of the party, and the feelings and intentions of the French Government in regard to it. St. Aulaire told me that the Queen is annoyed at the Duc de Bordeaux's having come here without her consent, and at his making London the theatre of this absurd Carlist drama.

_December 13th._--Here I am laid up with the gout again, never having been free from it for nearly three months. I dined with Lady Holland the other day, and met Melbourne for the second time only since his illness. He looked tolerably well in the face, but was feeble and out of spirits. He had been at the Queen's party at Chatsworth, which excited him, and was bad for him. At first he attempted to talk in his old strain; but it was evidently an effort, he soon relapsed into silence, and was in a hurry to get away the moment dinner was over. I have no doubt he chafes and frets under the consciousness of his decay. Duncannon was there, and talked of Ireland and the trial. Melbourne, by the way, justified the Government, and said, 'I must say they have been consistent, they always said it was a conspiracy; they said so to me in the House of Lords. I used to hold that there could be no conspiracy where there was no concealment, which was a mistake. I was quite wrong about that, and acted on that principle.' 'Why did you?' said Lady Holland. 'Oh, I don't know, it was a blunder.' There was a sort of candour in all this, like Melbourne and peculiar to him. He is a great disdainer of humbug, and values truth _quand même_, as the French say.

Duncannon said the popularity of O'Connell, the Liberator, as they all call him, is unbounded, and the Rent this year will be 25,000_l._ He asked the people in his neighbourhood what they were making the great fires for, and they said. 'Because the Liberator has _bet_ the Attorney-General.' He asked them why they wished for Repeal, and they said, 'Because the Liberator said it would be a great thing for them.'

[Sidenote: ANECDOTE OF GEORGE II.]

Duncannon in the evening told me the story of George II.'s robbery in Kensington Gardens, which I had heard before, but remembered imperfectly. He was walking with William IV., he said, in Kensington Gardens one day, and when they got to a certain spot the King said to him, 'It was here, my Lord, that my great-grandfather, King George II., was robbed. He was in the habit of walking every morning alone round the garden, and one day a man jumped over the wall, approached the King, but with great respect, and told him he was in distress, and was compelled to ask him for his money, his watch, and the buckles in his shoes. The King gave him what he had about him, and the man knelt down to take off his buckles, all the time with profound respect. When he had got everything, the King told him that there was a seal on the watch-chain of little or no value, but which he wished to have back, and requested he would take it off the chain and restore it. The man said, 'Your Majesty must be aware that we have already been here some time, and that it is not safe for me to stay longer, but if you will give me your word not to say anything of what has passed for twenty-four hours, I will place the seal at the same hour to-morrow morning on that stone,' pointing to a particular place. The King promised, went the next morning at the appointed hour, the man appeared, brought the seal, and then jumped over the wall and went off. 'His Majesty,' added King William, 'never afterwards walked alone in Kensington Gardens.' His Majesty's attendants must have been rather surprised to see him arrive at the palace _minus_ his shoe-buckles!

All the people who have been at the Royal progress say there never was anything so grand as Chatsworth; and the Duke, albeit he would have willingly dispensed with this visit, treated the Queen right royally. He met her at the station and brought her in his own coach and six, with a coach and four following, and eight outriders. The finest sight was the illumination of the garden and the fountains; and after seeing the whole place covered with innumerable lamps and all the material of the illuminations, the guests were astonished and delighted when they got up the following morning not to find a vestige of them left, and the whole garden as trim and neat as if nothing had occurred. This was accomplished by Paxton, who got 200 men, set them to work, and worked with them the whole night till they had cleared away everything belonging to the exhibition of the preceding night. This was a great exploit in its way and produced a great effect. At Belvoir the Prince went hunting, and acquitted himself in the field very creditably. He was supposed to be a very poor performer in this line, and, as Englishmen love manliness and dexterity in field sports, it will have raised him considerably in public estimation to have rode well after the hounds in Leicestershire.

It is amusing to see the sensation which the article in the 'Times' a few days ago on the Duc de Bordeaux has made both here and in France. Every French newspaper copied it _in extenso_, and, considering the prodigious number of people who take their opinions ready made from that paper, there is little doubt that it will have put an extinguisher upon him here. Great effects these, and if the world could but see and know what the machinery is which produces them, how such crushing philippics are planned and executed, they would be surprised. The article was written by Henry Reeve, and when he was presented to the King shortly afterwards at the Tuileries, Louis Philippe, who had been told by M. Guizot that the article was written by Reeve, said to him, 'I regret, Mr. Reeve, that I cannot more fully express in this place the obligation which I feel for the service you have done us.' The English circle at the French Court looked on with amazement when this speech was made.

