The Creevey Papers

<lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <seg rend="40px"> <seg rend="titleSmall">THE CREEVEY PAPERS</seg> </seg> <lb/> <lb/> <seg rend="26pxReg"> A SELECTION FROM THE CORRES- </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="26pxReg"> PONDENCE & DIARIES OF THE LATE </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="26pxReg"> THOMAS CREEVEY, M.P. </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="18pxReg">BORN 1768—DIED 1838</seg> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <seg rend="18pxReg"> EDITED BY </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="18pxReg"> THE RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="18pxReg"> BART., M.P., LL.D., F.R.S. </seg> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <seg rend="18pxReg"> IN TWO VOLUMES—VOL. I. </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="18pxReg"> WITH PORTRAITS </seg> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <lb/> <seg rend="18pxReg"> LONDON </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="20pxReg"> JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET </seg> <lb/> <seg rend="16pxReg"> 1903 </seg> <lb/> <lb/>

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. INTRODUCTION.

“How little,” exclaims Mr. Birrell, in his recent memoir of William Hazlitt, “how little is it we know about the character of a dead man we never saw!” Little enough, as a rule, of the performer, even when the part he has played has been historical; still less when his natural gifts have not availed to raise him to distinction, or circumstances refused him a place above the common run of his kind. Nevertheless it is given to certain men of subordinate importance in their day so to reveal themselves in correspondence or, more rarely, in their journals, as to leave upon him who, in after years, shall stir the venerable store and decipher the faded pages, an impression of their personality so vivid as to convince him of the writer’s character and motives.

Of such was Thomas Creevey, sometime member of Parliament for Thetford, and afterwards for Appleby—both of them pocket boroughs of the most unregenerate type. He was born in Liverpool in March, 1768, and certain allusions in his correspondence seem to show that his parents were natives of Ireland. But Creevey himself seems to have been pretty much in the dark as to his own origin. He formed an early and intimate friendship with Dr. J. Currie, a distinguished physician and leading citizen of Liverpool,* who writes as follows in 1803:—

“Well, I know all about your birth and parentage. You came originally from Galloway in Scotland, and settled on the Irish coast right opposite, within sight of the sweet country you had left—you are of an ancient Scottish family in that county, now nearly extinct (except that it revives in your own person) to whom belonged the castle and manor of Castle Creevey near Glenluce (with which I am perfectly acquainted) now in the family of Lord Selkirk, I believe. Then your grandfather who was an officer in the army, if not born was certainly begotten in Scotland, and as far as Mrs. Eaton and I can ascertain the fact, in the very town of Dumfries—but that we won’t be sure of.—And to come to the point, it would not be at all surprising if in the last 500 years some of our ancestors had joined issue together, and if our great-grandfathers, ten or twenty times removed, had been one and the same person!”

Now in one respect, at least, the learned doctor’s statements herein will not bear examination. Castle Creavie, indeed, is in Galloway; but it is not near Glenluce, which is in Wigtownshire (Western Galloway), and it never belonged to the family of Lord Selkirk. It is a farm in Rerwick parish, in the Stewartry of Kircudbright (Eastern Galloway), distant fully fifty miles from Glenluce, and has been owned successively by different families; but not since 1646, at least, by any of the name of Creevey or Creavie. Neither is there, nor has there

* James Currie, M.D. [1756-1805], son of a Scottish minister, emigrated to Virginia in 1771, where he studied medicine. Returning to Great Britain in 1777, he continued his studies at Edinburgh University, and ultimately became the chief exponent of the cold-water cure, and the advocate of thermometrical observations in fever.

been, any castle there, although the prefix doubtless was derived from a couple of pre-historic hill forts, of which the mounds remain on the north and east of the present farmhouse.*

This Thomas Creevey was educated at a grammar school at Hackney—“old School Lane,” he calls it—and at Cambridge; after which he read law at Gray’s Inn. The voluminous correspondence and journals left by him afford no explanation of how he obtained in 1802 the Duke of Norfolk’s nomination for the snug little borough of Thetford with its thirty-one docile electors. That year was notable for another important event in his life, namely, his marriage with the widow of William Ord, Esq., of Fenham, Newminster Abbey, and Whitfield. This lady, who was the daughter of Charles Brandling, Esq., of Gosforth House, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, was possessed of comfortable, if not of considerable, means. To her first husband she had borne two sons and four daughters; and one of these daughters, Elizabeth Ord, who never married, became her step-father’s confidante and favourite correspondent. After their mother’s death in 1818, the Miss Ords lived at Rivenhall in Essex, and in Cheltenham; and Miss Elizabeth corresponded regularly with Mr. Creevey, whose industry and volubility in response are truly amazing. A large proportion of the following pages are filled with extracts from these letters—extracts which probably do not amount to more than one-fiftieth of the whole. As time went on, Mr. Creevey conceived the idea of compiling a history of his own times, and used to tell Miss Elizabeth Ord to keep his letters, “for,” said he,

* Land and their Owners in Galloway, by P. H. McKerlie, vol. v. p. 113.

“in future times the Creevey Papers may form a curious collection.”

In regard to the papers as a whole, Miss Ord faithfully observed her step-father’s instructions. They have been admirably kept; many of them having been copied out in her clear, pretty handwriting—an immense advantage to the present editor, for Mr. Creevey’s penmanship was simply execrable. It is characteristic of such matters that some of the events and episodes of which Creevey thought it most important to leave a detailed record, have parted with much of their moment, having received full explanation and description from other sources. What the modern reader is most likely to enjoy are the gossip of a bygone day, side-lights on society of the late Georgian era, and traits and illustrations of persons who figured prominently on the stage of public life. Creevey was admirably equipped as a purveyor of such information. His activity must have been as ceaseless as his curiosity was insatiable. His was one of those active intellects not of the first, nor even of the second, order, amassing details of the busy life in which they are cast, recording traits and chronicling episodes whereon the greater actors have no attention to bestow or time to dwell, and revealing his private motives and animosities with an almost Pepysian frankness. A very poor man most of his days, for with his wife Creevey lost whatever income she brought to him, he must have had social and conversational powers of no mean order to attract the endless hospitality of which he was the subject, and which he was wholly unable to return. The repository of innumerable confidences from persons of both sexes, it must be confessed that he was not always very scrupulous in observing the seal of secrecy, neither has it appeared expedient, even at this distance of time, to dispense with a severe system of selection in dealing with his chronique scandaleuse.

It is natural to compare a collection such as this with the well-known “Croker Papers” which have already seen the light, and indeed they cover much the same ground, but from an opposite point of view. John Wilson Croker was a Tory, and his party were in office during the long, weary years when it was the lot of Thomas Creevey and his friends to gnash their teeth in opposition. The two men probably were of not unequal calibre. Creevey had not the literary turn of Croker; but it was opportunity alone which prevented him becoming at least as distinguished a legislator as the other; and, had the fortune and position of parties been reversed, Creevey would, in all likelihood, have attained to higher office than Croker ever filled. He had been but four years in Parliament when, after Fox’s death, the brief “All-the-Talents” Ministry was formed, and in this he received the office of Secretary to the Board of Control. By the time his party came into power again, Creevey was sixty-two, and had lost his seat; but his services received instant recognition by his appointment, despite his age, first to the Treasurership of the Ordnance, and afterwards to that of Greenwich Hospital.

If any evidence were wanting as to the disunion and its causes, which sapped the efficacy of the Whig opposition during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, it is amply forthcoming in Creevey’s letters, and nobody can complain that it is not expressed in forcible enough language. It must ever be a source of wonder to the student of history how the Tory Government weathered the stress and storm of those years. For twenty years a mighty war, taxing to the utmost the physical resources of a population not exceeding fifteen millions, was sustained at the cost of a crushing increment of debt. The fall in prices suddenly ensuing upon the peace of 1815, plunged the whole agricultural community into dire distress, and was accompanied by an almost total cessation of continental demand for British manufactures, arising from the utter loss of buying power in foreign markets, which involved the artisan population in the terrible distress. Nor was this all, though well it might be reckoned enough to bring about the fall of any administration. Ministers groaned under the affliction of a mad King and a deplorable Regent. The whole heart of the nation was stirred against the Administration by reason of the part assigned to Ministers in the proceedings against Queen Caroline. How was it that they survived a single session?

The answer may be clearly read in Creevey’s correspondence. First, in regard to the war, the people were practically of one mind—to see it through. It has ever been so in our country, and please God it ever shall be so! Once let the drums beat the point of war, and they rouse an echo in British hearts which dies not away till the thing has been carried to a finish. Men will not listen to those counsellors who would have them believe that the policy which led to war was foolish or wrong—nay, they will not pause to weigh even the justice of the cause. Of all sentiments, patriotism is perhaps one of those least amenable to reason—the least calculating; those that hesitate in the crisis, still more those who carp and thwart, become by force of circumstance and quite apart from their own honesty of opinion, the anti-national party. We have seen the same in every great war that it has been the lot of England to wage; and it is the knowledge of this and the feeling that lies deepest in every Briton’s heart, that disorganises opposition at such times. The extreme men move resolutions which the moderate men will not support; then, when the moderates agree upon a line of action, the others stand resentfully aloof. Perhaps the most interesting and instructive political passages in these papers are those in which are revealed the most secret counsels of the opposition, and the course of action which repeatedly saved Lord Liverpool’s administration from shipwreck.

References to Thomas Creevey in the published writings of his contemporaries are few, and for the most part slight. The fullest notice I have encountered is in some passages in the Journal of Charles Greville—he of whom it has been written “For forty years he listened at the door, He heard some secrets, and invented more.”

Writing in 1829, he has the following:—

“Old Creevey is rather an extraordinary character. I know nothing of the early part of his history, but I believe he was an attorney or barrister; he married a widow, who died a few years ago; she had something, he nothing; he got into Parliament, belonged to the Whigs, displayed a good deal of shrewdness and humour, and was for some time very troublesome to the Tory Government by continually attacking abuses. After some time he lost his seat, and went to live at Brussels, where he became intimate with the Duke of Wellington. Then his wife died, upon which event he was thrown upon the world with about £200 a year or less; no home, few connections, a great many acquaintances, a good constitution and extraordinary spirits. He possesses nothing but his clothes; no property of any sort; he leads a vagrant life, visiting a number of people who are delighted to have him, and sometimes roving about to various places, as fancy happens to direct, and staying till he has spent what money he has in his pocket. He has no servant, no home, no creditors; he buys everything as he wants it at the place he is at; he has no ties upon him, and has his time entirely at his own disposal and that of his friends. He is certainly a living proof that a man may be perfectly happy and exceedingly poor, or rather without riches, for he suffers none of the privations of poverty and enjoys many of the advantages of wealth. I think he is the only man I know in society who possesses nothing.”*

Again in 1838:—

“Feb. 20th.—I made no allusion to the death of Creevey at the time it took place, about a fortnight ago, having said something about him elsewhere. Since that period he had got into a more settled way of life. He was appointed to one of the Ordnance offices by Lord Grey, and subsequently by Lord Melbourne to the Treasurership of Greenwich Hospital, with a salary of £600 a year and a house. As he died very suddenly, and none of his connexions were at hand, Lord Sefton sent to his lodgings and (in conjunction with Vizard the solicitor) caused all his papers to be sealed up. It was found that he had left a woman who had lived with him for four years as his mistress, his sole executrix and residuary legatee (the value of which was very small, not more than £300 or £400), and to all the papers which he had left behind him. These last are exceedingly valuable, for he had kept a copious diary for thirty-six years, had preserved all his own and Mrs. Creevey’s letters, and copies or originals of a vast miscellaneous correspondence. The only person who is acquainted with the contents of these papers is his daughter-in-law, whom he had

* Greville Memoirs, i. 235.

frequently employed to copy papers for him, and she knows how much there is of delicate and interesting matter, the publication of which would be painful and embarrassing to many people now alive, and make very inconvenient and premature revelations upon private and confidential matters. . . . Then there is Creevey’s own correspondence with various people, especially with Brougham, which evidently contains things which Brougham is anxious to suppress, for he has taken pains to prevent the papers from falling into the hands of any person likely to publish them, and has urged Vizard to get possession of them either by persuasion, or purchase, or both. In point of fact, they are now in Vizard’s hands, and it is intended by him and Brougham, probably with the concurrence of others, to buy them of Creevey’s mistress; though who is to become the owner of the documents, or what the stipulated price, and what their contemplated destination, I do not know. The most extraordinary part of the affair is that the woman has behaved with the utmost delicacy and propriety, has shown no mercenary disposition, but expressed her desire to be guided by the wishes and opinions of Creevey’s friends and connexions, and to concur in whatever measures may be thought best by them with reference to the character of Creevey, and the interests and feelings of those who might be affected by the contents of the papers. Here is a strange situation in which to find a rectitude of conduct, a moral sentiment, a grateful and disinterested liberality, which would do honour to the highest birth, the most careful cultivation and the strictest principle. It would be a hundred to one against any individual in the ordinary ranks of society and of average good character acting with such entire absence of selfishness, and I cannot help being struck with the contrast between the motives and disposition of those who want to get hold of these papers, and of this poor woman who is ready to give them up. They—well knowing that in the present thirst for the sort of information Creevey’s journals and correspondence contain, a very large sum might be obtained for them—are endeavouring to drive the best bargain they can with her for their own particular ends, while she puts her whole confidence in them, and only wants to do what they tell her she ought to do under the circumstances of the case.”

A couple of years later, Greville has a further reference to Creevey.

“12th March, 1840.—Her Majesty went out last night to the Ancient Concert (which she particularly dislikes), so I got Melbourne to dine with me, and he stayed talking till 12 o’clock. . . . He expressed his surprise that anybody should write a journal. . . . He talked of Creevey’s journal, and of that which Dover is supposed to have left behind him. . . . He said Creevey had been very shrewd, but exceedingly bitter and malignant.”

Mrs Blackett Ord, of Whitfield, whose husband was the grandson of Mr. Creevey’s eldest stepdaughter, Anne, by her husband, Lieut.-Colonel Hamilton, having entrusted to me the task of examining these papers, and preparing for the press such parts of them as should seem worthy of publication, I have endeavoured to let Mr. Creevey tell his own story as much as possible, connecting the extracts only by such explanatory paragraphs as may serve to refresh the memory of the reader. The “copious diary” referred to by Charles Greville has not come into my hands with the letters. If it ever existed in fact, Lord Brougham probably succeeded in his attempt to get hold of it, for it is only brief and broken periods that are covered by anything of that kind in Creevey’s handwriting.

In respect to orthography, I have thought it better to retain the characteristic archaisms of the period, such as “chuse,” “compleatly,” and “politicks.” Misspellings of proper names, such as “Wyndham” for “Windham,” I have altered for the sake of identification, and ordinary slips in spelling have also been rectified. Words and sentences enclosed in marks of parentheses ( ) stand so in the original; those added by myself to supplement the meaning will be found in square brackets [ ].

HERBERT MAXWELL MONREITH, 1903. NICKNAMES USED BY MR. CREEVEY TO DESIGNATE SUNDRY PERSONAGES. Atty Lord Arthur Hill, 2nd son of 2nd Marquess of Downshire, and afterwards succeeded his mother as Lord Sandys. Arch-fiend, The See Beelzebub. Barney 12th Duke of Norfolk. See also Twitch and Scroop. Beau, The The Duke of Wellington. Beelzebub Henry, 1st Lord Brougham and Vaux. See also Bruffam, The Arch-fiend, and Wicked-shifts. Billy, Old 4th Earl Fitzwilliam. Billy, Our William IV. Billy Russell Lord William Russell, brother of 5th Duke of Bedford. Bogey Lord Grenville. Bruffam See Beelzebub. Calibre, Old or Lord Mr. Western, M.P., created Lord Western in 1833. Cheerful Charlie 5th Duke of Rutland. Ciss Lady Cecilia Buggin, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Arran and widow of Sir George Buggin, married in 1826 to H.R.H. Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, and was created Duchess of Inverness in 1840. Clunch Lord Althorp. Cole, Mrs. Mr. Tierney.

Cole, Young Hon. James Abercromby, elected Speaker in 1835 and created Lord Dunfermline in 1839. Comical Bob Lord Robert Spencer, brother of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough. Cupid Viscount Palmerston. Dear Eddard Hon. Robert Edward Petre. Denny Mr. Denison of Denbies. Doctor, The Right Hon. Henry Addington, created Viscount Sidmouth in 1805. Fergy General Ronald Ferguson of Raith. Frog, The King William I. of Holland. Frog, Young The Prince of Orange. Frothy Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P. Gooserump The 6th Earl of Carlisle. Jack the Painter Right Hon. T. Spring Rice, created Lord Monteagle in 1839. Jaffa General Sir Robert Wilson. Jenky Lord Liverpool. Jockey, The The 11th Duke of Norfolk. King Jog J. G. Lambton of Lambton, afterwards Earl of Durham. King Tom Thomas Coke of Holkham, afterwards Earl of Leicester. Madagascar Lady Holland. Merryman, The Mr. Canning. Mouldy Lord Bexley. Mrs. P. The Princess of Wales (Queen Caroline). Mull Lord Molyneux, son of the 3rd Earl of Sefton. Niffy-naffy Earl of Darlington, afterwards 1st Duke of Cleveland. Og or Ogg The 2nd Lord Kensington. Old Nobs George III. Old Sally or Dow. Sally Mary Amelia, Marchioness of Salisbury. Old Stiff-rump or The Squire Mr. Western, M. P., afterwards Lord Western. Pet, The 3rd Earl of Sefton. P., Young Princess Charlotte of Wales. Pie and Thimble Lord John Russell.

Pop, The Countess of Darlington, afterwards of Cleveland. Prinney The Prince of Wales (George IV.). Punch Charles Greville, Clerk of the Council. Poscius Lord Henry Petty, afterwards 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne. Sally Sarah, Countess of Jersey. Sally, Old or Dow. Mary Amelia, Marchioness of Salisbury. Scroop The 12th Duke of Norfolk. Slice H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. Snip Right Hon. Thomas Robinson, successively Viscount Goderich and Earl of Ripon. Snipe Princess Lieven. Snoutch Not identified. Squire, The, or Old Stiff-rump Mr. Western, M.P., afterwards Lord Western. Suss H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex. Spinning Jenny Sir Robert Peel. Taffy Lord Dinorbin. Twitch The 12th Duke of Norfolk. Vandernoot, Old William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham. Vesuvius Hon. Douglas Kinnaird. Vic., Little Queen Victoria. Wicked-shifts See Beelzebub.

CONTENTS TO VOL. I.