_December 20th._--On Monday night I went to the Westminster Play, 'Phormio,' admirably acted by three of the boys. It was very amusing, much more than I thought possible on reading the play. It is the work of an accomplished playwright, full of good situations and replete with stage effect. They ought to leave off the vile custom of encoring the prologue and epilogue. We had to listen to ninety-six lines of the latter repeated twice over, when the audience was tired and, however well entertained, impatient to disperse.

[Sidenote: LORD MELBOURNE AND THE COURT OF ROME.]

_Broadlands, December 29th._--I came here to-day, having passed the previous week at Brighton with the Granvilles; found nobody but Melbourne and the Beauvales; the former in pretty good force, more grave, more silent than formerly, but with intervals of talkativeness in his usual tone and manner. Things drop from him now and then, curious or interesting. We were talking about newspapers and their contributors, and he told us that the famous article in the 'Times' about bludgeons and brickbats during the rage of the Reform Bill was written by Lord Dover, and that nothing was too strong for him to put in a newspaper. I asked him about a thing he had once before told me, which is the connexion which subsisted between our Government and the Court of Rome, and a particular appointment which he had solicited the Pope not to confer. It was that of Dr. M'Hale as Archbishop of Tuam. Melbourne caused a request to be made to the Pope not to sanction it, but the Pope would not comply, and appointed M'Hale. He observed on that occasion, that ever since the Relief Bill had passed, the English Government never failed to interfere about every appointment as it fell vacant. On another occasion Melbourne begged the Pope to confer some piece of preferment on a priest, whose name I forget, who had supported the Government candidate very zealously in some election. This state of things and such communications between the Holy Father and the English Minister are curious. Palmerston said that there was nothing to prevent our sending a Minister to Rome; but _they_ had not dared to do it, on account of their supposed Popish tendency; Peel might. Talking about the Corn Laws, Melbourne said he had prevented any measure being proposed for above three years, and that if he had done it sooner his Government would have fallen sooner. Many were earnest in favour of a proposition; John Russell particularly; Thomson, though the most strenuous free trader, was against it, foreseeing the consequences.

_January 14th, 1844._--Everybody is full of the trial of O'Connell in Dublin--this unhappy trial, which has been one continual course of blunders and mismanagement from first to last. There is now an immense uproar about the jury list, and, as if fate had determined that the worst appearance should be given to the whole proceeding, Shaw the Recorder is implicated in a manner which can easily be made to look very suspicious. The Sheriff sent a list of some seventy-eight names to the Recorder; instead of remaining in Dublin, as he ought to have done, he must needs come to England to visit Lord Talbot. He went over for one day to Drayton, and it happened that on the same day he received the Sheriff's list; he returned it, but by some mistake did not return two slips, as they are called, containing sixty and odd names. The list, therefore, from which the jury was taken was an imperfect list, and they will say, and all the Irish will believe, that the mutilation was a concerted affair between Peel and Shaw. They also affirm that the excluded were mostly Catholics, which is, I believe, the reverse of the truth. This was an accident, but it was an awkward blunder to add to the long list of those already committed. Then the striking off all the Catholics from the jury is inveighed against here as an act of madness, there as of intolerable injustice and insult. It does appear to me an enormous blunder, and none of the excuses made for it seems even plausible. The Government ought to look far beyond the event of this trial. It would be a thousand times better to have O'Connell acquitted by a mixed jury than convicted by one all Protestant. I do not know whether such an acquittal would not be on the whole the best result; if he should be convicted, the whole process would be considered as a monstrous outrage against justice, and Government will be terribly puzzled to know how to deal with him. His conviction would produce the worst possible effect in Ireland, and render the exasperation and hatred of the people more bitter and unappeasable. If he is acquitted by a Protestant jury the triumph of the Catholics will be much greater, their resentment not less, and in England his acquittal by a jury formed of both persuasions would only be attributed to the determination of the Catholics not to convict him; supposing that a strong case is really made out, and Ministers should appear to be justified in requiring any fresh powers they thought necessary, they would find it difficult to ask for any if he was acquitted by a Protestant jury--in short, it is an inextricable _mess_, and how they will get out of it, God only knows. They have missed the great opportunity that was afforded them of giving a convincing proof to the Irish people that they wish O'Connell to have a fair trial. If they had begun by doing this, and then exhibited to the world a good case, they might have felt easy enough as to the result. If the Catholic jurors had cast their mantles over him, it would soon have been known; the Irish might have sung universal jubilations and lit bonfires on every hill; but it would have been no real triumph, and the value of a moral conviction in the eyes of the people of England would have been unappreciable. All this has been overlooked in a stupid, narrow-minded, shortsighted, professional eagerness to ensure a conviction.

[Sidenote: O'CONNELL'S TRIAL.]

Yesterday Lord Wharncliffe showed me a despatch from Lord Ellenborough to Lord Ripon, on the subject of his position with respect to the Secret Committee of the Directors, which is admirable, both in sentiment and expression. I knew already that the Court and the Government were at variance about his Indian policy, and that the Duke of Wellington not only strongly supported him, but wrote to him (I saw one of his letters) in cordial terms of approval and encouragement; but I did not know that the differences between Ellenborough and the Court were so serious as it appears they were, and I suppose are. The Secret Committee passed a resolution condemnatory of his proceedings in Scinde, couched in very strong and even offensive language, and to this resolution he responds in terms full of dignity and determination. He tells them that ever since he took the Government in India, which was at a time of unparalleled difficulty, they had thrown every obstacle in his way, and embarrassed his course by their want of co-operation and encouragement. He asks why, if such was their opinion, they did not exercise the power with which they are invested, censure and recall him; that he should not be provoked to resign, because he believed that his doing so at this moment would be productive of more evil than his endeavouring to administer the Government with such crippled means as they left to him, and he should therefore cast upon them the whole responsibility of withdrawing him if they pleased, and continue to discharge his duty, fully relying upon his possessing the confidence of the Crown, though he might not possess theirs. I believe he is doing well in India now. How, by the by, in all his letters, the Duke of Wellington inveighs against 'the licentious Press' both in India and here! He hates the press everywhere, but he knows that here it is, if an evil, a necessary and unavoidable evil; but in such a country as India, he cannot forgive those who introduced the pernicious anomaly of a free press, and in this I entirely agree with him. It was done by Sir Charles Metcalfe, a man of extraordinary ability, and considered as one of the greatest authorities, if not the greatest, on Indian affairs.

[Sidenote: O'CONNELL'S ADVICE ON IRELAND.]

_January 26th._--At Hatchford for three or four days. O'Connell's trial moves heavily along; nobody takes much interest in it, or expects any serious result from it. The Opposition mean to begin the session with an attack on the Government _de rebus Hibernicis_--rather dangerous warfare. Charles Buller wrote to O'Connell in his own name and Hawes's, asking him if anything could be done, and what. He wrote a very civil answer, saying he was happy to communicate with them, though it was quite useless; he could not give up Repeal, and England hated Ireland with too much intensity to render her real justice, especially John Russell, who was the bitterest enemy of the Catholic religion, his hatred to which he had proved on innumerable occasions. However, he said, he would never do anything to obstruct any practical results, if they were possible, and he would tell them how his influence might be annulled and his political power put an end to. He then told him some half-dozen, items of 'justice,' the principal one of which was the Church. He said that the Irish never would be satisfied as long as the Protestant Church stood in all its predominance amongst them, a badge of their servitude and oppression, hateful, offensive, and mortifying to the Irish people; that what they wanted was perfect religious equality, and this could only be obtained by sweeping away all Church establishments, and paying neither. The rest of his recommendations were pretty much the same as when he has been in the habit of holding forth in his speeches and writings. There was nothing new in his letter, and nothing to lay hold of; he passed over the real evils which weigh down the people, and their causes--poverty, hunger, nakedness, no employment, no capital flowing there to set them to work. We shall have plenty of wrangling and violence, but no good will come of it all. The Irish question is a mighty maze, it is a vast babel of conflicting opinions, and hostile passions and prejudices. In the great divisions of party there are innumerable sub-divisions upon all Irish matters; there are vast masses of opinions, jostling with other masses, intermingling in a confused conflict, not arranged in one compact body against another compact body, with one distinguishing banner over each; and out of all this confusion it is impossible to look for any satisfactory and reasonable solution of all the difficult questions that are afloat.