PAGE Introduction v Nicknames Used By Mr. Creevey xvi List Of Illustrations xxiii CHAPTER I. 1793-1804. Creevey enters Parliament—Paris under the Consulate—Actors in the Revolution—The Addington Ministry—Sir John Moore—War—The return of Pitt—Per mare et terras—The Front Bench—Laudator temporis acti—Pitt and Fox as allies—The bonds of party—The hope of the Whigs—Threats of invasion—The Irish difficulty 1-31 CHAPTER II. 1805. Melville’s disgrace—The campaign against jobs—The Radicals make the pace—The Sheridans—Romilly declines Parliament—Irish affairs—Ulm and Austerlitz 32-45 CHAPTER III. 1805. The Heir Apparent—Life at the Pavilion—Sheridan—Sheridan’s marriage—Frolics at Brighton—Warren Hastings—Lord Thurlow—The Duke of York—Society at Brighton—Evenings at the Pavilion—Death of Nelson—The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert 46-73 CHAPTER IV. 1806-1808. PAGE “All the Talents”—Creevey in office—Fox’s last illness—Sheridan jibs—High living—The Portland Administration—Alliance with Spain—The Convention of Cintra—Mr. Whitbread unbosoms himself 74-92 CHAPTER V. 1809. Walcheren—Castlereagh’s duel with Canning—Whitbread on the situation—The passage of the Douro—Sir Arthur Wellesley remonstrates—Mr. Whitbread explains—Journal 93-116 CHAPTER VI. 1810. The sentiments of Brougham—Difficulties of the Opposition—Debate on the Address—Divided counsels—The Walcheren enquiry—Wellington and the Common Council—Defeat of the Government—A sailor’s opinion of Sir Richard Strachan 117-134 CHAPTER VII. 1811. Cabinet making—Whitbread’s proposals—The prospect of office—Creevey’s conditions—The Prince’s coolness to the Whigs—Journal—The Canningites scattered 135-152 CHAPTER VIII. 1812. Parliament is dissolved—Who shall be Premier?—Prolonged suspense—Lord Wellesley tries his hand—Lord Grey stands aloof—Lord Liverpool takes office—Creevey stands for Liverpool—Re-elected for Thetford—Defeated at Liverpool—Visit to Knowsley 153-174 CHAPTER IX. 1813-1814. PAGE The Regent’s domestic affairs—Brougham on the war-path—Brougham’s opinion of Whitbread—Partisans—Plot and counter-plot—Napoleon abdicates—Tales of the town—The peace—Brougham without a seat—The Emperor of Russia—Princess Charlotte of Wales—The Princess of Wales throws over her advisers—Lord Cochrane’s case 175-204 CHAPTER X. 1814-1815. Brougham on the situation—The pinch of the property-tax—The Hundred Days—Brussels in 1815—The “shadow of war—Napoleon’s last stakes—Tidings from the frontier—Arrival of Wellington—Confusion in Brussels—The Iron Duke—The Duchess of Richmond’s ball—The eve of Waterloo—The eighteenth of June—Conflicting rumours—Victory—Conversation with the Duke—Close of the campaign 205-239 CHAPTER XI. 1815-1816. Death of Whitbread—Misfortunes of the; Opposition—The dukedom of Norfolk—Disorganised Whigs—Brougham startles his friends—Who shall lead the Whigs?—Brougham’s views—A lady’s letter—A dispirited Radical—“You must come over!” 240-260 CHAPTER XII. 1817-1818. From Lord Holland—Mr. Tierney chosen leader—Napoleon at St. Helena—The Duke of Kent’s confidences—Lord Kinnaird’s affair—Mr. Creevey dislodged from Thetford—Journal—Sir Hudson Lowe—Objections to Tierney 261-291 CHAPTER XIII. 1819-1820. PAGE Lord Holland upon the situation—Death of George III.—Queen Caroline reappears—Dissension in the Opposition—Does Brougham run straight?—The question of the Liturgy—Opinion at Knowsley—Opening of the trial—Proceedings in the Lords—The case for the Crown—Unfavourable evidence—Louise Demont—The Solicitor-General sums up—The divorce clause abandoned—Brougham opens the defence—Ministers lose ground—The Duke of Norfolk’s opinion—Adjournment of the Commons—Brougham’s tactics—Mr. Denman sums up—Nearing the end—What will be the majority?—The division—The Bill abandoned—The prorogation 292-342 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. I. Thomas Creevey Frontispiece From a Water-colour Drawing, in the possession of Miss Elizabeth Blackett Ord, at Brownside, Cumberland TO FACE PAGE Mrs. Fitzherbert 50 From the Picture by John Russell, R.A., in the possession of Mr. Basil Fitzherbert, at Swinnerton Hall, Staffordshire Lord Thurlow 60 From the Picture by Thomas Phillips, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery Admiral Sir Graham Moore 90 From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery R. Brinsley Sheridan 146 From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., in the possession of George Harland Peck, Esq. Henry Brougham In Early Life 172 From the Picture by James Lonsdale, in the National Portrait Gallery Samuel Whitbread 242 From an Engraving by S. W. Reynolds, after P. Opie, R.A. Sir Samuel Romilly 290 From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery Sarah, Countess of Jersey 296 From a Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in the possession of the Earl of Jersey.

THE CREEVEY PAPERS.

CHAPTER I. 1793-1804.

The earliest letter preserved in the huge mass of Mr. Creevey’s correspondence is a very brief one; but it strikes the note which carried dismay and indignation into every court in Europe, and was the prelude to twenty years of widespread war.

Hon. Charles Grey, M.P. [afterwards 2nd Earl Grey], to Mrs. Ord.

“24th Jan., 1793. “Dear Mrs. Ord,

“I have only a moment before the post goes out . . . . An account is come that the King of France was executed on Monday morning. Everything in Paris bore the appearance of another tumult and massacre. Bad as I am thought, I cannot express the horror I feel at this atrocity.

“Yours affectionately, “C. Grey.

“War is certain, and—God grant we may not all lament the consequences of it!”

There are few letters during the remaining years of the eighteenth century referring to anything except private affairs of little interest. Dr. J. Currie of Liverpool wrote pretty regularly to Mr. Creevey, who seems to have been reading for the Bar at this time.

Dr. Currie to Thomas Creevey.

“Liverpool, 30th Dec., 1795.

“. . . I once thought you a modest fellow—now I laugh at the very idea of it. Upon my soul, Creevey, it was all a damned hum. What with your election songs and your rompings—what with your carousings with the men and your bamboozlings with the women, you are a most complete hand indeed. Widow, wife, or maid, it is all one to you. . . . If you go on in this way, and keep out of Doctors Commons, the Lord knows what you may rise to. . . .”

“17th Dec., 1798.

“. . . I am, I assure you, deeply concerned to hear that you think so poorly of Dr. Tennant’s health; and perfectly disturbed to think that he has had any trouble about my thermometers.* The truth is I wished to avail myself of his intuitive skill in framing an instrument free of all exception for taking heat in contagious diseases where approach is hazardous. But since he left us . . . I have so far succeeded in constructing a sensible [? sensitive] instrument with Six’s iron index as to answer my purpose. . . . I have done very little but read Voltaire since I saw you. He is an exquisite fellow. One thing in him is peculiarly striking—his clear knowledge of the limits of the human understanding. He pursues his game as far as the scent carries him, but no further. Where this fails, he turns off with a jest, that marks distinctly where a wise man ought to stop. . . . You know, my dear fellow, I owe the delight of reading him to you.”

* The most enduring part of Dr. Currie’s work as a physician consists in the advance he made in the use of the thermometer in fevers.

“20th Jan., 1801.

“. . . I envy you the company you keep. When you tell me of meeting Erskine, Parr and Mackintosh familiarly, I sigh at my allotment in this corner of the Island. It is impossible not to rust here, even if one had talents of a better kind. In London, and perhaps there only, practice and exercise keep men polished and bright. . . . So you are become an intimate friend of Lady Oxford. My dear Creevey—these women—these beautiful women—are the devil’s most powerful temptation—but I will not moralize, on paper at least. . . .”

In 1802 Mr. Creevey was returned to Parliament as member for Thetford, a pocket borough in the gift of the Duke of Norfolk. How he obtained this nomination there is no evidence to show; but he was an enthusiastic Whig of the advanced type which was about to reject that time-worn title, and adopt the more expressive one of Radical. Indeed, the animosity of this section against the old Whigs, under the lead of Lord Grenville, was almost as intense as it was against the Tories under Pitt.

Sir Francis Burdett, M.P., to Mr. Creevey, M.P.

“Piccadilly, August 18th, 1802. “My dear Creevey,

“I have scarcely time to turn round, but will not defer sending a line in answer to your very kind letter—as I am entirely of your opinion in every point. I look upon your advice as excellent, and intend consequently to follow it. You know by this time the Petition is taken out of my hands, in a manner most flattering and honourable. The conduct of the Sheriffs I believe quite unprecedented, but whether they will be punished, protected or rewarded exceeds my sagacity to foretell, perhaps both the latter.

“I regard the issue of this contest exactly in the same light as you do—a subject of great triumph and not of mortification. My friend is compleatly satisfied. I have done my duty and the Public acknowledge it—surely this is sufficient to satisfy the ambition of an honest man.

“I, however, cannot help envying you your happiness and comfort, and wish most heartily I was of the party. You cannot think how friendly Ord was nor how much I feel obliged to him—we used his house, but I hope not injure it.

“Sherry is quite grown loving again; he came here yesterday with all sorts of [illegible] from the Prince, Mrs. Fitzherbert, &c., &c.; it is a year and half, I believe before this Election, since we almost spoke. Mrs. Sheridan came one day on the Hastings, and was much delighted and entertained at being hailed by the multitude as Mrs. Burdett. . . .

“Yours sincerely, “F. Burdett.”

Mr. Creevey, M.P., to Dr. Currie.

“Great Cumberland Place, 8th Nov., 1802.

“. . The Grenvilles are in great spirits; the Morning Post, and Morning Chronicle too, are strongly suspected of being in their pay, and to-day it is said Tom Grenville is to be started as Speaker against Abbott. Great are the speculations about Pitt: it is asserted that he is fonder of his relations [the Grenvilles] than the Doctor,* but I hear of no authority for this opinion. I, for one, if they try their strength in the choice of a Speaker, tho’ I detest Abbott, will vote for him or anybody else supported by Addington, in opposition to a Grenville or a Pittite. I am affraid of this damned Addington being bullied out of his pacific disposition. He will be most cursedly run at, and he has neither talents to command open coadjutors, nor sufficient skill in intriguing to acquire private ones. Still I think we cannot surely be pushed again into the field of battle.

“Now for France—all the world has been there, and various is the information imported from thence.

* The Right Hon. Henry Addington, created Viscount Sidmouth in 1805. He was nicknamed “the Doctor” because his father was a physician.

Whishaw was my first historian, and I think the worst. He was at Paris only a fortnight, but he travelled through France. I apprehend, either from a scanty supply of the language or of proper introductions, he has been merely a stage coach traveller. He has seen soldiers in every part of his tour, and superintending every department of the Government . . . and has returned quite scared out of his wits at the dreadful power and villainy of the French Government. . . . Romilly* is my next relator, and much more amusing. His private friends were the Liancourts, de la Rochefoucaults, &c., and he dined at different times with Talleyrand, Berthier, and all the other Ministers at their houses. Ministers, however, and statesmen are alike in all countries; they alone are precluded from telling you anything about the country in whose service they are, and emigrants are too insecure to indulge any freedom in conversation. Romilly’s account, therefore, as one might suppose, makes his society of Paris the most gloomy possible. He says at Talleyrand’s table, where you have such magnificence as was never seen before in France, the Master of the House, who as an exile in England without a guinea was the pleasantest of Men, in France and in the midst of his prosperity sits the most melancholy picture apparently of sorrow and despair. Romilly sat next to Fox at Talleyrand’s dinner, and had all his conversation to himself; but not a word of public affairs—all vertu and French belles lettres. Romilly would not grace the court of Buonaparte, but left Paris with as much detestation of him and his Government as Whishaw, and with much more reason.

“But the great lion of all upon the subject of Paris is Mackintosh.† He has really seen most entertaining things and people. He, too, dined with Ministers, and has held a long consultation with the Consul‡

* Samuel Romilly, K.C., entered Parliament in 1806, appointed Solicitor-General, and was knighted. An ardent Reformer, and father of the first Lord Romilly, he committed suicide in 1818.

† Sir James Mackintosh [1765-1832], barrister, philosopher, and politician.

‡ Bonaparte.

upon the Norman and English laws; but his means of living with the active people of France has far exceeded that of any other English. I think his most valuable acquaintance must have been Madame de Souza. She is a Frenchwoman, was a widow, and is now the wife of the Portuguese ambassador. She is the friend and companion and confidante of Madame Buonaparte, and satisfied all Mackintosh’s enquiries respecting her friend and her husband the Consul. Her history to Mackintosh (confirmed by Madame Cabarenne, late Madame Tallien) of Madame Buonaparte and her husband is this.—Madame Buonaparte is a woman nearly fifty, of singular good temper, and without a little of intrigue. She is a Creole, and has large West India possessions. On these last accounts it was that she was married by the Viscount Beauharnois—a lively nobleman about the old Court; and both in his life and since his death his wife remained a great favorite in Paris.

“Immediately previous to the directorial power being established in 1795, the Sections all rose upon the Convention or Assembly, whatever it was, in consequence of an odious vote or decree they had made. At this period, no general would incur the risque of an unsuccessful attack upon the Sections; Buonaparte alone, who was known only from having served at the siege of Toulon, being then in Paris, said if any General would lend him a coat, he would fight the Sections. He put his coat on; he peppered the Sections with grape shot; the establishment of the Directory was the consequence to them, and to him in return they gave the command of the army of Italy.* He became, therefore, the fashion, and was asked to meet good company, and he was asked to Tallien’s to put him next the widow Beauharnois, that he might vex Hoche, who was then after her and her fortune. Madame Tallien did so, and the new lovers were

* Napoleon’s own report upon the suppression of the Sections places the responsibility of the act upon Barras, who employed him merely as a good artillery officer. Before being appointed to the command of the army in Italy, in 1796, Bonaparte was rewarded, in 1795, for his action against the Sections by succeeding Barras in command of the army of the Interior.

married in ten days. She never was Barras’ mistress; Madame Cabarenne (Tallien that was) told Mackintosh that was calumny, for that she herself was his mistress at that very time.* Madame de Souza says no one but Madame Buonaparte could live with the Consul; he is subject to fits of passion, bordering upon derangement, and upon the appearance of one of these distempered freaks of his, he is left by all about him to his fate and to the effects of time. It is a service of great danger, even in his milder moments, to propose anything to him, and it is from his wife’s forbearance in both ways that she can possibly contrive to have the respect she meets with from him.

“Every wreck of the different parties in France for the last ten years that is now to be found in Paris, Mackintosh met and lived familiarly with—La Fayette, [illegible], Jean Bon Saint-Andre, Barthelemy, Camille Jourdan, Abbé Morelaix, Fouche, Boissy Danglas, &c., &c. Tallien† no one visits of his countrymen; his conversations with Mackintosh, if one had not his authority, surpass belief. His only lamentation over the revolution was its want of success, and that it should be on account of only half measures having been adopted. He almost shed tears at the mention of Danton, whom he styled bon enfant, and as a man of great promise.

“Mackintosh dined at Barthelemy’s the banker—the brother of the ex-director—with a pleasant party. The ex-director was there, and next to him sat Fouché—now a senator—but who formerly, as Minister of Police, actually deported the ex-director to Cayenne. There was likewise a person there who told M. he had seen Fouché ride full gallop to preside at some celebrated massacre, with a pair of human ears stuck one on each side of his hat.‡ The conversation of

* The beautiful Madame de Tallien, previously Comtesse de Fontenay, was as fickle as she was frail, for she was also the mistress of the rich banker Ouvrard. Tallien obtained a divorce in 1802, and she married the Prince de Chimay.

† Jean Lambert Tallien, one of the chief organisers and bloodiest agents of the Terror, leader in the overthrow of Robespierre.

‡ Joseph Fouché, afterwards Duc d’Otranto, had as yet but accomplished half his cycle of cynical tergiversation, which brought him to

this notable assembly was as charming as the performers themselves; it turned principally upon the blessings of peace and humanity,

“All the others whom I have mentioned above have no connection with Fouché or Tallien, and are reasonable men, perfectly unrestrained in their conversation, quite anti-Buonapartian, and as much devoted to England. To such men Fox has given great surprise by his conversation, as he has given offence to his friends here. He talks publicly of Liberty being asleep in France, but dead in England. He will be attacked in the House of Commons certainly, and I think will find it difficult to justify himself. He has been damned imprudent.”

At the time of Creevey’s entrance to the House of Commons, Pitt was in seclusion. He had retired from office in March, 1801, putting up the former Speaker, Mr. Addington, as Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons. George III. heartily approved of this arrangement, although on the face of it were all the signs of instability. Taking Pitt and Addington aside at the Palace one day—“If we three keep together,” said he, “all will go well.” But as the months went on, Pitt chafed at his own inactivity and fretted at the incapacity of his nominee. Pitt’s friends were importunate for his return; he himself was burning to take the reins again, but was too proud, perhaps too loyal to Addington, to adopt overt action to effect it. Moreover, Addington, who had been an excellent Speaker, had no suspicion of the poor figure he cut as head of the Government. It never occurred to him to take any of the numerous hints offered by Canning and other Tories, until the necessity for some change was forced upon him by

office under Louis XVIII, after the fall of Napoleon. He died in 1820, a naturalised Austrian subject, having amassed enormous wealth.

the imminence of disaster from the disaffection of his followers. He offered to resign the Treasury in favour of a peer, Pitt and he to share the administration of affairs as Secretary of State. This proposal Pitt brushed contemptuously, almost derisively, aside; matters went on as before, except that the former friendship of Pitt and Addington was at an end. When Parliament met on 24th November, Pitt did not appear in the House.

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“25th Nov., 1802.

“I went yesterday to the opening of our campaign, with some apprehension, I confess, as I knew Fox was to be there, least his sentiments upon the subject of France and England should diminish my esteem for him. His conduct, however, and his speech were, in my mind, in every respect perfect; and if he will let them be the models for his future imitation, he will keep in the Doctor and preserve the peace. God continue Fox’s prudence and Pitt’s gout! The infamous malignity and misrepresentation of that scoundrel Windham did injury only to himself: never creature less deserved it than poor Fox. You cannot imagine the pleasure I feel in having this noble animal still to look up to as my champion. Nothing can be so whimsical as the state of the House of Commons. The Ministers, feeble beyond all powers of caricaturing, are unsupported—at least by the acclamations—of that great mass of persons who always support all Ministers, but who are ashamed publicly to applaud them. They are insulted by the indignant, mercenary Canning, who wants again to be in place, and they are openly pelted by the sanguinary faction of Windham and the Grenvillites as dastardly poltroons, for not rushing instantly into war. Under these circumstances their only ally is the old Opposition. . . . If they are so supported, I see distinctly that Fox will at least have arrived at this situation that, tho’ unable to be Minister himself, he may in fact prevent one from being turned out. . . . God send Pitt and Dundas anywhere but to the House of Commons, and much might, I think, be done by a judicious dandling of the Doctor.

“Lord Henry Petty and I dined together yesterday. He is as good as ever. We both took our seats behind old Charley.”

The treaty of Amiens had been concluded in March, 1802, but Bonaparte’s restless ambition, and especially his desire to re-establish the colonial power of France, menaced the maritime ascendancy of Great Britain, and Addington watched uneasily the war-clouds gathering again upon the horizon.

In February, 1803, M. Talleyrand demanded from Lord Whitworth, British Ambassador in Paris, an assurance of the speedy evacuation of Malta by King George’s Government, in compliance with the tenth article of the Treaty of Amiens, which provided for the restoration of that island to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In reply to this, Lord Whitworth was instructed to point to the aggrandisement of France subsequent to and in contravention of the terms of the said treaty as justifying the British Government in delaying the evacuation. On 18th February Lord Whitworth had a personal interview with the First Consul, when he failed to obtain from him any admission of the violation by the French of the treaty, or any assurance that the redress claimed for certain British subjects would receive consideration. Negotiations dragged on till, on 13th March, Whitworth had a stormy interview with Bonaparte, who charged the British Government with being determined to drag him into war. Finally, on 12th May the rupture was complete; Lord Whitworth requested his passport, and the two countries were at war.

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“11th March, 1803.

“. . . No one knows the precise point on which the damn’d Corsican and the Doctor* have knocked their heads together, but I must think, till I know more, that Addington has been precipitate. The injury done is incalculable. I defy any man to have confidence in public credit in future, till a perfectly new order of things takes place. . . . As long as the neighbouring Monster lives, he will bully and defy us; and being once discovered, as it now is, that even Addington will bluster as well as him in return, I see no prospect of prosperity in this country, that is—the prosperity of peace—as long as Buonaparte lives. . . . Was it not lucky that I sold out at 74¼? They are to-day about 64.

“7th April, 1803.

“. . . I have barely time to say that of all the Men I have ever seen, your countryman General Moore† is the greatest prodigy. I thank my good fortune to have seen so much of him—such a combination of acknowledged fame, of devotion from all who have served under him—of the most touching simplicity and yet most accomplished manners—of the most capital understanding, captivating conversation, and sentiments of honour as exalted as his practice. . . . Think of such a beast as Pitt treating, almost with contempt, certainly with injury, such a man as Moore. . . .”

“18th.

“. . . I think if I was to say anything more about General Moore to you than what I wrote to you from the House of Commons, it would only be diffusive. . . . I never saw the Man before who made me think so much about him after each time that I had seen him. We all think of him with the same devotion. . . .”

* Mr. Addington.

† General Sir John Moore, K.B.

Dr. Currie to Mr. Creevey.

“Liverpool, May 1st, 1803.

“I was infinitely obliged by your last report, and beg of you to give me another, as matters draw fast to a crisis. I will expect to have a few lines at latest by the post of Wednesday.

“I fear this Billy* will come in after all.

“I have to tell you one or two things about your friends here.

“First, I have been attending your aunt, Mrs. Eaton, who was very ill, but is recovered. I was to have written to you about the time she got better, but neglected it. But in answer to her earnest enquiries, I delivered your love (God forgive me) and your congratulations on her recovery. I said everything kind and civil for you to Eaton too, so that you are not to pretend that you did not hear of her illness. But you are now to write a few lines either to him or her as soon as convenient, saying what you see fit on so affecting an occasion—now do not forget this. I cannot think how the old lady came to trust herself in my hands, for I had just been in at the death of two of her neighbours, and I consider my being called to her as a symptom of great attachment to you, and probably in its consequences no way unfavourable to you. For I must tell you that she and I are wondrous great, and we talk you over by the half-hour together. She and he seem very much devoted to you. . . . They are quite pleased, too, with Mrs. Creevey.

“Give my love to Moore† when you see him. Scarlett‡ has been here with his brother; a very worthy fellow. He says you are coming on. What sort of a thing is this presentation? I see you are a nominee in the Boston election. I hope it is for Maddock, whom I know a little and like a good deal.

“We are all cursed flatt here about the spun out negociations. Nothing doing. Everything stagnated.

* Mr. Pitt.

† Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Graham) Moore, R.N., brother to Sir John Moore.

‡ Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1834; created Lord Abinger in 1835.

We shall have war, because it is just the most absurd thing in creation.”

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“Saturday, 7th May.

“No news is good news, you know they say, and at this moment I think it certainly is. Lord Whitworth was certainly at Paris on Wednesday night late, and I think he is traced as far as Thursday. It is equally certain that he had a new proposal from the Consul,* and this is still better news. There is a general inclination to-day to think we shall have peace after all. . . .”

“11th May.

“. . . I supped last night with Fox at Mrs. Bouverie’s . . . There were there Grey, Whitbread, Lord Lauderdale, Fitzpatrick, Lord Robert Spencer,† Lord John Townshend and your humble servant. . . . You would be perfectly astonished at the vigour of body, the energy of mind, the innocent playfulness and happiness of Fox. The contrast between him and his old associates is the most marvellous thing I ever saw—they having all the air of shattered debauchees, of passing gaming, drinking, sleepless nights, whereas the old leader of the gang might really pass for the pattern and the effect of domestic good order. . . . A telegraphic dispatch announces that Lord Whitworth has left Paris.”‡

“Saturday, 14th May.

“. . . A messenger has arrived to-day who left Paris at 9 o’clock Thursday night, and Lord Whitworth was to leave it in the night, or rather morning, at two; so I presume he will be in England on Monday. Think only what a day Monday or Tuesday will be in the House of Commons! and think likewise what a damn’d eternal fool the Doctor must turn out to be. Upon my soul! it is too shocking to think of the wretched destiny of mankind in being placed

* Bonaparte.

† Third son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough,

‡ News was telegraphed by semaphore signals.

in the hands of such pitiful, squirting politicians as this accursed Apothecary* and his family and friends! . . .”

On 16th May the King sent a message to the House of Commons calling upon it to support him in resisting the aggressive policy of France and the ambitious schemes of the First Consul. Pitt might no longer hold aloof.

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“16th May.

“. . . I supped with Fox, Grey, &c., &c., last night at Whitbread’s. Fox says there are no state papers to be given us; the whole dispute has been carried on by conversation. It began in consequence of some intemperate furious expression of Buonaparte; it related to Egypt. . . . The Consul got irritated; said he would put himself at the head of his army and invade England. But the offence is about Egypt. He said upon this subject—Nous l’aurons malgre vous! Fox says he believes this conversation to be the origin of the dispute, and that our claims upon Malta are in the way of recognizance to make Buonaparte keep the peace. . . .”

“20th.

“. . . This damned fellow Pitt has taken his seat and is here, and, what is worse, it is certain that he and his fellows are to support the war. They are to say the time for criticism is suspended; that the question is not now whether Ministers have been too tardy or too rash, but the French are to be fought. Upon my soul! the prospect has turned me perfectly sick. . . .”

“21st.

“. . . It is really infinitely droll to see these old rogues so defeated by the Court and Doctor. I really think Pitt is done: his face is no longer red, but yellow; his looks are dejected; his countenance I

* Mr. Addington.

think much changed and fallen, and every now and then he gives a hollow cough. Upon my soul, hating him as I do, I am almost moved to pity to see his fallen greatness. I saw this once splendid fellow drive yesterday to the House of Lords in his forlorn, shattered equipage, and I stood near him behind the throne till two o’clock this morning. I saw no expression but melancholy on the fellow’s face—princes of the blood passing him without speaking to him, and, as I could fancy, an universal sentiment in those around him that he was done. . . .”

An offer of mediation between Britain and France having been received from the Emperor Alexander of Russia, a debate arose in the House of Commons.

24th May, 1803.

“. . . Lord Hawkesbury* then began and made a very elaborate speech of two hours, containing little inflammatory matter, and being a fair and reasonable representation of his case and justification of the war. Erskine followed in the most confused, unintelligible, inefficient performance that ever came from the mouth of man. Then came the great fiend himself—Pitt—who, in the elevation of his tone of mind and composition, in the infinite energy of his style, the miraculous perspicuity and fluency of his periods, outdid (as it was thought) all former performances of his. Never, to be sure, was there such an exhibition; its effect was dreadful. He spoke nearly two hours—all for war, and for war without end. He would say nothing for Ministers, but he exhorted or rather commanded them to lose no time in establishing measures of finance suited to our situation. . . . Wilberforce made an inimitable speech for peace and on grounds the most calculated for popular approbation. . . . It is said the House of Commons never behaved so ill as in their reception of this speech. They tried over and over again to cough him down, but without effect. . . .”

* Afterwards Earl of Liverpool and Prime Minister.

The speech referred to above was universally acknowledged as one of the finest ever delivered by Pitt; but it is not included among his published speeches, owing to the accidental exclusion of reporters from the gallery. Fox replied on the second night of the debate in a speech of equal merit; but there is a gap in Creevey’s letters covering the whole of the rest of the session, and we know not, though we may imagine, the effect of his leader’s eloquence upon his mind. His next letter to Dr. Currie deals with a matter of common criticism and objection at the present day, by men of all parties—namely, the anomaly of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. Nobody can explain its merits: its defects are patent to everybody; while the selection of a peer to fill what ought to be one of the most responsible posts in any administration, has to be made from a very limited number, with more regard to their private means than to their capacity for public service; so excessive is the expenditure entailed upon the Lord Lieutenant’s private income. It is apparent from the following letter that the objection is nearly as old as the Union:—

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“22nd Aug., 1803.

“. . . I saw a great deal of Sheridan. We dined together several times, got a little bosky, and he took great pains to convince me he was sincere and confidential with me. . . . A plan of his relates to Ireland, and it is the substitution of a Council for the present Viceroy, the head of the Council to be the Prince of Wales, his assistants to be Lord Moira, Lord Hutchinson and Sheridan himself. The Prince is quite heated upon the subject; nothing else is discussed by them. Lord Hutchinson is as deep in the design as any of them, but God knows it is about as probable as the embassy of old Charley* to Russia. I believe Sherry is very much in the confidence of the Ministers. They have convinced him of the difficulty of pressing the King for any attentions to the Prince of Wales; he is quite set against him, and holds entirely to the Duke of York, who, on the other hand, is most odious to the Ministry. . . . Have you begun your visits to Knowsley yet? . . . If you see Mrs. Hornby, cultivate her. She is an excellent creature; her husband, the rector, is the most tiresome, prosy son of a —— I ever met with, but is worthy. . . .”

General Sir John Moore to Mr. Creevey.

“Sandgate, 15th Sept., 1803.

“. . . The newspapers have disposed of me and my troops at Lisbon and Cherbourgh, but we believe that we have not moved from this place. I begun to despair of seeing you here, and am quite happy to find that, at last, I am to have that pleasure. If the Miss Ords do not think they can trust to the Camp for beaux, or if they have any in attendance whose curiosity to see soldiers they may chuse to indulge, assure them that whoever accompanies them shall be cordially received by everybody here. . . .”

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey.

“Plymouth, August 7th, 1803.

“. . . I never had to do with a new ship’s company before made up of Falstaff’s men—‘decayed tapsters,’ &c., so I do not bear that very well and I get no seamen but those who enter here at Plymouth, which are very few indeed. The Admiralty will not let me have any who enter for the ship at any of the other ports, which cuts up my hopes of a tolerable ship’s company. . . . I hear sometimes from my brother Jack.† He says they have had a review of his whole Corps before the Duke of York. . . . My mother was more delighted with the scene than any boy or girl of fifteen. N.B.—she is near 70. . . . She is an excellent mother of a soldier. I am not afraid of showing her

* Mr. Fox. † General Sir John Moore.

to Mrs. Creevey, altho’ she is of a very different cast from what she has generally lived with. If Mrs. Creevey does not like her, I shall never feel how the devil she came to like me.

“Jack says his Corps are not at all what he would have them, yet that they will beat any of the French whom he leads them up to. I am convinced the French can make no progress in England, and do not believe now that they will attempt it; but how is all this to end? However that may be, as I am in for it, I wish to God I was tolerably ready, and scouring the seas. What the devil can Fox mean by his palaver about a military command for the Prince of Wales? That may come well enough from Mrs. Barham perhaps.”

“Indefatigable, Cawsand Bay, Sept. 16th, 1803.

“. . . It has pleased the Worthies aloft to keep us in expectation of sailing at an hours notice since Sunday last. This is very proper, I am sure, and rather inconvenient too. I hate to be a-going agoing. It is disagreeable to Jack, because I have sent all his wives and his loves on shore, and altho’ I have made him an apology, he must think the Captain is no great things. The blackguards will know me by-and-by. They seem a tolerable set, and I am already inclined to love them. If they fight, I shall worship them. . . . There is another very fine frigate here, as ready as we are—the Fisgard, commanded by a delightful little fellow, Lord Mark Kerr.* He is an honour to Lords as they go. . . . If there is to be a war with Spain, it would be well to let us know of it before we sail, as money—altho’ nothing to a philosopher—is something to me. I am growing old, and none of the women will have me now if I cannot keep them in style, and you know there is no carrying on the war ashore in the peace, when it comes, without animals of that description. . . . The most cheerful fellow on politics is my brother Jack; you’ll hear no croaking from him. He says it’s all nonsense. . . .”

* Third son of the 5th Marquess of Lothian: married the Countess of Antrim in her own right, and became father of the 4th and 5th Earls of Antrim. Died in 1840.

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“London, Dec. 21, 1803.

“. . . My impression of Addington and his colleagues during this short part of the Session, has been pretty much what it has heretofore been. They are, upon my soul, the feeblest—lowest almost—of Men, still more so of Ministers. When there is anything like a general attack upon them, they look as if they felt it all; they blush and look at one another in despair; they make no fight; or, if they offer to defend themselves, no one listens but to laugh at them. When the House is empty and their enemies are scattered, they rally and fall in a body upon Windham, call him all kinds of names, and adopt all kinds of the most unfounded misrepresentations of his sentiments. Upon these occasions they are quite altered men; they talk loud and long, and cheer one another enough to pull the house down. These periodical triumphs look well upon paper, and no doubt must captivate a great portion of the publick; but rely upon it, the bitterest enemy Windham has in the world, who is possessed of any sense and any character, turns with disgust from the sound of these low-lived philippics. Bad—miserable as I have heard Erskine in the House of Commons, never was he so execrable as on the night when you rejoice that he attacked Windham. These creatures of imbecillity have no such thing as a plan; they live by temporary expedients from hand to mouth—by the contrary views and characters of their opponents—by that very feebleness which in itself cannot rouse up personal animosity in nobler minds—by low cunning—by appropriate adoption of humility and impudence. In addition to all this, they have done what the worst men might have done—they have most wickedly and wantonly plunged us into this contemptible war, and the just reputation of their besotted folly throughout the world is a security for our remaining in it, till chance or accident shall relieve us.

“With all their faults, I confess they are well-behaved and civil, as compleatly so as your own servant can be, and I must believe that, had they no restraint upon them from their Master, the mediocrity of their understandings, their situation in life, their private characters and turns of mind, would not permit them to think of gratifying any ambition or resentment by either desolating the world by war or tyrannically invading the liberties of their country.

“The impression of Pitt was what his enemies most triumphantly delight in; but what they never could have been sanguine enough to expect, his speech was the production of the dirtiest of mankind, and so it was received. His intimates—his nearest neighbours—Canning and Co., sat mute, astounded and evidently thinking themselves disgraced by the shuffling tacticks of their military leader. His lingering after Addington, tho’ at open war with him in print—his caution of touching either Fox or Windham, those proscribed victims of fortune—his senseless vapouring and most untrue and envious criticism upon volunteers, and, above all, his officious and disgusting sentiment as to the recovery of his Majesty’s electoral dominion,* accommodated all his hearers with sufficient reasons for condemnation, and, for once in his life, I have no doubt this prodigy of art and elocution had in his favorite theatre not a single admirer. Canning and Sturges, talking to me afterwards about the excellence of Fox’s speech, said what a pity it was Pitt had not taken the same manly part. I asked why he had not done so, and they shrugged up their shoulders and said a man who had been minister eighteen years was a bad opposition man.

“Old Charley was himself, and of course was exquisitely delightful. Unfettered by any hopes or fears—by any systems or connection—he turned his huge understanding loose amongst these skirmishers, and it soon settled, with its usual and beautiful perspicuity, all the points that came within the decision of reasoning, judgment, experience and knowledge of mankind. In addition to the correctness of his views and delineations, he was all fire and simplicity and sweet temper; and the effect of these united perfections upon the House was as visible in his favor as

* The kingdom of Hanover.

their disappointment and disgust had been before at the unworthy performance of Colonel Pitt.

“It is almost too advanced a state of my letter to take in the Windhams and Co. We all know that he and the Grenvilles have been the merciless bloodhounds of past times, and no friend of Fox can ever forget or forgive the bitter malignity with which Windham pursued and hunted down the great and amiable creature. But as a party, and with such a foil to it as the present administration, they are entitled to greater weight than they have.”

One constantly hears lamentation from grave persons over the deterioration of the House of Commons from some past ideal; but just as people are accustomed now to look back upon the time when Pitt and Fox were protagonists as the true parliamentary golden age, so it was in that day. In concluding this long letter, Creevey, who had just one year of parliamentary experience, moralises upon the lowered tone of the debates.

“Windham, Lord Grenville and Elliott have great parliamentary talents, and Tom Grenville is most respectable in the same way, and of a high and unsullied character. They are of the old school as compared with the Ministry; they are full of courage, of acquirements, of elevated manners; there is nothing low in the fellows, there is no cringing to power or popularity. In Fox’s absence they are the only representatives of past and better days in Parliament.”

“21 Jan., 1804.

“. . . When I repeat any of Sheridan’s opinions, I do so with more doubt than in stating the opinions of any other persons, for he has acquired such tricks at Drury Lane, such skill in scene-shifting, that I am compelled by experience to listen with distrust to him. For the last three months he has been damning Fox in the midst of his enemies, and in his drunken and unguarded moments has not spared him even in the circles of his most devoted admirers. He did so at Woburn, the Duke of Bedford’s, and was (as you may have heard) challenged for it upon the spot by Adair.* Whitbread, who was present and who made it up (for Sheridan accepted the challenge), told me all the particulars. Now he apparently is much pacified and less inclined to volunteer his panegyric upon the Doctor;† and if one may venture to guess at the motive in so perfect a performer in all mysterious arts, I should say he had been damnably galled by the coldness with which Fox’s friends resented the abuse of the old fellow, and that the dinners and stupidity of Addington and his family parties had been but a poor recompense for his treachery to Fox, and that he was creeping back as well as he is able into his old place. Tierney, as you may suppose, would be dished by Pitt and Addington embracing, and he is therefore laboring to keep the present administration as it is, and with this view is incessantly intriguing for support of it. . . . I forget whether I ever told you of his inviting me to dinner once. It was to meet Brogden and Col. Porter, two cursed rum touches that he has persuaded to vote with him and to desert Fox; so I told Mrs. Creevey before I went that I was sure I was invited to be converted. Accordingly, after a decent time and a considerable allowance of wine had been consumed after dinner, my gentlemen begun to open their batteries upon me. I returned their fire by telling them I should save them much time and trouble by stating to them at once that my political creed was very simple and within a very narrow compass—that it was ‘Devotion to Fox.’ And so we all got to loggerheads directly, and jawed and drank till twelve or one o’clock, and I suppose I was devilish abusive, for they are all as shy as be damned of me ever since.”

* Sir Robert Adair [1763-1855], Whig member for Appleby, famous as the target of Canning’s frequent satire. Canning wrote of him as “Bawba-dara-adul-phoolah,” and introduced him to immortality by making him the hero of the ballad “Sweet Matilda Pottingen,” which was supposed to describe the course of Adair’s love when he was a student at Gottingen.

† Addington.

Pitt’s intolerance of Addington now passed into an active phase, and the unfortunate Prime Minister found himself under a cross-fire directed by the two most powerful men in the House—Pitt and Fox. The following notes dispel any doubt which may still exist as to the formal and explicit understanding between these ancient antagonists for the object which both had at heart, though for very different reasons, namely, the overthrow of Addington:—

Rt. Hon. Charles Fox to Mr. Creevey.

“Arlington St., Saturday [1804]. “Dear Sir,

“I enclose you a part of a letter from Grey. If you can speak to Brandling* upon the subject you may tell him that in all the divisions we shall have this next week, either Mr. Pitt will be with us or we with him.

“Yours, “C. J. Fox.”

Enclosure in above.

“My dear Fox,

“I forgot yesterday to answer your question about Brandling. He is not at present in this county [Northumberland], and I don’t know whether he is in London or in Yorkshire. Creevey, his brother-in-law, will be able to suggest the best mode of applying to him; but I should think, notwithstanding his hatred of the Doctor, that he would not vote against him without Pitt.”

The unnatural alliance between Pitt and Fox was manifested in its least commendable aspect upon the occasion of Pitt’s motion for an inquiry into the administration of the First Lord of the Admiralty,

* Mr. Brandling, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, was Mrs. Creevey’s brother.

Earl St. Vincent, who had not only contributed to securing for his country the mastery of the ocean, but, by means of the Commission of Inquiry which he established as First Lord, had exposed and put an end to many abuses in the service. Pitt’s motion, of course, was hostile to the gallant admiral, through whose discredit he sought to bring Addington’s Government into disgrace; and Fox supported the motion in a speech the insincerity of which was not inferior to that of Pitt, and staggered even such a good party man as Creevey.

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey.

“Plymouth Dock, Feby. 1st, 1804.

“. . . I suppose you mean to join the set that prepare to worry the poor Doctor when Parliament meets. What can he do? He seems, or we seem, to do as well as Bonoparte—fretting and fuming and playing off his tricks from Calais to Boulogne and back again. The fellow has done too much for a mere hum; he certainly will try something, and I hope to be in at the death of some of his expeditions. If they do not take my men, we shall soon be ready for sea again. New copper, my boy! we shall sail like the wind. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“22 March, 1804.

“. . . With respect to the debate . . . nothing could be . . . so unlike a case against Lord St. Vincent: I really doubted the fidelity of my ears all the time I listened to him (Fox), he was so very unlike himself. His first reply was a great and striking display of his powers, but the charge against the Admiralty derived little support or elucidation from it. I confess I felt a wish that Fox would not have taken the part he did, because I cannot reconcile it to my notions either of private friendship or parliamentary justice to put a man upon his trial, because I am sure he is innocent. There were, however, most powerful arguments urged by Fox that in a great measure reconciled me to the vote I gave, and indeed had they been much less and much weaker, I should most readily have gone with him. A Leader of a Party has a most difficult part imposed upon him on such an occasion. It is impossible he can be alone influenced by the abstract question of merit or demerit of the motion but of course must calculate in every way upon the effects of his vote. As a private of a party there is nothing so fatal to publick principle, or one’s own private respect and consequence, as acting for oneself upon great questions. I am more passionately attached every day to Party. I am certain that without it nothing can be done, and I am more certain from every day’s experience that the leader of the party to which I belong is as superior in talents, in enlightened views, in publick and private virtues, to all other party leaders as one human being can be to another. He must therefore give many, many votes that I may think are wrong, before I vote against him or not with him.

“I scarcely know an earthly blessing I would purchase at the expense of those sensations I feel towards the incomparable Charley!”

“2nd April.

“. . . The fact is I believe, as I have always done, that the Regal function will never more be exercised by him (George III.), and the Dr.* has most impudently assumed these functions in doing what he has done.

“And now again for speculation. I can swear to what Sheridan will try for, if the thing does not too suddenly come to a crisis. His insuperable vanity has suggested to him the brilliancy of being first with the Prince and governing his councils. He will, if he sees it practicable, try, and is now trying, to alienate the Prince from Fox, and to reconcile him to the wretched Addington. The effect of such a diabolical project is doubtless to be dreaded with a person so unsteady as the Prince; but then again there are

* Mr. Addington.

things that comfort me. If the Prince has a point on which he is uniform, it is a proud and just attachment to the old Nobility of the country, articles which fortunately find no place in the composition of the present ministers. His notion, too, of Sheridan, I believe, has not much to do with his qualities for a statesman. Devonshire House, too, is his constant haunt, where every one is against Sheridan; and where the Prince, at his own request, met Grey three weeks ago and offered him any pledge as a security for his calling Fox to his councils whenever he had the power. Master Sherry does not know this, and of course it must not be known; but I know it and am certain of the fact. Sheridan displays evident distrust of his own projects, and is basely playing an under game as Fox’s friend, in the event of defeat to him and his Dr. I never saw conduct more distinctly base than his.”

“1st May.

“. . . The enemy of mankind is Pitt. I detest from the bottom of my heart him and all his satellites. I am sure, too, that, independent of his dispositions, his mind is of a mean and little structure, much below the requisite for times like these—active, intriguing and most powerful, but all in detail, quite incapable of accompanying the elevated views of Fox.”

Addington stuck stiffly to his post, but the forces allied against him in the Commons proved irresistible in the end; in May, 1804, he resigned, and Pitt entered upon his last administration. Addington showed no overt resentment for the rough handling he had received, and joined Pitt’s Cabinet as President of the Council in January, 1805, accepting at the same time the peerage which he had previously declined. Pitt would have given Fox a share in the administration hardly inferior to his own, but the King would not hear of it, and thus was lost for ever the noble project of uniting the chief political parties for the defence of the Empire.

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“2nd May, 1804.

“. . . It is felt by the Pittites that the Prince and a Regency must be resorted to, and as the Prince evinced on every occasion the strongest decision in favor of Fox, the Pittites are preparing for a reciprocity of good offices. God send we may have a Regency, and then the cards are in our hands. I wish you had seen the party of which I formed one in the park just now. Lord Buckingham, his son Temple, Ld. Derby, Charles Grey,* Ld. Fitzwilliam, Canning, Ld. Morpeth† and Ld. Stafford.‡ . . . The four physicians were at Buckingham House this morning: feel certain he (the King) is devilish bad. . . .”

“3rd May.

“Under our present circumstances no news is good news, because it shows there are great difficulties in making the peace between the King and Pitt. . . . The King has communicated to him that he will see him to-morrow or Saturday, which communication Pitt immediately forwarded to Fox. There is, I hope, much value in these facts: they show, I hope, that the Monarch is done, and can no longer make Ministers; they show too, I hope, that Pitt thinks so. Why this delay at such a time if the King is well? Why this civility from Pitt to Fox? if the former did not suspect no good was to come of his interviews with his Master. We are all in better spirits—by ‘all,’ I mean the admirers of Fox and haters of Pitt. . . .”

“8th May.

“. . . I was too late for last night’s post, and besides I was struck dumb and lifeless by the elevation of that wretch Pitt to his former fatal eminence—sick to death, too, with something like a sensation of Fox’s disgrace and defeat, and of the

* Afterwards 2nd Earl Grey.

† Afterwards 6th Earl of Carlisle.

‡ 2nd Marquess of Stafford; created Duke of Sutherland in 1833.

termination of all our hopes. But I am better to-day; the Grenvilles and Wyndhamites have to a man stuck fast to Fox and refuse to treat with Pitt. The Prince, too, loads Fox with caresses, and swears his father’s exception to Fox alone is meant as the last and greatest of personal injuries to himself, because the King knows full well that Fox is the first favorite of the Prince.”

Park Place, June 2nd, 1804.

“. . . Well—I think, considering we have certainly been out-jockeyed by the villain Pitt, we are doing famously. Pitt, I think, is in a damnable dilemma; his character has received a cursed blow from the appearance of puzzle in his late conduct, from the wretched farce of [illegible] turning out Addington, and keeping those who were worse than him; and from his having produced no military plans yet, after all his anathemas against the late Ministers for their delay. The country, I now firmly believe, was tired of Pitt and even of the Court, and conceived some new men and councils, and above all an union of all great men, was a necessary experiment for the situation. Pitt has disappointed this wish and expectation, and has shown no necessity that has compelled him so to do. He has all the air of having acted a rapacious, selfish, shabby part; he is surrounded by shabby partizans; in comparison with his own relations, the Grenvilles, he is degraded; he has no novelty to recommend him; his Master* is on the wane, and to a certain extent is evidently hostile to him. In addition to all this, the daily and nightly attendance of Dr. Simmonds and four physicians at Buckingham House must inevitably increase the Prince’s power, and diminish that of Pitt. I saw these five Drs. and Dundass, the surgeon from Richmond, come out of Buckingham House with Pitt half an hour ago. Simmonds and one of the physicians allways return at five in the evening—the former for the night—the latter for some hours. I have watched and know their motions well. This must end surely at no distant period—a Regency—and then I hope

* George III.

the game’s our own! In the mean time, these dinners and this activity of the Prince are certainly doing good, and our friends are much more numerous than expected. We are a great body—the Prince at the head of us. Fox, Grey, &c., are all in great spirits. . . . Your humble servant partakes in the passing festivities of these Opposition grandees. I dine to-morrow at Lord Fitzwilliam’s, this day week at Carlton House; Monday I dined at Lord Derby’s. I really believe I have played my cards, so far, excellently with these people.”

General Sir John Moore to Mr. Creevey.

“Sandgate, 27th Aug., 1804.

“. . . We understand that Government have positive information that we are to be invaded, and I am told that Pitt believes it. The experience of the last twelve months has taught me to place little confidence in the information or belief of Ministers, and as the undertaking seems to me so arduous, and offering so little prospect of success, I cannot persuade myself that Bonoparte will be mad enough to attempt it. He will continue to threaten, by which means alone he can do us harm. The invasion would, I am confident, end in our glory and in his disgrace.

“The newspapers continue to mention secret expeditions, and have sometimes named me as one of the Generals to be employed. I put these upon a par with the invasion. We have at present no disposeable force, and, if we had, I see no object worthy upon which to risk it. Thus, without belief in invasion or foreign expeditions, my situation here becomes daily more irksome, and I am almost reduced to wish for peace. I am tired of the confinement, without the occupation, of war.”

In the following letter from Dr. Currie occurs the first mention of one, hitherto unheard of, with whom Creevey was destined to be long and intimately associated. Currie complains of the unfairness of Henry Brougham’s criticism of “Lord Lauderdale’s very ingenious book.”

“2nd October, 1804.

“. . . The review of his book in the Edinr. Review is every way unfair and foul. It is by a scatter-brained fellow, one Brougham, who wrote two volumes on colonial policy, the two practical objects of which were—to abolish the slave-trade, and to propose that we should join our armies to those of the French for the extirpation of the Negroes of St. Domingo. . . . He has got a sort of philosophical cant about him, and a way of putting obscure sentences together, which seem to fools to contain deep meaning, especially as an air of consummate petulance and confidence runs through the whole. He has been taken up, I am told, by Wilberforce, and is paying his court to Pitt. He is a notorious prostitute, and is setting himself up to sale. It seems Ld. Lauderdale offended him by refusing to be introduced to him, but it is to pay court to Pitt, depend on it, that he writes as he does. . . . You may mention this to Mr. Grey.”

Lord Henry Petty [afterwards 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne] to Mr. Creevey.

“Bath, Nov. 23rd, 1804.

“. . . [We are] within a few doors here of Ld. Thurlow’s house, which has been recently honor’d with a Royal visit, when, as you may suppose, the whole scene of ministerial intrigue and family negociation was laid open: some legal business of importance was also transacted, for one lawyer came down with the P., and another was sent for while he remained. . . . Most probably it relates to some arrangement for the Princess. I am really glad to find he has conducted himself with so much firmness, and at the same time with some decorum. I give him the more credit for it, as I suspect the councils of Carlton House are not composed of the most high-minded or immaculate statesmen.*

“I have received a long and interesting letter from Mr. Parnell with an account of the Catholic proceedings in Dublin, which have at last assumed a very formidable aspect. . . . He says—‘In a month’s time three millions of men will be formed into a well-disciplined and united body, headed by men of great wealth, and, what is better, great prudence. Weak as this Empire was in civil power, it is still further weakened by being divided with Foster;† so that I do not think I shall be mistaken in saying that all the moral force which influences men’s minds and their actions thro’ their opinions will be lodged in the hands of the Catholics; and unless the Irish Govt. can raise a rebellion, which I do not think they can, they will fall into an insignificance equal to their deserts.’ He adds that the meeting in Dublin was attended by upwards of eighty gentlemen, the poorest of whom has £2000 per ann. However the mere question of numbers may stand, Pitt’s situation must, I think, appear far more critical at the commencement of the ensuing, than at the close of the last, session. No army raised at home—no foreign connections made or improved—on the contrary, a new war unnecessarily undertaken, and ungraciously entered upon—the Catholic body united in their demands, founded on past promises, and a powerfull and unbroken Opposition ready and willing to support. If such a combination of circumstances does not shake the Treasury bench, what mortal power can? . . .”

* “At that period we had a kind of Cabinet, with whom I used to consult. They were the Dukes of York, Portland, Devonshire and Northumberland, Lord Guilford (that was Lord North), Lords Stormont, Moira and Fitzwilliam and Charles Fox.”—Statement by George IV. to J. W. Croker [The Croker Papers, i. 289].

† Right Hon. J. Foster, Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland.

CHAPTER II. 1805.

The following holograph note, without date, probably belongs to the year 1805, and is interesting as being written by the future William IV. on behalf of the future George IV.:—

H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence to Mr. Creevey [holograph].

“St. James’s, Friday night. “Dear Sir,

“The Prince desires you will meet at dinner here on Saturday the Eighteenth instant at six o’Clock Lord [illegible] and Sheridan. I hope I need not add how happy your presence will make me. I remain

“Yours sincerely, “William.”

Foreign politics during these years absorbed all the energies of Ministers, and diverted Pitt from those schemes of reform which undoubtedly lay near his heart. But the spirit of reform was awake, though it was crushed out of the plans of the Cabinet by stress of circumstance. The Opposition enjoyed more freedom and less responsibility. Creevey attached himself to that section of it which was foremost in hunting out abuses and proposing drastic measures of redress. At this time Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, was First Lord of the Admiralty. The 10th Report of the Commission appointed “to inquire into frauds and abuses in the Royal Navy” contained grave charges against Melville, who was accused in the House of Commons of malversation in his office of Treasurer of the Navy, committed in years subsequent to 1782. The division on 8th April showed 216 votes in each lobby, when the Speaker gave his casting vote in favour of Whitbread’s motion. Melville at once resigned, and his name was erased from the list of Privy Councillors. He was impeached before the House of Lords and acquitted, but not till 12th June, 1806, six months after Pitt’s death.

“I have ever thought,” wrote Lord Fitzharris, “that an aiding cause in Pitt’s death, certainly one that tended to shorten his existence, was the result of the proceedings against his old friend and colleague Lord Melville.”

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“13th March, 1805.

“. . . I am trying to learn my lesson as a future under-secretary or Secretary of the Treasury. . . . We had a famous debate on Sheridan’s motion: never anything was so hollow as the argument on our side. Sherry’s speech and reply were both excellent. In that part of his reply when he fired upon Pitt for his treachery to the Catholics, Pitt’s eyes started with defiance from their sockets, and seemed to tell him if he advanced an atom further he would have his life. Sherry left him a little alone and tickled him about the greatness of his mind and the good temper of Melville; and then he turned upon him again with redoubled fury. . . . Never has it fallen to my lot to hear such words before in publick or in private used by man to man.”

“April 13, 1805.

“. . . We have had indeed most famous sport with this same Leviathan, Lord Melville. His tumbling so soon was as unexpected by all of us as it was by himself or you. It was clear from the first that he was ruined sooner or later, but no one anticipated his defeat upon the first Attack, and supported as he was by the Addingtons as well as Pitts, and with the nostrum held out, too, of further enquiry by a secret Committee. The history of that celebrated night presents a wide field of attack upon Pitt under all the infinite difficulties of his situation; a clamour for reform in the expenditure of the publick money is at last found to be the touchstone of the House of Commons and of the publick. . . . Grey is to give notice immediately when we meet to bring in a bill appointing Commissioners to examine into abuses in the Army, in the Barracks—the Ordnance—the Commissariat Departments. This plan, if it is worth anything . . . must place Pitt in the cursedest dilemma possible. Can he refuse enquiry when it is so loudly called for? or, if he grants it, what must become of the Duke of York and the Greenwoods and Hammersleys and Delaneys, &c., &c., &c., whose tricks with money in these departments would whitewash those of Trotter by comparison. . . . I have no hesitation in saying that Pitt must be more than man to stand it. . . . You can form no notion of his fallen crest in the House of Commons—of his dolorous, distracted air. He betrayed Melville only to save himself, and so the Dundas’s think and say. His own ruin must come next, and that, I think, at no great distance. You may have perceived I have not deserted from my enquiries into less important jobs, although old Fordyce* got such assistance from Fox. The latter, I have reason to believe, repents most cursedly of that business. Grey and Whitbread have acted with unparalleled kindness to me. I mean to have another touch at Fordyce when we meet again. . . . At our

* John Fordyce, Esq., of Ayton, Berwickshire, Receiver-General of Land Tax in Scotland. He married Miss Catherine Maxwell of Monreith, sister of Jane, Duchess of Gordon.

first dinner after my motion about Fordyce, about three days after, there were, I daresay, fifty or sixty people, Fox in the chair. I was sulky and getting pretty drunk, when Fox call’d upon me for a toast—a publick man—and so I gave ‘Fordyce.’ This brought on a jaw, during which I got more and more drunk, but never departed from my creed that I was a betrayed man. However, say nothing of this, I beg. With reference to my own interest, I am sure I have been a gainer by all this.”

“London, May 11, 1805.

“Upon my soul I don’t know what to say for myself in vindication of my apparently abominable neglect of you; but these are really tempestuous times, and I bother myself with too many things and too many thoughts, and I get irritable, and I believe I eat and drink too much. The upshot of the thing is, that day after day passes and my intentions to write to you, and to do other good things, pass too.

“Our campaign for the last six weeks has been a marvellous one. . . . The country has surprised me as much as the votes of the 8th and 10th, and these meetings and resolutions have brought us safe into port, as far, at least, as relates to Melville. Pitt, too, is greatly, if not irreparably damaged by Melville’s defeat and by certain irregularities of his own. Whitbread’s select committee has done great additional injury to Melville, and has got sufficient matter established for a resolution against Pitt. The latter has confessed that he lent £40,000 to Boyd, Benfield and Co. out of money voted for Navy services, in order to enable them to make good their instalments upon Omnium. He has admitted, too, that he advanced them £100,000 in order to enable them to make a purchase for Government, at a time that he was informed by the Bank of their approaching ruin. A great part of that sum is now a debt to Government in consequence of their bankruptcy. This is a damned unpopular business—to advance publick money to two members of Parliament, who are bankrupts, too. It is a damned thing, too, for the friends and admirers of this once great man, to see him sent for by Whitbread, and to hear him examined for anything like money irregularities. He is, I am certain, infinitely injured in the estimation of the House of Commons; and then think of his situation in other respects—his right hand, Melville, lopped off—a superannuated Methodist at the head of the Admiralty, in order to catch the votes of Wilberforce and Co. now and then—all the fleets of France and Spain in motion—the finances at their utmost stretch—not an official person but Huskisson and Rose to do anything at their respective offices—publick business multiplied by opposition beyond all former example—and himself more averse to business daily—disunited with Addington—having quite lost his own character and with a King perfectly mad and involving his ministry in the damnedest scrapes upon the subject of expense. . . . I know Pitt’s friends think he can’t go on, and they all wish him not to try it. You may guess how the matter is when I tell you that Abercromby, the member for Edinburgh, and Hope, the member for your county, have struck and fled, declaring they won’t support Pitt any longer, whom they both pronounce to be a damned rascal. My authority is James Abercomby,* and I will answer for the truth of these facts.

“. . . Bennet† has been here, and is now returned to Bath. He is most desirous to know you, and I promised I would write to you and mention him by way of introduction. He is most amiable, occasionally most boring, but at all times most upright and honorable. Make him introduce you to Lord and Lady Tankerville. The former is very fond of me; he is a haughty, honorable man—has lived at one time in the heart of political leaders—was the friend of Lansdowne—has been in office several times, and is now a misanthrope, but very communicative and entertaining when he likes his man. His only remaining passion is for clever men, of which description he considers himself as one, tho’ certainly unjustly. Lady Tankerville has perhaps as much merit as any

* Hon. James Abercromby: Speaker 1835-9: created Lord Dunfermline 1839: died 1858.

† Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., 2nd son of 4th Earl of Tankerville.

woman in England.* She is, too, very clever, and has great wit; but she, like her Lord, is depress’d and unhappy. They compose together the most striking libel upon the blessing of Fortune; they are rich much beyond their desires or expenditure, they have the most elevated rank of their country, I know of nothing to disturb their happiness, and they are apparently the most miserable people I ever saw.”

“Thorndon [Lord Petre’s], 28th July, 1805.

“. . . You must know that I came out of the battle of the session] very sick of it and of my leaders. It appears to me we had Pitt upon his very last legs, and might have destroyed him upon the spot; instead of which, every opportunity for so doing was either lost or converted to a contrary purpose. Could the most inveterate enemy of Pitt have wished for anything better than to find him lending £40,000, appropriated by law to particular publick purposes, to two bankrupt merchant members of parliament who voted always with him?† and could the most pertinacious derider of Fox’s political folly have dared to conceive that Fox on such an occasion should acquit Pitt of all corruption, and should add likewise this sentiment to his opinion, that to have so detected him in corruption would have made him (Fox) the most miserable of men? . . . In short, between ourselves, my dear Doctor, I believe that Fox has no principle about publick money, and that he would give it away, if he had the power, in any way or for any job quite as disgusting as the worst of Pitt’s. It is a painful conclusion this to come to, and dreadfully diminishes one’s parliamentary amusement. You can have no conception how feverish I became about Fox’s conduct during this damned Athol business‡ I talked at him

* She was Emma, daughter and co-heiress of Sir James Colebrooke, Bart.

† Boyd, Benfield and Co., to whom Pitt advanced the sum named out of money voted for Navy services. They were Government agents, and shortly afterwards went bankrupt.

‡ The 3rd Duke of Athol having inherited the sovereignty of the Isle of Man through his wife, daughter and heiress of his uncle, the

in private, and no doubt vexed him infernally; but this you’ll say is but poor work, to be making myself enemies in the persons whose jobs I oppose, and to quarrel with my own friends for not opposing the jobs too. I must have some discussion with my conscience and my temper before the next campaign, to see whether I can’t go on a little more smoothly, and without prejudice to my interest. . . . I see a great deal of Windham. He has dined with me, but my opinion of him is not at all improved by my acquaintance with him. He is, at the same time, decidedly the most agreeable and witty in conversation of all these great men. . . .”

The following notes are without date, but the allusion to Tom Sheridan’s bride shows that they belong to the summer of 1805.

R. B. Sheridan, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Richmond Hill, “Monday—the third day of Peace and Tranquillity. “My dear Creevey,

“You must make my excuse to the Lord Mayor. Pray vouch that you should have brought me, but my cold is really so bad that I should infallibly lay myself up if I attempted to go. Here are pure air, quiet and innocence, and everything that suits me.

“Pray let me caution you not to expose yourself to the air after Dinner, as I find malicious people disposed to attribute to wine what was clearly the mere effect of the atmosphere. My last hour to your Ladies, as I am certainly going to die; till when, however,

“Yours truly, “R. B. S.”

2nd Duke, sold the same in 1765 to the Government for £70,000 and a pension of £2000 for their joint lives, but reserving their land rents. The 4th Duke, after two failures, succeeded in getting a bill through Parliament in 1805, settling one-fourth of the customs of the island upon him and the heirs general of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby. The bill was vigorously opposed, and Creevey denounced it as a job. The fourth of the customs was subsequently commuted for £409,000.

“Thursday evening. “My dear Creevey,

“If you don’t leave town to-morrow, come and eat your mutton with me in George St. and meet Adam and McMahon, and more than all, my Son and Daughter.

“Mrs. Creevey will excuse you at my request, and you will be a Piece of a Lion to have seen so early Mrs. T. S.,* whom I think lovely and engaging and interesting beyond measure, and, as far as I can judge, with a most superior understanding.

“Yours ever, “R. B. S.”

“Grosvenor Place, Saturday morning. “My dear Mrs. Creevey,

“I left Hester about two hours ago: she violently expects you. Remember we have a bed for you, a fishing rod for Creevey on Monday morning. If you will stay over Monday, Hester and Richmond Hill will make you quite well, and there are, not cockney, but classical Lions for Creevey to see. . . .”

It is difficult in these later days to realise the degree in which Royal personages were allowed, and even expected, to interfere with politics and the work of Parliament under the Hanoverian dynasty. It is notorious that, George III. having evinced his determination to have a Tory Cabinet, the Heir Apparent chose his friends and counsellors from the Whig Opposition, trafficking in seats in Parliament as keenly as any boroughmonger of them all. Among others whom he sought to enlist in his Parliamentary party

* Sheridan’s only son, Tom [1775-1817], married Caroline Henrietta Callander in 1805. She was a celebrated beauty, wrote three novels which had some popularity, and was the mother of four sons and three beautiful daughters—Mrs. Blackwood, afterwards Lady Dufferin, and lastly, Countess of Gifford; The Hon. Mrs. Norton, afterwards Lady Stirling-Maxwell of Keir; and the youngest, the Duchess of Somerset, Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton Tournament.

was the gentle and erudite Samuel Romilly, whose name must ever be associated with the unwearying efforts he made to reform and mitigate the atrociously sanguinary penal code of England. Measured by the extent of the immediate success of these efforts, Romilly’s influence upon the statute-book may be reckoned trifling, seeing that all he was able to effect against Lord Ellenborough and the House of Lords was the repeal, in 1812, of the law which prescribed the death penalty upon any soldier or mariner who should presume to beg, without permission from his commanding officer or a magistrate. Nevertheless the fruits of his life-work ripened after his untimely death by his own hand in 1818, and although he cannot be reckoned among the noisiest nor among the most profusely munificent philanthropists, the influence of Samuel Romilly was indeed one of the most powerful and beneficent ever exerted in the cause of humanity.

Samuel Romilly, K.C., to Mr. Creevey.

“Little Ealing, Sept. 23rd, 1805. “Dear Creevey,

“I have just received your letter. . . . It has indeed very much surprised me, and I am afraid my answer to it will occasion as much surprise in you. I cannot express to you how much flattered I am by the honor which the Prince of Wales does me. No event in the whole course of my life has been so gratifying to me. . . . I have formed no resolution to keep out of Parliament; on the contrary, it has long been my intention and is still my wish, to obtain a seat in the House, though not immediately.* If I had been a member from the beginning of the

* He was elected member for Queenborough in 1806, on taking office as Solicitor-General in “All the Talents.”

present Parliament, my vote would have been uniformly given in a way which I presume would have been agreeable to the Prince of Wales. . . . Upon all questions I should have voted with Mr. Fox; and yet, with all this, I feel myself obliged to decline the offer which his Royal Highness has the great condescension to make me. . . . When I was a young man, a seat in Parliament was offered me. It was offered in the handsomest manner imaginable: no condition whatever was annexed to it: I was told that I was to be quite independent, and was to vote and act just as I thought proper. I could not, however, relieve myself from the apprehension that . . . the person to whom I owed the seat would consider me, without perhaps being quite conscious of it himself, as his representative in Parliament . . . and that I should have some other than my own reason and conscience to account to for my public conduct. . . . In other respects, the offer was to me a most tempting one. I had then no professional business with which it would interfere. . . . As a young man, I was vain and foolish enough to imagine that I might distinguish myself as a public speaker. I weighed the offer very maturely, and in the end I rejected it. I persuaded myself that (altho’ that were not the case with others) it was impossible that the little talents which I possessed could ever be exerted with any advantage to the public, or any credit to myself, unless I came into Parliament quite independent, and answerable for my conduct to God and to my country alone. I had felt the temptation so strong that, in order to fortify myself against any others of the same kind, I formed to myself the unalterable resolution never, unless I held a public office, to come into Parliament but by a popular election, or by paying the common price for my seat. It is true that, when I formed this resolution, the possibility of a seat being offered me by the Prince of Wales had never entered into my thoughts, and that the rules which I had laid down to regulate my conduct ought perhaps to yield to such a circumstance as this. But yet I have so long acted on this resolution—the principles on which I formed it have become so much a part of the system of my life, and that life is now so far advanced, that I cannot convince myself—proud as I am of the distinction which his Royal Highness is willing to confer upon me, that I ought to accept it. The answer that I should wish to give to his Royal Highness is to express in the strongest terms my gratitude for the offer, but in the most respectful possible way to decline it; and at the same time to say that, if his R. H. thinks that my being in Parliament can be at all useful to the public, I shall be very glad to procure myself a seat the first opportunity that I can find. But the difficulty is to know how to give such an answer with propriety. I am fearful that it may be thought, in every way that it occurs to me to convey it, not sufficiently respectful to his R. H., and from this embarrassment I know not how to relieve myself. My only recourse is to trust that you will be able to do for me what I cannot do for myself. . . .”

Lord Henry Petty* to Mr. Creevey.

“Dublin, Sept. 15th, 1805. “Dear Creevey,

“I have for some time meditated writing to you, more, I confess, in the hope of procuring an answer, than with that of being able to communicate anything that can interest you from this country, altho’ it affords me a great deal of amusement as a traveller.

“The town of Dublin is full of fine buildings, fine streets, &c., but so ill placed and imperfectly finished as to give it the appearance of a great piece of patchwork, made up without skill and without attention. The Custom House is, however, an exception, and in every respect a noble edifice, in which there is no fault to be found except that old Beresford† is sumptuously lodged in it.

“The Union is become generally unpopular—more

* Chancellor of the Exchequer in “All the Talents,” 1806-7, and afterwards 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne.

† The Right Hon. John Beresford [1737-1805], for many years chairman of the Revenue Board of Ireland, greatly relied on by Pitt in affairs of Irish administration. He died 5th November, 1805.

so, I think, than it deserves; but the Irish pride is wounded with the hauteur and neglect of the English Govt. Castlereagh’s defeat was received with acclamation by all classes here, and the city would have been illuminated if the Mayor had not prevented it, giving rather awkwardly as an excuse that he did not think the occasion of sufficient magnitude.* . . .”

“Belfast, Oct. 24th, 1805.

“Many thanks for your letter, which it would have given me pleasure to receive anywhere, but particularly in the remote district of Munster where it found me, meditating upon the means of converting bogs into fields, rocks into quarries, and (not the least difficult of metamorphoses) Irish peasants into efficient labourers. We have, at the other extremity of the island, got into a more civilised region. Downshire is the Yorkshire of Ireland—the same universal appearance of wealth and industry, and even of neatness and comfort, prevails.

“The shops here are full of prints and songs against Castlereagh, the leavings of the election, which has produced a general effect throughout Ireland. I am far from thinking the elections here will be so completely under the controll of Govt. as many of their adversaries, as well as friends, suppose. There is in most counties a rising spirit of independence, and the weight of the Catholic interest will be strongly felt. I have been myself strongly sollicited by a number of freeholders of the Co. of Kerry to offer myself at the gen. election, nor should I have the least doubt of success, if I had not other views,

* Viscount Castlereagh [1769-1822] had been returned as Whig member for county Down in 1790, the election costing his father the almost incredible sum of £60,000. He joined the Tories in 1795, became Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1797, and incurred the hatred of many of his countrymen by the ardour and success with which he forwarded Pitt’s project of the Union, by buying up borough-mongers. But he was a strong advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation, and retired with Pitt when George III. set his veto upon the measure to which Pitt was pledged. He took office under Addington as President of the Board of Controul in 1802, and lost his seat on seeking re-election in 1805 when he was appointed War Minister under Pitt.

and could bring myself to face the tumult of an Irish contest, which would not be, I think, the most amusing of recreations.

“What great events are passing on the Continent. It is terrible to think that Pitt has so much of the fate of England and of Europe in his hands. I understand there has been some disagreement with Russia in consequence of the D. of Y. being intended for the command of a combined army of Russians and English, against which the Court of Petersburgh remonstrated. How disgracefull to be indebted to a foreign court for teaching us commonsense and our own interest at such a crisis!”

At Christmastide, 1805, Pitt received his deathblow. He had staked the existence of his country and the freedom of Europe upon the coalition of Austria, Russia, and England against Bonaparte and the destructive energies of France. But before these formidable allies could come into line, even before the British force had embarked for Germany, Napoleon swept through the Black Forest with 100,000 men. The Austrian commander Mack, posted on the Iller from Ulm to Memmingen, was surprised, taken in rear, and laid down his arms on 19th October, Werneck’s corps having done the like the day before to Murat. By the end of the month the Austrian field force of 80,000 was no more. When rumours reached Pitt of the capitulation of Ulm—“Don’t believe it,” he exclaimed; “it is all a fiction.” Next day the terrible news received confirmation; the shock could not be repaired, even by the glorious intelligence which arrived four days later of the destruction of the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar. That, indeed, revived shattered hopes for the moment, but it was followed closely by the news of Austerlitz, where the second partner in the coalition had been crushed with a loss of 26,000 men. Not only was the coalition at an end, but its author passed quickly into the shadow of death.

Hon. Charles Grey, M.P. (afterwards 2nd Earl Grey), to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, Dec. 29th, 1805.

“. . . Your details, which I had received from no other person, have left no doubt upon my mind. Of the delay of fresh intelligence I think nothing. I remember the same thing happened after the battle of Ulm, when the same inferences were drawn from it, and the opportunity taken to circulate the same reports of the defeat of the French. It seems Robert Ward sent to all the newspapers the paragraphs which you wd. see, asserting the Russian capitulation and Count Palfy’s letters to be forgeries; and this, I am assured, without the least authority for doing so, except his own foolish belief. All this, I agree with you, is as much calculated to hurt Pitt, when it is completely exposed, as the disasters themselves, and the folly of doing it is inconceivable. If the defeat of the 2nd* was as calamitous as I believe it to have been, it is nonsense to talk any more of Continental confederacies. The game is too desperate even for Pitt himself, desperate as he is; and the King of Prussia certainly would not expose himself alone, which in the first instance he must do, to all the power and vengeance of France. I am more inclined to think that they [Pitt’s Cabinet] really do flatter themselves against all evidence into a belief in these renewed battles and consequent changes of fortune. There is nothing too absurd for them in a military view. They are naturally confident and sanguine, and this is their last hope.”

* At Austerlitz.

CHAPTER III. 1805.

The following reminiscences were written by Mr. Creevey in 1821, but as they refer chiefly to his doings in 1805, they find their proper sequence in this place. At the time they were written Mr. Creevey’s feelings towards the Prince of Wales had undergone a complete revulsion; but in 1805 he was full of enthusiasm for the Heir Apparent, upon whom the hopes of the whole Whig party were fixed.

“It was in 1804 when I first began to take a part in the House of Commons, at which time the Prince of Wales was a most warm and active partizan of Mr. Fox and the Opposition. It was then that the Prince began first to notice me, and to stop his horse and talk with me when he met me in the streets; but I recollect only one occasion, in that or the succeeding year, that I dined at Carlton House, and that was with a party of the Opposition, to whom he gave various dinners during that spring. On that occasion Lord Dundas and Calcraft sat at the top and bottom of the table, the Prince in the middle at one side, with the Duke of Clarence next to him; Fox, Sheridan and about 30 opposition members of both Houses making the whole party. We walked about the garden before dinner without our hats.

“The only thing that made an impression upon me in favour of the Prince that day (always excepting his excellent manners and appearance of good humour) was his receiving a note during dinner which he flung across the table to Fox and asked if he must not answer it, which Fox assented to; and then, without the slightest fuss, the Prince left his place, went into another room and wrote an answer, which he brought to Fox for his approval, and when the latter said it was quite right, the Prince seemed delighted, which I thought very pretty in him, and a striking proof of Fox’s influence over him.

“During dinner he was very gracious, funny and agreeable, but after dinner he took to making speeches, and was very prosy as well as highly injudicious. He made a long harangue in favour of the Catholics and took occasion to tell us that his brother William and himself were the only two of his family who were not Germans—this too in a company which was, most of them, barely known to him. Likewise I remember his halloaing to Sir Charles Bamfyld at the other end of the table, and asking him if he had seen Mother Windsor* lately. I brought Lord Howick† and George Walpole home at night in my coach, and so ended that day.

“At the beginning of September, 1805, Mrs. Creevey and myself with her daughters went to Brighton to spend the autumn there, the Prince then living at the Pavilion. I think it was the first, or at furthest the second, day after our arrival, when my two eldest daughters‡ and myself were walking on the Steyne, and the Prince, who was sitting talking to old Lady Clermont, having perceived me, left her and came up to speak to me, when I presented my daughters to him. He was very gracious to us all and hoped he should see me shortly at dinner. In two or three days from this time I received an invitation to dine at the Pavilion. . . . Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom I had never been in a room with before, sat on one side of the Prince, and the Duke of Clarence on the other. . . . In the course of the evening the Prince took me up to the card table where Mrs. Fitzherbert was playing, and said—‘Mrs. Fitzherbert, I wish you would call upon Mrs. Creevey, and say

* A notorious procuress in King’s Place,

† Afterwards Earl Grey, the Prime Minister.

‡ His step-daughters, the Miss Ords.

from me I shall be happy to see her here.’ Mrs. Fitzherbert did call accordingly, and altho’ she and Mrs. Creevey had never seen each other before, an acquaintance began that soon grew into a very sincere and agreeable friendship, which lasted the remainder of Mrs. Creevey’s life. . . .

“. . . Immediately after this first visit from Mrs. Fitzherbert, Mrs. Creevey and her daughters became invited with myself to the Prince’s parties at the Pavilion, and till the first week in January—a space of about four months—except a few days when the Prince went to see the King at Weymouth, and a short time that I was in London in November, there was not a day we were not at the Pavilion, I dining there always once or twice a week, Mrs. Creevey frequently dining with me likewise, but in the evening we were always there.

“During these four months the Prince behaved with the greatest good humour as well as kindness to us all. He was always merry and full of his jokes, and any one would have said he was really a very happy man. Indeed I have heard him say repeatedly during that time that he never should be so happy when King, as he was then.

“I suppose the Courts or houses of Princes are all alike in one thing, viz., that in attending them you lose your liberty. After one month was gone by, you fell naturally and of course into the ranks, and had to reserve your observations till you were asked for them. These royal invitations are by no means calculated to reconcile one to a Court. To be sent for half an hour before dinner, or perhaps in the middle of one’s own, was a little too humiliating to be very agreeable.

“. . . Lord Hutchinson* was a great feature at the Pavilion. He lived in the house, or rather the one adjoining it, and within the grounds. . . . As a military man he was a great resource at that time, as we were in the midst of expectations about the

* Brother of the 1st Earl of Donoughmore; a general officer, succeeded Sir Ralph Abercromby in command of the army in Egypt, and was raised to the peerage in 1801, with a pension of £2000. Died in 1832.

Austrians and Buonaparte, and the battle which we all knew would so soon take place between them. It was a funny thing to hear the Prince, when the battle had taken place, express the same opinion as was given in the London Government newspapers, that it was all over with the French—that they were all sent to the devil, and the Lord knows what. Maps were got out to satisfy everybody as to the precise ground where the battle had been fought and the route by which the French had retreated. While these operations were going on in one window of the Pavilion, Lord Hutchinson took me privately to another, when he put into my hand his own private dispatch from Gordon, then Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, giving him the true account of the battle of Austerlitz, with the complete victory of the French. This news, unaccountable as it may appear, was repeated day after day at the Pavilion for nearly a week; and when the truth began at last to make its appearance in the newspapers, the Prince puts them all in his pockets, so that no paper was forthcoming at the Pavilion, instead of half-a-dozen, the usual number. . . . We used to dine pretty punctually at six, the average number being about sixteen. . . . Mrs. Fitzherbert always dined there, and mostly one other lady—Lady Downshire very often, sometimes Lady Clare or Lady Berkeley or Mrs. Creevey. Mrs. Fitzherbert was a great card-player, and played every night. The Prince never touched a card, but was occupied in talking to his guests, and very much in listening to and giving directions to the band. At 12 o’clock punctually the band stopped, and sandwiches and wine and water handed about, and shortly after the Prince made a bow and we all dispersed.

“I had heard a great deal of the Prince’s drinking, but, during the time that I speak of, I never saw him the least drunk but once, and I was myself pretty much the occasion of it. We were dining at the Pavilion, and poor Fonblanque, a dolorous fop of a lawyer, and a member of Parliament too, was one of the guests. After drinking some wine, I could not resist having some jokes at Fonblanque’s expense, which the Prince encouraged greatly. I went on and invented stories about speeches Fonblanque had made in Parliament, which were so pathetic as to have affected his audience to tears, all of which inventions of mine Fonblanque denied to be true with such overpowering gravity that the Prince said he should die of it if I did not stop. . . . In the evening, at about ten or eleven o’clock, he said he would go to the ball at the Castle, and said I should go with him. So I went in his coach, and he entered the room with his arm through mine, everybody standing and getting upon benches to see him. He was certainly tipsey, and so, of course, was I, but not much, for I well remember his taking me up to Mrs. Creevey and her daughters, and telling them he had never spent a pleasanter day in his life, and that ‘Creevey had been very great.’ He used to drink a great quantity of wine at dinner, and was very fond of making any newcomer drunk by drinking wine with him very frequently, always recommending his strongest wines, and at last some remarkably strong old brandy which he called Diabolino.

“It used to be the Duke of Norfolk’s custom to come over every year from Arundel to pay his respects to the Prince and to stay two days at Brighton, both of which he always dined at the Pavilion. In the year 1804, upon this annual visit, the Prince had drunk so much as to be made very seriously ill by it, so that in 1805 (the year that I was there) when the Duke came, Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was always the Prince’s best friend, was very much afraid of his being again made ill, and she persuaded the Prince to adopt different stratagems to avoid drinking with the Duke. I dined there on both days, and letters were brought in each day after dinner to the Prince, which he affected to consider of great importance, and so went out to answer them, while the Duke of Clarence went on drinking with the Duke of Norfolk. But on the second day this joke was carried too far, and in the evening the Duke of Norfolk showed he was affronted. The Prince took me aside and said—‘Stay after everyone is gone tonight. The Jockey’s got sulky, and I must give him a broiled bone to get him in good humour again.’ So of course I stayed, and about one o’clock the Prince of Wales and Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Norfolk and myself sat down to a supper of broiled bones, the result of which was that, having fallen asleep myself, I was awoke by the sound of the Duke of Norfolk’s snoring. I found the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence in a very animated discussion as to the particular shape and make of the wig worn by George II.

“Among other visitors to the Pavilion came Sheridan, with whom I was then pretty intimate, though perhaps not so much so as afterwards. I was curious to see him and the Prince daily in this way, considering the very great intimacy there had been between them for so many years. Nothing, certainly, could be more creditable to both parties than their conduct. I never saw Sheridan during the period of three weeks (I think it was) take the least more liberty in the Prince’s presence than if it had been the first day he had ever seen him. On the other hand, the Prince always showed by his manner that he thought Sheridan a man that any prince might be proud of as his friend.

“So much for manners; but I was witness to a kind of altercation between them in which Sheridan could make no impression on the Prince. The latter had just given Sheridan the office of Auditor of the Duchy of Cornwall, worth about £1200 per annum, and Sheridan was most anxious that the Prince should transfer the appointment to his son, Tom Sheridan, who was just then married. What Sheridan’s object in this was, cannot be exactly made out; whether it really was affection for Tom, or whether it was to keep the profit of the office out of the reach of his creditors, or whether it was to have a young life in the patent instead of his own. Whichever of these objects he had in view, he pursued it with the greatest vehemence; so much so, that I saw him cry bitterly one night in making his supplication to the Prince. The latter, however, was not to be shaken . . . he resisted the demand upon the sole ground that Sheridan’s reputation was such, that it made it not only justifiable, but most honourable to him, the Prince, to make such a selection for the office. . . .

“This reminds me of another circumstance relating to the same office when in Sheridan’s possession. In the year 1810, Mrs. Creevey, her daughters and myself were spending our summer at Richmond. Sheridan and his wife (who was a relation and particular friend of Mrs. Creevey’s) came down to dine and stay all night with us. There being no other person present after dinner, when the ladies had left the room, Sheridan said:—

“‘A damned odd thing happened to me this morning, and Hester [Mrs. Sheridan] and I have agreed in coming down here to-day that no human being shall ever know of it as long as we live; so that nothing but my firm conviction that Hester is at this moment telling it to Mrs. Creevey could induce me to tell it to you.’

“Then he said that the money belonging to this office of his in the Duchy being always paid into Biddulph’s or Cox’s bank (I think it was) at Charing Cross, it was his habit to look in there. There was one particular clerk who seemed always so fond of him, and so proud of his acquaintance, that he every now and then cajoled him into advancing him £10 or £20 more than his account entitled him to. . . . That morning he thought his friend looked particularly smiling upon him, so he said:—

“‘I looked in to see if you could let me have ten pounds.’

“‘Ten pounds!’ replied the clerk; ‘to be sure I can, Mr. Sheridan. You’ve got my letter, sir, have you not?’

“‘No,’ said Sheridan, ‘what letter?’

“It is literally true that at this time and for many, many years Sheridan never got twopenny-post letters,* because there was no money to pay for them, and the postman would not leave them without payment.

“‘Why, don’t you know what has happened, sir?’ asked the clerk. ‘There is £1300 paid into your account. There has been a very great fine paid for one of the Duchy estates, and this £1300 is your percentage as auditor.’

* The charge at this time for letters sent and delivered within the metropolitan district was only 2d., payable by the recipient; but country letters were charged from 10d. to 1s. 6d. and more, according to distance.

“Sheridan was, of course, very much set up with this £1300, and, on the very next day upon leaving us, he took a house at Barnes Terrace, where he spent all his £1300. At the end of two or three months at most, the tradespeople would no longer supply him without being paid, so he was obliged to remove. What made this folly the more striking was that Sheridan had occupied five or six different houses in this neighbourhood at different periods of his life, and on each occasion had been driven away literally by non-payment of his bills and consequent want of food for the house. Yet he was as full of his fun during these two months as ever he could be—gave dinners perpetually and was always on the road between Barnes and London, or Barnes and Oatlands (the Duke of York’s), in a large job coach upon which he would have his family arms painted. . . .

“. . . As I may not have another opportunity of committing to paper what little I have of perfect recollection of what Sheridan told me in our walks at Brighton respecting his early life, and as he certainly was a very extraordinary man, I may as well insert it here.

“He was at school at Harrow, and, as he told me, never had any scholastic fame while he was there, nor did he appear to have formed any friendships there. He said he was a very low-spirited boy, much given to crying when alone, and he attributed this very much to being neglected by his father, to his being left without money, and often not taken home at the regular holidays. From Harrow he went to live in John Street, out of Soho Square, whether with his father or some other instructor, I forget, but he dwelt upon the two years he spent there as those in which he acquired all the reading and learning he had upon any subject.

“At the end of this time his father determined to open a kind of academy at Bath—the masters or instructors to be Sheridan the father, his eldest son Charles, and our Sheridan, who was to be rhetorical usher. According to his account, however, the whole concern was presently laughed off the stage, and then Sheridan described his happiness as beginning. He danced with all the women at Bath, wrote sonnets and verses in praise of some, satires and lampoons upon others, and in a very short time became the established wit and fashion of the place.

“It was at this period of his life he fell in love with Miss Lindley, whom he afterwards married, but she was carried off by her father at that time to a convent in France, to be kept out of his way. Then it was he became embroiled with Mr. Mathews, who was likewise a lover of Miss Lindley, as well as her libeller. Sheridan fought two duels with Mr. Mathews upon this subject, both times with swords. The first was in some hotel or tavern in Henrietta St., Covent Garden, when Mathews was disarmed and begged his life. Upon Mr. Mathew’s return to Bath, Sheridan used his triumph with so little moderation, that Mr. Mathews left Bath to live in Wales; but soon he was induced to believe that he had compromised his honour by quitting Bath and leaving his reputation at the mercy of Sheridan. Accordingly, a messenger arrived from him to Sheridan, with a written certificate in favour of Mathews’s undoubted honour in the former affair, to be signed by Sheridan, or else the messenger was to deliver him a second challenge.

“Sheridan preferred the latter course of proceeding, and the duel was fought at King’s Weston (if I recollect right). According to Sheridan’s account, never was anything so desperate. Sheridan’s sword broke in a point blank thrust into Mathews’s chest; upon this he closed, and they both fell, Mathews uppermost; but, in falling, his sword broke likewise, sticking into the earth and snapping. However, he drew the sharp end out of the ground, and with this he stabbed Sheridan in the face and body, over and over again, till it was thought he must die. Sheridan named both the seconds, but I forget them. He said they were both cut for ever afterwards for not interfering. He said, likewise, there was a regular proceeding before the Mayor of Bristol, on the ground that Mr. Mathews had worn some kind of armour to protect him, which broke Sheridan’s sword. . . . Sheridan was taken to some hotel at Bath, where his life for some time was despaired of, but. . . he rallied and recovered.

“He then lived for some time at Waltham Cross, and was in bad health, but used to steal up to town to see and hear Miss Lindley in publick, though he was under an engagement with her family not to pursue her any more in private. At length, however, they met, and eventually were married. Miss Lindley’s reputation at this time was so great, that her engagements for the year were £5000. This resource, however, Sheridan would not listen to her receiving any longer, altho’ he himself had not a single farthing. He said she might sing to oblige the King or Queen, but to receive money while she was his wife was quite out of the question. Upon which old Lindley, her father, said this might do very well for him—Mr. Sheridan—but that for him—Mr. Lindley—it was a very hard case; that his daughter had always been a very good daughter to him, and very generous to him out of the funds she gained by her profession, and that it was very hard upon him to be cut off all at once from this supply. This objection was disposed of by Sheridan in the following manner.

“Miss Lindley had £3000 of her own, of which Sheridan gave her father £2000. With the remaining £1000, the only fortune Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan began the world with, he took a cottage at Slough, where they lived, he said, most happily, a gig and horse being their principal luxury, with a man to look after both the master and his horse. But by the end, or before the end, of the year, the £1000 was drawing rapidly to a finish, and then it was that Sheridan thought of play-writing as a pecuniary resource, and he wrote The Rivals. Having got an introduction to the theatre, he took his play there, and finally was present to see it acted, but would not let Mrs. Sheridan come up from Slough for the same purpose. The Rivals, upon its first performance, was damned; when Sheridan got to Slough and told his wife of it she said:

“‘My dear Dick, I am delighted. I always knew it was impossible you could make anything by writing plays; so now there is nothing for it but my beginning to sing publickly again, and we shall have as much money as we like.’

“‘No,’ said Sheridan, ‘that shall never be. I see where the fault was; the play was too long, and the parts were badly cast.’

“So he altered and curtailed the play, and had address or interest enough to get the parts newly cast. At the expiration of six weeks it was acted again, and with unbounded applause. His fame as a dramatick writer was settled from that time. When it was he became proprietor of Drury Lane Theatre, or how it was accomplished, I did not learn from him, but it was the only property he ever possessed, and, with the commonest discretion on his part, would have made him a most affluent man.

“Sheridan’s talents, displayed in his plays, procured him very shortly both male and female admirers among the higher orders. The families of Lord Coventry and Lord Harrington he spoke of as his first patrons. When it was he begun with politicks, I don’t recollect, but he was a great parliamentary reformer the latter end of the American war, and one of a committee of either five or seven (I forget which number) who used to sit regularly at the Mansion House upon this subject.

“In 1780, the year of a general election, his object was to get into Parliament if possible, and he was going to make a trial at Wootton-Bassett. The night before he set out, being at Devonshire House and everybody talking about the general election, Lady Cork* asked Sheridan about his plans, which led to her saying that she had often heard her brother Monckton say he thought an opposition man might come in for Stafford, and that if, in the event of Sheridan failing at Wootton, he liked to try his chance at Stafford, she would give him a letter of introduction to her brother.

“This was immediately done. Sheridan went to Wootton-Bassett, where he had not a chance. Then he went to Stafford, produced Lady Cork’s letter, offered himself as a candidate, and was elected. For Stafford he was member till 1806—six-and-twenty years. I remember asking him if he could fix upon any one point of time in his life that was decidedly happier than all the rest, and he said certainly—it was after dinner the day of this first election for Stafford,

* Second wife of the 7th Earl, youngest daughter of the 1st Viscount Galway.

when he stole away by himself to speculate upon those prospects of distinguishing himself which had been opened to him.

“I did not hear any further of his own history from himself than this first getting into parliament. It has been a constant subject of regret to me that I did not put down at the time all he told me, because it was much more than I have stated; but I feel confident my memory is correct in what I have written.

“To return to Sheridan at Brighton in the year 1805. His point of difference with the Prince being at an end, Sheridan entered into whatever fun was going on at the Pavilion as if he had been a boy, tho’ he was then 55 years of age. Upon one occasion he came into the drawing-room disguised as a police officer to take up the Dowager Lady Sefton* for playing at some unlawful game; and at another time, when we had a phantasmagoria at the Pavilion, and were all shut up in perfect darkness, he continued to seat himself upon the lap of Madame Gerobtzoff [?], a haughty Russian dame, who made row enough for the whole town to hear her.

“The Prince, of course, was delighted with all this; but at last Sheridan made himself so ill with drinking, that he came to us soon after breakfast one day, saying he was in a perfect fever, desiring he might have some table beer, and declaring that he would spend that day with us, and send his excuses by Bloomfield for not dining at the Pavilion. I felt his pulse, and found it going tremendously, but instead of beer, we gave him some hot white wine, of which he drank a bottle, I remember, and his pulse subsided almost instantly. . . . After dinner that day he must have drunk at least a bottle and a half of wine. In the evening we were all going to the Pavilion, where there was to be a ball, and Sheridan said he would go home, i.e., to the Pavilion (where he slept) and would go quietly to bed. He desired me to tell the Prince, if he asked me after him, that he was far from well, and was gone to bed.

* Isabella, daughter of 2nd Earl of Harrington, and widow of the 9th Viscount and 1st Earl of Sefton.

“So when supper was served at the Pavilion about 12 o’clock, the Prince came up to me and said:

“‘What the devil have you done with Sheridan to-day, Creevey? I know he has been dining with you, and I have not seen him the whole day.’

“I said he was by no means well and had gone to bed; upon which the Prince laughed heartily, as if he thought it all fudge, and then, taking a bottle of claret and a glass, he put them both in my hands and said:

“‘Now Creevey, go to his bedside and tell him I’ll drink a glass of wine with him, and if he refuses, I admit he must be damned bad indeed.’

“I would willingly have excused myself on the score of his being really ill, but the Prince would not believe a word of it, so go I must. When I entered Sheridan’s bedroom, he was in bed, and, his great fine eyes being instantly fixed upon me, he said:—

“‘Come, I see this is some joke of the Prince, and I am not in a state for it.’

“I excused myself as well as I could, and as he would not touch the wine, I returned without pressing it, and the Prince seemed satisfied he must be ill.

“About two o’clock, however, the supper having been long over, and everybody engaged in dancing, who should I see standing at the door but Sheridan, powdered as white as snow, as smartly dressed as ever he could be from top to toe. . . . I joined him and expressed my infinite surprise at this freak of his. He said:

“‘Will you go with me, my dear fellow, into the kitchen, and let me see if I can find a bit of supper.’

“Having arrived there, he began to play off his cajolery upon the servants, saying if he was the Prince they should have much better accommodation, &c., &c., every one waiting upon him. He ate away and drank a bottle of claret in a minute, returned to the ballroom, and when I left it between three and four he was dancing.

“In the beginning of November, as Sheridan was returning to London, and I was going there for a short time, he proposed our going together, and nothing would serve him but that we must be two days on the road: that nothing was so foolish as hurrying oneself in such short days, and nothing so pleasant as living at an inn; that the Cock at Sutton was an excellent place to dine and sleep at; that he himself was very well known there, and would write and have a nice little dinner ready for our arrival.

“We set off in a job chaise of his, Edwards the box keeper of Drury Lane being on the dicky box, for he always acted as Sheridan’s valet when he left London. Before we had travelled many miles, having knocked my foot against some earthenware vessel in the chaise, I asked Sheridan what it could be, and he replied he dared say it was something Edwards was taking to his wife. Arriving in the evening at Sutton, I found there was not a soul in the house who had ever seen Sheridan before; that his letter had never arrived, and that no dinner was ready for us. I heard him muttering on about its being an extraordinary mistake, that his particular friend was out of the way, and so forth, but that he knew the house to be an excellent one, and no where that you could have a nicer little dinner. He went fidgetting in and out of the room, without exciting the least suspicion on my part, till dinner was announced. Then I found his fun had been to bring the dinner with him from the Pavilion. The bowl I had kicked contained the soup, and there were the best fish, woodcocks and everything else, with claret and sherry and port all from the same place.

“Among other persons who came to pay their respects to the Prince during the Autumn of 1805 was Mr. Hastings,* whom I had never seen before excepting at his trial in Westminster Hall. He and Mrs. Hastings came to the Pavilion, and I was present when the Prince introduced Sheridan to him, which was curious, considering that Sheridan’s parliamentary fame had been built upon his celebrated speech against Hastings. However, he lost no time in attempting to cajole old Hastings, begging him to believe that any part he had ever taken against him was purely political, and that no one had a greater respect for him than himself, &c., &c., upon which old Hastings said with great gravity that ‘it would be a great consolation to him in his

* Warren Hastings.

declining days if Mr. Sheridan would make that sentence more publick;’ but Sheridan was obliged to mutter and get out of such an engagement as well as he could.

“Another very curious person I saw a great deal of this autumn of 1805, sometimes at the Pavilion, sometimes at Mrs. Clowes’s, was Lord Thurlow, to whom the Prince always behaved with the most marked deference and attention. I had never seen him but once before, and the occasion was an extraordinary one. Lady Oxford, who then had a house at Ealing (it was in 1801) had, by Lord Thurlow’s desire, I believe, at all events with his acquiescence, invited Horne-Tooke to dinner to meet him. Lord Thurlow never had seen him since he had prosecuted him when Attorney-General for a libel in 1774 (I believe it was), when the greatest bitterness was shown on both sides, so that the dinner was a meeting of great curiosity to us who were invited to it. Sheridan was there and Mrs. Sheridan, the late Lord Camelford, Sir Francis Burdett, Charles Warren, with several others and myself. Tooke evidently came prepared for a display, and as I had met him repeatedly, and considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen, in point of skill and dexterity (and, if at all necessary, in lying), I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his topsail to him. But it seemed as if the very look and voice of Thurlow scared him out of his senses, and certainly nothing could be much more formidable. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and tho’ not a drinker, was very drunk. But all would not do; he was perpetually trying to distinguish himself, and Thurlow constantly laughing at him.

“In the autumn of 1805, Thurlow had declined greatly in energy from the time I refer to. It was the year only before his death. He used to read or ride out in the morning, and his daughter Mrs. Brown, and Mr. Sneyd, the clergyman of Brighton, occupied themselves in procuring any stranger or other person who they thought would be agreeable to the old man to dine with him, the party being thus 10 or 12 every day, or more. I had the good fortune to be occasionally there with Mrs. Creevey. . . . However rough Thurlow might be with men, he was the politest man in the world to ladies. Two or three hours were occupied by him at dinner in laying wait for any unfortunate slip or ridiculous observation that might be made by any of his male visitors, whom, when caught, he never left hold of, till I have seen the sweat run down their faces from the scrape they had got into.

“Having seen this property of his, I took care, of course, to keep clear of him, and have often enjoyed extremely seeing the figures which men have cut who came with the evident intention of shewing off before him. Curran, the Irish lawyer, was a striking instance of this. I dined with him at Thurlow’s one day, and Thurlow just made as great a fool of him as he did formerly of Tooke.

“Thurlow was always dressed in a full suit of cloaths of the old fashion, great cuffs and massy buttons, great wig, long ruffles, &c.; the black eyebrows exceeded in size any I have ever seen, and his voice, tho’ by no means devoid of melody, was a kind of rolling, murmuring thunder. He had great reading, particularly classical, and was a very distinguished, as well as most daring, converser. I never heard of any one but Mr. Hare who had fairly beat him, and this I know from persons who were present, Hare did more than once, at Carlton House and at Woburn.

“Sir Philip Francis, whom I knew intimately, and who certainly was a remarkably quick and clever man, was perpetually vowing vengeance against Thurlow, and always fixing his time during this autumn of 1805 for ‘making an example of the old ruffian,’ either at the Pavilion or wherever he met him; but I have seen them meet afterwards, and tho’ Thurlow was always ready for battle, Francis, who on all other occasions was bold as a lion, would never stir.

“The grudge he owed to Thurlow was certainly not slightly grounded. When Francis and Generals Clavering and Manson were sent to India in 1773, to check Hastings in his career, their conduct was extolled to the skies by our party in parliament, while, on the other hand, Lord Thurlow in the House of Lords said that the greatest misfortune to India and to England was that the ship which carried these three gentlemen out had not gone to the bottom. . . .

“. . . During the autumn of 1805 the Prince was a very great politician. He considered himself as the Head of the Whig Party, and was perpetually at work cajoling shabby people, as he thought, into becoming Whigs out of compliment to him, but who ate his dinners and voted with the Ministers just the same. I remember dining with him at George Johnstone’s at Brighton—the Duke of Clarence, old Thurlow, Lord and Lady Bessborough and a very large party, of which Suza, the Portuguese Ambassador was one. After dinner the Prince, addressing himself to Suza, described himself as being the Head of the great Whig party in England, and then entered at great length upon the merit of Whig principles, and the great glory it was to him, the Prince, to be the head of a party who advocated such principles. Finally, he appealed to Suza for his opinion upon that subject; but the Portuguese was much too wary to be taken in. He thanked the Prince with great force, ability and propriety for his condescension in giving him the information he had done, but, as he added, the subject was an entirely new one to him, he prayed his Royal Highness would have the goodness to excuse him giving an opinion upon it, till he had considered it more maturely.

“It seemed at that time the Prince’s politicks were almost always uppermost with him . . . Upon one occasion I remember dining with the Prince at Lady Downshire’s, Lord Winslow and different people being there. After dinner he said to me privately: ‘Creevey, you must go home with me.’ So when he went he took me in his coach, and when we got to the Pavilion he said: ‘Now, Creevey, you and I must go over the House of Commons together, and see who are our friends and who are our enemies.’ Accordingly, he got his own red book, and we went over the House of Commons name by name. He had one mark for a friend and another for an enemy, and of course every member of the Government who was then in the House of Commons had the enemy’s mark put against his name. . . . Having made all these marks himself, he gave me the book, and told me to take it home with me. At this time Lord Castlereagh had just lost his election for the county of Down, entirely from Lady Downshire’s opposition. She had gone over to Ireland expressly for that purpose.

“When the Prince returned from a visit of two or three days to the King at Weymouth, he was very indiscreet in talking at his table about the Kings infirmities, there being such people as Miles Peter Andrews and Sir George Shee present, in common with other spies and courtiers. So when he described the King as so blind that he had nearly fallen into some hole at Lord Dorchester’s, I said—‘Poor man, Sir!’ in a very audible and serious tone, and he immediately took the hint and stopt.

“Upon another occasion the Duke of York* came to the Pavilion. It was some military occasion—a review of the troops, I believe—and there was a great assemblage of military people there. Nothing could be so cold and formal as the Prince’s manner to the Duke. As he was coming up the room towards the Prince, the Prince said to me in an undertone—‘Do you know the Duke of York.’ On my replying—‘No, sir,’ he said—‘He’s a damned bad politician, but I’ll introduce you to him,’ and this he did, with great form.

“Amongst other things, the Prince took to a violent desire of bringing Romilly into Parliament, and having found that I was well acquainted with him, he commissioned me to write to Romilly, and to offer him a seat in the House of Commons in the Prince’s name. This of course I did, but, in so doing, I did not hesitate to express my own suspicions as to the reality of the thing offered, nor did I withhold my opinion as to Romilly’s doing best to decline it, could it even be accomplished. I begged him, however, to write me two answers, one for the Prince’s inspection, and the other for my own private instruction, if he was desirous the project should be entertained at all. Romilly, however, as I was sure he would, wrote me an answer that was an unequivocal, tho’ of course very grateful, refusal of the favour offered him.†

“Having mentioned a dinner I had at Johnstone’s in Brighton in 1805, I can’t help adverting to what took place that day. The late King (George IV.) and

* Commander-in-chief.

† See p. 40, supra.

the present one (William IV.) both dined there, and it so happened that there was a great fight on the same day between the Chicken* and Gully,† The Duke of Clarence was present at it, and as the battle, from the interference of Magistrates, was fought at a greater distance from Brighton than was intended, the Duke was very late, and did not arrive till dinner was nearly over. I mention the case on account of the change that has since taken place as to these parties. Gully was then a professional prize-fighter from the ranks, and fighting for money. Since that time, the Duke of Clarence has become Sovereign of the country, and Gully has become one of its representatives in parliament. As Gully always attends at Court, as well as in the House of Commons, it would be curious to know whether the King, with his accurate recollection of all the events of his life, and his passion for adverting to them, has ever given to Gully any hint of that day’s proceedings. There is, to be sure, one reason why he should not, for Gully was beaten that day by the Chicken, as I have reason to remember; for Lord Thurlow and myself being the two first to arrive before dinner, he asked if I had heard any account of the fight. I repeated what I had heard in the streets, viz. that Gully had given the Chicken so tremendous a knock-down blow at starting, that the latter had never answered to him; so when the Duke of Clarence came and told us that Gully was beat, old Thurlow growled out from his end of the table—‘Mr. Creevey, think an action would lie against you by the Chicken for taking away his character.’

“Lord Thurlow was a great drinker of port wine, and Johnstone, who was the most ridiculous toady of great men, said to him that evening—‘I am afraid, my lord, the port wine is not so good as I could wish;’

* Henry Pearce, the “Game Chicken,” champion of England.

† John Gully [1783-1863], son of a publican and butcher, made his début in the prize-ring in 1805, and was recognised as virtual, though not formal, champion after Pearce, the Game Chicken, retired at the end of that year. In 1808 he became a bookmaker and publican. He made a good deal of money; became a successful owner of racehorses; and, having purchased Ackworth Park, near Pontefract, represented that borough in Parliament from 1832 till 1837.

upon which old Thurlow growled again—‘I have tasted better!’”

The foregoing narrative will enable the reader to understand many of the allusions in the following letters written by Mrs. Creevey from Brighton to her husband while he was attending to his parliamentary duties. It must be understood also that Creevey was quite sensible of the advantage which might be expected in regard to his own political prospects from the favour he had found in the royal leader of the Whigs. The King’s madness might return on any day; the Prince of Wales would become Regent, and nobody doubted that, so soon as he had the power, he would dismiss the Tory Ministers of his father. Mrs. Creevey, therefore, loyally played up to her husband’s hand, and, like her lord, continued charitably blind to the character and habits of their master. Like all who ever made her acquaintance, both Mr. and Mrs. Creevey speak enthusiastically of the unfortunate Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom the Prince had married in 1785.

Mrs. Creevey to Mr. Creevey in London.

“Brighton, Oct. 29th, 1805.

“. . . Oh, this wicked Pavillion! we were there till ½ past one this morng., and it has kept me in bed with the headache till 12 to-day. . . . The invitation did not come to us till 9 o’clock: we went in Lord Thurlow’s carriage, and were in fear of being too late; but the Prince did not come out of the dining-room till 11. Till then our only companions were Lady Downshire and Mr. and Miss Johnstone—the former very good-natured and amiable. . . . When the Prince appeared, I instantly saw he had got more wine than usual, and it was still more evident that the German Baron was extremely drunk. The Prince came up and sat by me—introduced McMahon to me, and talked a great deal about Mrs. Fitzherbert—said she had been ‘delighted’ with my note, and wished much to see me. He asked her ‘When?’—and he said her answer was—‘Not till you are gone, and I can see her comfortably.’ I suppose this might be correct, for Mac told me he had been ‘worrying her to death’ all the morning.

“It appears to me I have found a true friend in Mac.* He is even more foolish than I expected; but I shall be disappointed if, even to you, he does not profess himself my devoted admirer.

“Afterwards the Prince led all the party to the table where the maps lie, to see him shoot with an air-gun at a target placed at the end of the room. He did it very skilfully, and wanted all the ladies to attempt it. The girls and I excused ourselves on account of our short sight; but Lady Downshire hit a fiddler in the dining-room, Miss Johnstone a door and Bloomfield the ceiling. . . . I soon had enough of this, and retired to the fire with Mac. . . . At last a waltz was played by the band, and the Prince offered to waltz with Miss Johnstone, but very quietly, and once round the table made him giddy, so of course it was proper for his partner to be giddy too; but he cruelly only thought of supporting himself, so she reclined on the Baron.”

“Sunday, Nov. 3, 1805.

“And so I amuse you by my histories. Well! I am glad of it, and it encourages me to go on; and yet I can tell you I could tire of such horrors as I have had the last 3 evenings. I nevertheless estimate them as you do, and am quite disposed to persevere. The second evening was the worst. We were in the dining-room (a comfortless place except for eating and drinking in), and sat in a circle round the fire, which (to indulge you with ‘detail’) was thus arranged. Mrs. F[itzherbert] in the chimney corner (but not knitting), next to her Lady Downshire—then Mrs. Creevey—then Geoff—then Dr. [erased]—then Savory—then Warner—then Day, vis-a-vis his mistress, and most of the time snoring like a pig and waking for nothing

* The Right Hon. John Macmahon, Private Secretary and Keeper of the Privy Purse to the Prince of Wales. Died in 1817.

better than a glass of water, which he call’d for, hoping, I think, to be offered something better. . . . Last night was better; it was the same party only instead of Savory, a Col. or Major Watley [?] of the Gloster Militia, and the addition of Mrs. Morant, an old card-playing woman. . . . Mrs. Fitz shone last night very much in a sketch she gave me of the history of a very rich Russian woman of quality who is coming to Lord Berkeley’s house. She has been long in England, and is I suppose generally known in London, though new to me. She was a married woman with children, and of great consequence at the court of Petersburgh when Lord Whitworth was there some years ago. He was poor and handsome—she rich and in love with him, and tired of a very magnificent husband to whom she had been married at 14 years old. In short, she kept my Lord, and spent immense sums in doing so and gratifying his great extravagance. In the midst of all this he return’d to England, but they corresponded, and she left her husband and her country to come to him, expecting to marry him—got as far as Berlin, and there heard he was married to the Duchess of Dorset.

“She was raving mad for some time, and Mrs. F. describes her as being often nearly so now, but at other times most interesting, and most miserable. Her husband and children come to England to visit her, and Mrs. F. says she is an eternal subject of remorse to Lord Whitworth, whom she [Mrs. F] spoke of in warm terms as ‘a monster,’ and said she could tell me far more to make me think so. The story sometimes hit upon points that made her blush and check herself, which was to me not the least interesting part of it. . . . She laughed more last night than ever at the Johnstones—said he was a most vulgar man, but seem’d to give him credit for his good nature to his sister and his generosity. The Baron is preparing a phantasmagoria at the Pavillion, and she [Mrs. F] laughs at what he may do with Miss Johnstone in a dark room.”

“5th Nov., 1805.

“. . . My head is very bad, I suppose with the heat of the Pavillion last night. We were there before Mrs. Fitzherbert came, and it almost made her faint, but she put on no airs to be interesting and soon recovered, and I had a great deal of comfortable prose with her. It was rather formidable when we arrived: nobody but Mrs. Morant and the Prince and Dr. Fraser, and for at least half-an-hour in this little circle the conversation was all between the Prince and me—first about Sheridan, and about not seeing you, and his determination to make you come (if not bring you) back next week, when he is to have Lord St. Vincent, Markham, Sheridan, Tierney, &c. . . . Lady Downshire soon came, but did not help conversation—then came Geoff and Mrs. Fitz, and soon afterwards the men from the dining-room, consisting of only Day and Warner, Savory, Bloomfield and the Baron. The Prince told Mrs. F. he would not have any more, lest they should disturb her. . . . Before she came, he was talking of the fineness of the day, and said:—‘But I was not out. I went to Mrs. Fitzherbert’s at one o’clock, and stay’d talking with her till past 6, which was certainly very unfashionable.’ Now was he not at that moment thinking of her as his lawful wife? for in no other sense could he call it unfashionable.”

“Wednesday, Nov. 6, 1805.

“I am much flatter’d, dearest Creevey, that you complain when my letters are short. . . . I went to the Pavillion last night quite well, and moreover am well to-day and fit for Johnstone’s ball, which at last is to be. They were at the Pavillion and she [Miss Johnstone] persecuted both the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert like a most impudent fool. The former was all complyance and good nature—the latter very civil, but most steady in refusing to go. She said she could not go out, and Miss J. grinned and answer’d—‘Oh! but you are out here’—then urged that it had been put off on purpose for Mrs. F., who said she was sorry for it, but hoped it wd. be put off no longer. All this Mrs. F. told me herself, with further remarks, just before I came away, which I did with Lady Downshire, and left the Johnstones with their affairs in an unsettled state, and with faces of great anxiety and misery. But the attack was renew’d, and the Prince said:—‘I shall have great pleasure in looking in upon you, but indeed I cannot let this good woman (Mrs. F.) come: she is quite unfit for it.’ And so we shall see the fun of his looking in or staying all the evening, for poor Johnstone has been running about the Steyne with a paper in his hand all the morning and invited us all. . . . When I got to the Pavillion last night the Prince sat down by me directly, and I told him my headache had made me late, and he was very affectionate. . . . Harry Grey has just come in with news of a great victory at sea and poor Nelson being kill’d. It has come by express to the Prince, and it is said 20 sail are taken or destroyed. What will this do? not, I hope, save Pitt; but both parties may now be humble and make peace. . . .

“I have had new visitors here this morning—Madle. Voeykoff, the niece of the old Russian, and Mde. Pieton, a young friend, daughter of the famous Mrs. Nesbitt and Prince Ferdinand of Wirtemburgh, as is supposed. I talked with her last night, because Mrs. F. praised her as a most amiable creature, and I liked her very much. In short, as usual, the Pavillion amused me, and I wd. rather have been there again to-night than at Johnstone’s nasty ball and fine supper.”

Mrs. Fitzherbert to Mrs. Creevey.

“Nov. 6, 1805. “Dr. Madam,

“The Prince has this moment recd. an account from the Admiralty of the death of poor Lord Nelson, which has affected him most extremely. I think you may wish to know the news, which, upon any other occasion might be called a glorious victory—twenty out of three and thirty of the enemy’s fleet being entirely destroyed—no English ship being taken or sunk—Capts. Duff and Cook both kill’d, and the French Adl. Villeneuve taken prisoner. Poor Lord Nelson recd. his death by a shot of a musket from the enemy’s ship upon his shoulder, and expir’d two hours after, but not till the ship struck and afterwards sunk, which he had the consolation of hearing, as well as his compleat victory, before he died. Excuse this hurried scrawl: I am so nervous I scarce can hold my pen. God bless you.

“Yours, “M. Fitzherbert.”

Mrs. Creevey to Mr. Creevey.

“Friday night, 12 o’clock. “Dearest Creevey,

“. . . I think you will like to hear I have spent a very comfortable evening with my mistress.* We had a long discourse about Lady Wellesley. The folly of men marrying such women led us to Mrs. Fox, and I saw she would have liked to go further than I dared, or than our neighbours would permit. . . . They were all full of Prussians and Swedes and Danes and Russians coming soon with irresistible destruction on Buonaparte. I wonder if there is a chance of it. I don’t believe it. . . .”

“Nov. 7, 1805.

“. . . [The Prince’s] sorrow [for Nelson’s death] might help to prevent his coming to dinner at the Pavillion or to Johnstone’s ball. He did neither, but stayed with Mrs. Fitz; and you may imagine the disappointment of the Johnstones. The girl grin’d it off with the captain, but Johnstone had a face of perfect horror all night, and I think he was very near insane. I once lamented Lord Nelson to him, and he said:—‘Oh shocking: and to come at such an unlucky time!’ . . .”

“8th Nov.

“. . . The first of my visits this morning was to ‘my Mistress.’ . . . I found her alone, and she was excellent—gave me an account of the Prince’s grief about Lord N., and then entered into the domestic failings of the latter in a way infinitely creditable to her, and skilful too. She was all for Lady Nelson and against Lady Hamilton, who, she said (hero as he was) overpower’d him and took possession of him

* Mrs. Fitzherbert.

quite by force. But she ended in a natural, good way, by saying:—‘Poor creature! I am sorry for her now, for I suppose she is in grief.’”

“Past 4 o’clock, Monday.

“. . . Mrs. Fitzherbert came before 12 and has literally only this moment left me. We have been all the time alone, and she has been confidential to a degree that almost frightens me, and that I can hardly think sufficiently accounted for by her professing in the strongest terms to have liked me more and more every time she has seen me, tho’ at first she told Mr. Tierney no person had ever struck her so much at first sight. . . . So much in excuse for her telling me the history of her life, and dwelling more particularly on the explanation of all her feelings and conduct towards the Prince. If she is as true as I think she is wise, she is an extraordinary person, and most worthy to be beloved. It was quite impossible to keep clear of Devonshire House; and there her opinions are all precisely mine and yours, and, what is better, she says they are now the Prince’s; that he knows everything—above all, how money is made by promises, unauthorised by him, in the event of his having power; that he knows how his character is involved in various transactions of that house, and that he only goes into it, from motives of compassion and old friendship, when he is persecuted to do so. In short, he tells Mrs. F. all he sees and hears, shews her all the Duchess’s letters and notes, and she says she knows the Dss. hates her. . . . We talked of her life being written; she said she supposed it would some time or other, but with thousands of lies; but she would be dead and it would not signify. I urged her to write it herself, but she said it would break her heart.”

“Nov. 27, 1805.

“. . . I was very sorry indeed to go to the Pavillion, and ‘my Master’ made me no amends for my exertion—no shaking hands—only a common bow in passing—and not a word all night, except just before came away some artificial stuff about the Baron, and then a little parting shake of the hand with this interesting observation—‘So Creevey is gone,’ and the interesting answer of—‘Yes, Sir.’ In short I suspect he was a little affronted by our going away the night before: but I don’t mind it—he will soon come about again; or if he does not, I will make him ashamed by begging his pardon.”

“Nov. 29th.

“. . . Well, I am quite in favor again. When I entered Gerobtzoff’s room last night Prinny* was on a sofa directly opposite the door, and in return for a curtsey, perhaps rather more grave, more low and humble than usual (meaning—‘I beg your pardon dear foolish, beautiful Prinny for making you take the pet’), he put out his hand. . . . We soon went to see the ball at the Pavillion, and Mrs. Fitz selected me to go in the first party in a way that set up the backs of various persons and puzzled even Geoff. . . . We were soon tired of the amusement and sick of the heat and stink. Neither the Prince nor any one stay’d long, and the rest of the evening was horribly dull; but luckily for me, when the Prince returned I was sitting on a little sofa that wd. only hold two, and the other seat was vacant; so he came to it, and never left me or spoke to another person till within 10 minutes of my coming away at ½ past 12. . . . We had the old stories of Mrs. Sheridan, only with some new additions . . . we had Charles Grey too, and he talked of his [Grey’s] dislike to him, because in the Regency he wd. not hear of his being Chancellor of the Exchequer. He talked of his bad temper and his early presumption in overrating his own talents. . . . He told me that when he was king he wd. not give up his private society, and on my saying a little flattering sentence about the good I expected from him, he actually said—‘he hoped I should never have cause to think differently of him.’ This was going his length, so I stopt.”

“Dec. 2, 1805.

“. . . We have been at the Pavillion both Friday and yesterday, and Mrs. F. has desired us to come every night without invitation. . . . Both these parties

* The Prince of Wales.

have been private and the Prince equally good and attentive to me at both. . . . Last night he took me under his arm through the dark, wet garden into the other house, to shew me a picture of himself. Poor little Lady Downshire push’d herself (tho’ humbly) into our party, but he sent her before with Bloomfield and the lanthorn, and he and I might have gone astray in any way we had liked; but I can assure you (faithless as you are about coming back to me) nothing worse happened than his promise of giving me the best print that ever was done of him, and mine that it shall hang in the best place amongst my friends.”

“Dec. 5, 1805.

“. . . It was a large party at the Pavillion last night, and the Prince was not well . . . and went off to bed. . . . Lord Hutchinson was my chief flirt for the evening, but before Prinny went off he took a seat by me to tell me all this bad news had made him bilious and that he was further overset yesterday by seeing the ship with Lord Nelson’s body on board. . . . None of them knew Pitt was gone to Bath till I told them. I ask’d both Lord H[utchinson] and his Master if they wd. like him to die now, or live a little longer to be turn’d out. They both decidedly prefer instant death. . . . I think Sheridan may probably return with you on Friday if you ask him. On second thoughts—I would not have you ask him, for he will make you wait and sleep at the Cock at Sutton.”

CHAPTER IV. 1806-1808.

Pitt never rallied from the shock of Ulm and Austerlitz. Parliament was to meet on 21st January, 1806, and he travelled up from Bath by easy stages to his villa at Putney, where he arrived on the 11th, and invitations were issued for the customary official dinner of the First Lord of the Treasury on the 20th. But that dinner never took place. Lord Henry Petty had given notice of an amendment to the Address, censuring Pitt’s administration; but out of respect to a disabled foe, he did not move it, and the Address was agreed to without debate.

Hon. Charles Grey, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, Jan. 13, 1806.

“I received your letter last night, and had from other quarters the same reports of Pitt’s illness and resignation. I think you will probably find these among the false reports of the day. I cannot believe in his resigning again while he has breath; and as to his health, I shall not be surprised to see him making a speech of two hours on the first day of the Session.”

Pitt expired on 23rd January, and the old King had at last to have recourse to the Whigs. Lord Grenville formed a coalition Cabinet, nicknamed “All the Talents,” in which Fox held the seals of the Foreign Office, Grey was First Lord of the Admiralty, Addington, now Lord Sidmouth, took the Privy Seal, and Erskine as Whig Lord Chancellor balanced Ellenborough as Tory Lord Chief Justice with a seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Creevey’s past activity and promise of more were not overlooked, and he was appointed Secretary to the Board of Controul—a post which, as his friend Mr. (afterwards Lord) Grey wrote to him, was “better in point of emolument and of more real work” than a seat at the Board of Admiralty which was first intended for him, “and not obliging you to vacate your seat” in Parliament. Associated with this office were the duties of party whip, which Creevey began to discharge forthwith. Some of the Ministers seeking re-election on taking office had to fight fiercely for their seats; and it shows the confusion of the old party lines to find Lord Henry Petty opposed at Cambridge by Lord Palmerston and Lord Althorp—both of them Whigs; Lord Althorp and Lord Palmerston, who were both destined to lead the House of Commons as members of Whig administrations. Petty had accepted office as Chancellor of the Exchequer; Palmerston did not enter upon his twenty years of official work at the War Office until 1809. It was of this contest between Petty and Palmerston that Byron wrote in Hours of Idleness:— “One on his power and place depends, The other on the Lord knows what; Each to some eloquence pretends, Though neither will convince by that.”

Lord Henry Petty to Mr. Creevey.

“Cambridge, January, 1806.

“We go on well, and I hope to beat Palmerston even if Althorp stands, which is possible, for he tells me he is urged to continue, and tries to think he has some chance of success, which is out of the question. The Johnians have discovered that I am a lurking dissenter. . . . Some five Pittites proposed setting up Ld. Hadley to give the College an opportunity of showing its respect for the memory of Mr. P. by voting against Ld. Althorp and me.”

“Cambridge, 28th Jany., 1806. “Dear Creevey,

“We go on as well as you will see by the list. I have a very handsome letter from Ld. Percy, who tells me he has written to the Master, Tutors and all his friends at St. John’s in my favor, but I fear they are all engaged to Palmerston. The latter, I am told, has 130 secure. Althorp does not give way, but I threaten with a formal proposal to compare strength, which discomposes him a good deal.

“Ever yrs., “Hy. Petty.”

The Prince of Wales, as a keen party man, and considering himself leader of the Whigs, was not idle at such a crisis. He sent out his commands right and left; woe betide him who failed to vote as directed. Such, at least, was evidently the apprehension of one of his chaplains, who had rashly pledged himself without consulting his royal master’s wishes.

Rev. W. Price to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.

“55, Upper John St., Fitzroy Square, Feb. 1st, 1806. “Sir,

“Permit me to observe to Your Royal Highness, that few events in the course of my Life have impress’d me with more uneasiness than the Letter which I have receiv’d from Col. McMahon in which is intimated Your Royal Highness’s commands that I give my Interest to Lord Henry Petty as a Candidate for the University of Cambridge.

“I beg with all humility to assure Your Royal Highness, my Inclination no less than my Duty would dictate an obedience to Your Royal Highness upon this and every occasion, but I am to lament when I had the Honor to attend his Majesty at St. James’s with the Address from the University of Cambridge, Lord Spencer solicited my Vote in behalf of his Son Lord Althorp, when I, not conceiving Your Royal Highness had any commands on this occasion, promis’d to Lord Spencer that Vote which he now claims, informing me Your Royal Highness assur’d him yesterday you wou’d not have interfer’d in opposition to Ld. Althorp, had you known his intention to offer himself. I am therefore humbly to solicit Your Royal Highness’s indulgence, and that I may not suffer in your estimation on this occasion, and beg to profess how greatly I feel in Duty and Obedience.

“Your Royal Highness’s most devoted and most humble Servant and Chaplain, “William Price.”

Lord Robert Spencer* to Mr. Creevey.

“Saturday night. “Dear Creevey,

“Pray don’t forget that the responsibility rests with you as to C. Fox’s coming to town for Monday or not.

“Yrs. ever, “R. Spencer.”

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey.

“Fame at the Nore, 6th Feb., 1806.

“. . . I think as you are now a staunch supporter of the Government, there can be no great harm in my corresponding with you. I own to you that, since

* Youngest son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough.

Pitt’s death, I have been clearly of opinion that Charles Fox was the man whom I wished to see at the helm, and, altho’ I have long ceased to be very sangwine in my expectation with regard to the conduct of public men, yet I have hopes that we shall see a manly, decided line of conduct adopted by the present Muphties. . . . We are just on the point of weighing anchor, and are only waiting for daylight to see our way to St. Helens, where I am ordered. We have been manned a few days—so-so—about 90 of the Victory’s form the groundwork. They are not what you might expect from the companions of Nelson, but they will do with some whipping and spurring. We shall be tolerable in about six months; in the meantime we must do our best. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“July, 1806.

“. . . I dined at the London Tavern last night and there were eight Ministers of State and all the India directors, and secretaries and under-secretaries and fellow-servants of all descriptions without end, in all about 200, but the devil a bit of Turtle! upon which I thought little Kensington* would have cried. Sheridan and I were for crying ‘Off! off! off!’ and damning the whole piece on account of the absence of the principal performer. I sat opposite to Morpeth,† and I made him blush and laugh and almost cry all at once. I swore it was the beggarly budget that frightened the directors out of giving their masters turtle. My comrogues laughed, and the directors did not half like the joke. . . . You see my friend Mr. Howorth has been adding to the amusements of Brighton races by fighting a duel with Lord Barrymore. His lordship was his adversary at whist, and chose to tell him that something he said about the cards was ‘false;’ upon which Howorth gave him such a blow as makes the lord walk about at this moment with a black eye. Of

* The 2nd Lord Kensington.

† Lord Morpeth [1773-1848], afterwards 6th Earl of Carlisle, represented India in the new administration.

course a duel could not be prevented. When they got to the ground, Howorth very coolly pulled off his coat and said: ‘My lord, having been a surgeon I know that the most dangerous thing in a wound is having a piece of cloth shot into it, so I advise you to follow my example.’ The peer, I believe, despised such low professional care, and no harm happened to either of them.”

Six months had not gone by since Pitt breathed his last, when the health of his great rival, Fox, broke down. He appeared for the last time in the House of Commons on 10th June, already exceedingly ill, but determined to be at his post in order to move certain resolutions preparatory to the bill for abolishing the slave trade. This he accomplished, and the bill giving effect to these resolutions became law in the following year; but by that time Charles Fox was no more. He lingered till 13th September, 1806, and every bulletin during his last illness was anxiously watched for and canvassed by men and women of both parties in the State. Assuredly no public man was ever better beloved than Fox on account of his private qualities. Notwithstanding that his great natural abilities suffered damage, and his energies were diverted and impaired by his excessive conviviality and love of gambling, even his political enemies could not help loving the man. Pitt’s haughtiness repelled; Fox’s simplicity and sweetness of address attracted all hearts. Pitt’s talents and penetrating foresight commanded the confidence and gratitude of his followers; but it was not his lot to secure the passionate affection, approaching to idolatry, which was freely given to Fox.

Mrs. Creevey to Mr. Creevey.

“July 10, 1806.

“. . . Hester* and Sheridan dined with us yesterday, as well as Harry Scott, and we were extremely sociable and agreeable all the evening, until Lord and Lady Howick,† General Grey and Charlotte Hughes added to our party. Poor Charlotte! was rather ‘in the basket,’ for you know Ogles and Greys do not take much pains to make a stranger comfortable; but old Sherry with his usual good taste was very attentive to her. . . . Lord Howick was in better spirits and very amiable, no doubt owing to his improved hopes about Mr. Fox. He had been that morning for the first time convinced that he was materially better, both from the opinion of Vaughan and from having seen him—that his looks were wonderfully improved. He is sure his body and legs are lessened and Mr. Fox said himself, ‘whatever my disease has been, I am convinced it is much abated, and I think I shall do again.’ . . . Lord and Lady Howick and the General went away before 12, and then Sherry, who had been very good at dinner and most agreeable all the evening, seem’d to have a little hankering after a broiled bone . . . so in due time he had it.

Mr. Creevey to Dr. Currie.

“12th July.

“. . . Fox is a great deal better to-day certainly than he has ever been yet, and is walking about in his garden; so I hope to G— we shall all do. . . . We had a devil of a business last night altogether. We got off from the House to Sherry’s a little before 8—about 14 of us—without him, so I made him give me

* Mrs. Sheridan, née Lindley.

† Sir Charles Grey of Howick having been created Earl Grey in this year, his eldest son assumed the courtesy title of Lord Howick.

‡ Mrs. Hughes of Kinmel, whose husband was created Lord Dinorben in 1831.

a written order to his two cooks to serve up the turtle in his absence, which they did, and which we presently devoured. In the midst of the second course, a black, sooty kitchenmaid rushed into the room screaming ‘Fire!’ At the house door were various other persons hallooing to the same purpose, and it turned out to be the curtains in Mrs. Sheridan’s dressing-room in a blaze, which Harry Scott had presence of mind to pull down by force, instead of joining in the general clamour for buckets, which was repeated from all the box-keepers, scene-shifters, thief-takers, and sheriffs officers who were performing the character of servants out of livery. So the fire was extinguished, with some injury to Harry’s thumb.

“Half an hour afterwards we were summoned to a division which did not take place till three, and another at four. Our situation in the House was as precarious as at Sheridan’s. His behaviour was infamous.* . . . He said he had stayed away all the session from disapproving all our military measures, and finally made a motion which, if the Addingtonians had supported, would have left us in a minority. . . . Grey made one of his best speeches, full of honor, courage and good faith—it made a great impression, and Sherry was left to the contempt from all sides he so justly deserved. . . . Prinney† sent McMahon to me yesterday desiring to know whether I would induce Tufnell to withdraw his pretensions to Colchester. He was asked to make this request to me by Sir Wm. Smith, that —— of a fellow you may remember at Brighton, and who himself has started. But I returned Prinney such a bill of fare of Tuffy’s merits and pretensions, that I have no doubt old Smith in his turn will be asked to give way.”

* Sheridan held office in “All the Talents” as Treasurer of the Navy; but he declared on this occasion that “he was sure the Cabinet would never look to him for the subserviency of sacrificing his independence of opinion to any consideration of office; at least, if ever they should so expect, they would be disappointed” [Hansard, July 11, 1806.]

† The Prince of Wales.

Mrs. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“15th July.

“. . . I am returned from my morning’s travels, but they were sadly shortened by going first to the Admiralty and hearing from Lady Howick that Hester [Mrs. Sheridan] was not well. I proceeded to Somerset House; Mr. Secretary* got into the coach in Parliament Street, and when we got to Somerset House, we found Hester so well, and with such a nice cold chicken and tongue before her, that we made him get out of the coach and eat with us. Then I had only time to call at Mr. Fox’s, who continues better. . . . He is advised, I hear, to go to the sea, and McMahon says it will be Brighton, for Prinney has offered him one of his houses, and presses him much to take it. McMahon says he will, but I cannot say I think the dinners at the Pavilion will be good for him. . . . The offer, I think, looks as if Prin thought he could make up the quarrel with Mrs. Fitzherbert,† which I wish he may, but you know he does sometimes fancy he can do more than in the end he performs.”

“30th July.

“. . . In our return from walking in the Park last night at 10 o’clock we saw the Prince’s chariot at Mr. Fox’s door, and I find from Mrs. Bouverie that he stayed a long time, and Mr. Fox was not fatigued by it, but had a good night. . . . She has not seen him for some days, but she says that is accident, owing to Lady Holland being there whom he will not see; but she plants herself in one of the rooms below stairs, under pretence of waiting for Lord Holland, and so prevents his admitting any other woman.”

“25th August.

“. . . Mr. Creevey dined yesterday at Lord Cowper’s. It was a grand dinner after the christening of his son, to whom the Prince stood godfather. The ceremony

* Mr. Creevey, Secretary to the Board of Controul.

† In 1806 the Prince fell in love with Lady Hertford, and Mrs. Fitzherbert’s excellent and quasi-legitimate influence waned.

was going on in one drawing-room when Mr. Creevey arrived. After it was over, the Prince, on coming into the room where the rest of the company were assembled, said: ‘Ho, Creevey! you there,’ and sprang across the room and shook hands with him. When he sat opposite to him at dinner he hardly spoke to anyone else, beginning directly with—‘Well, tell me now, Creevey, about Mrs. Creevey and the girls, and when they come to Brighton;’ and on hearing ‘probably in October,’ he said—‘Oh delightful! we shall be so comfortable,’ and then went over the old stories . . . till, as Mr. C. says, the company did not know very well what to make of it. They all adjourned to Melbourne House to supper. At 2 o’clock in the morning, that terrible Sheridan seduced Mr. Creevey into Brookes, where they stayed till 4, when Sherry affectionately came home with him, and upstairs to see me. They were both so very merry, and so much pleased with each other’s jokes, that, though they could not repeat them to me very distinctly, I was too much amused to scold them as they deserved.”

The constant bulletins about Fox, which it is not necessary to repeat, continued favourable till 9th September, when the dropsy began to gain ground upon him. But, considering how the letters even of this amiable and accomplished lady are pervaded with the fumes of wine and the aroma of broiled bones, the marvel is, not that so many men of her acquaintance suffered in their health, but why more of them did not bring their lives prematurely to a close by perpetual stuffing and swilling. Wine in excess was not only the chief cause of a disordered system, but it was made to serve as the invariable remedy, supplemented by the free use of the lancet and by drastic purges.

Mrs. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“12 Sept., 1806.

“. . . I am going to Somerset House to enquire after poor Sheridan, who went from this house very ill at 12 o’clock last night. . . . He complained of sore throat and shivering, and his pulse was the most frightful one I ever felt; it was so tumultuous and so strong that when one touched it, it seemed not only to shake his arm, but his whole frame. . . . I lighted a fire and a great many candles, and Mr. Creevey, who was luckily just come home from Petty’s, began to tell him stories. . . . Then we sent for some wine, of which he was so frightened it required persuasion to make him drink six small glasses, of which the effect was immediate in making him not only happier, but composing his pulse. . . . In the midst of his dismals he said most clever, funny things, and at last got to describing Mr. Hare, and others of his old associates, with the hand of a real master, and made one lament that such extraordinary talents should have such numerous alloys. He received a note from Lady Elizabeth Forster, with a good account of Mr. Fox. It ended with—‘try to drink less and speak the truth.’ He was very funny about it and said: ‘By G—d! I speak more truth than she does, however.’ Then he told us how she had cried to him the night before, ‘because she felt it her severe duty to be Duchess of Devonshire!’*

With Fox was extinguished the brightest of “All the Talents.” The administration continued during the succeeding winter, but when the King, in March, 1807, demanded an assurance from his Ministers that they would bring in no measure of Roman Catholic Relief, Grenville, who, with Pitt, had resigned office in 1801 because of the King’s determination on this

* The Duchess of Devonshire had died in March of this year. Lady Elizabeth married the Duke, but not till three years later, 1809.

subject, declined to continue in office on such terms, and the Cabinet resigned. Some of his colleagues disapproved highly of this course, Sheridan observing that “he had known many men knock their heads against a wall, but he had never before heard of a man collecting bricks and building a wall for the express purpose of knocking out his own brains against it.” Probably Mr. Creevey shared this view, but there is an almost total blank in his correspondence during the year which brought his brief tenure of office to a close. The coalition of parties was at an end, and the Duke of Portland became nominal head of a Tory Cabinet.

Lord Henry Petty to Mr. Creevey.

“Teignmouth, Nov. 2nd, 1807.

“. . . Altho’ I understand that Ld. Wellesley claims all the glory of the Copenhagen expedition, I think Ld. Chatham’s negative will prevail over his positive qualities, and that he will be the minister of next year. Archd. Hamilton writes to me that Melville is more than ever Minister de facto in Scotland, and that a year’s fasting has so sharpened the appetites of his followers, that not a chaise is to be got on any of the roads which lead to Dunira, so numerous are the solicitors and expectants that attend his court.

“Dartmouth harbour—a beautiful basin—exhibits a curious spectacle at present. The flags of Portugal and Denmark flying on board at least twelve or fourteen detained ships of both nations, the crews of which are maintained by Govt. . . . I am now an inhabitant of New Burlington Street, but a letter directed London will be sure to find me.”

The year 1808 was perhaps the most momentous of the century to the destiny of Great Britain. Not many months before his death Pitt had laid his finger on the map of Spain as the only part of the Continent where a successful stand might be made against Napoleon. But Spain was allied with France as the foe of England, and since Pitt’s death the idea had been entertained by Portland’s Cabinet of assisting the South American colonies of Spain in a revolt against the mother country. A certain young general, Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had won considerable renown in India, and, on returning to this country, had:entered Parliament for the express purpose of defending his brother, Marquess Wellesley, against the attacks upon his administration as Viceroy, happened to be Secretary for Ireland at this time. He had retained that responsible office while commanding a division under Lord Cathcart in the successful but inglorious Copenhagen campaign of 1807. Sir Arthur, then, in the spring of 1808, was directed to confer with General Miranda, emissary of the revolutionary party in Spanish South America, and to prepare plans for an expedition to support the rebellion there. Such plans Wellesley prepared, making out in his own handwriting lists of all the stores required, down to the very number of flints required for small arms. Nevertheless, he disapproved of the policy of this projected expedition. “I have always had a horror,” he afterwards said to Lord Mahon, “of revolutionising any country for a political object. I always said—if they rise of themselves, well and good, but do not stir them up; it is a fearful responsibility.” Moreover, in the concluding paragraph of his memorandum, Sir Arthur could not refrain from alluding pointedly to “the manner in which Napoleon’s armies are now spread in all parts of Europe,” and asking pointedly whether it was impossible to operate against him in the Old World, rather than undertake speculative projects in the New. If possible, said he, it is “an opportunity which ought not to be passed by.”*

Fortunately affairs took a sudden turn which, by ranging Spain alongside of her ancient enemy Great Britain in the struggle with Napoleon, brought Ministers to the views of the dead Pitt and the future Duke of Wellington. The rulers of Spain had proved both corrupt and incompetent; her armies, commanded by ignorant and vain aristocrats, were utterly unfit to take the field against Napoleon’s marshals; yet the ancient spirit still burned in the hearts of her people. In the month of May news came to England that the Spaniards had risen in revolt against the French. Nine thousand troops lay at Cork, ready to embark for South America, there to aid in overturning the government of the King of Spain in his colonies. At the beginning of June, Sir Arthur Wellesley, being still Secretary for Ireland, was sent to take command of these, to sail with them to Spain, there to aid in restoring the King of Spain’s authority in his home dominions. A strange piece of scene-shifting, opening, as it did, the long and tremendous drama of the Peninsular war.

Creevey’s correspondence continues extremely fragmentary during this exciting period. Such letters as remain betray the growing bitterness of party spirit and the intense impatience of the extreme members of the Opposition, of whom Creevey was one, with Lord Grenville, who, though not a Whig, could no longer be reckoned as a Tory, and with the more responsible and moderate Whigs, who, like Lord Grey, were not prepared to push the interests of

* Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches, vi. 82.

party before those of the country. Creevey’s leader at this time was Samuel Whitbread, a man of unblemished character, absolute honesty, and considerable debating power, but one who did not shrink from the responsibility of hampering and thwarting Ministers, even when the safety of the Empire seemed at stake. He opposed to the utmost the war policy of the Government, and was specially hostile to the Wellesleys—both the Marquess and Sir Arthur.

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Southill, Ap. 18, 1808.

“. . . Whatever some squeamish voters in the Ho. of Commons may think and wish, the publick will not be satisfied without the active pursuit of Melville, and I shall not be inclined to make any compromise with shabbiness. It’s a pleasant circumstance, amongst others, that the Admiralty cannot be disposed of. . . .”

“Margate, June 29, 1808.

“. . . The insurrection [in Spain against the French] has taken a much greater degree of method and consistency than I had expected, and the accession of two such persons as Filanqueri and Sovilliano is of the utmost importance. God send them successful! and we ought and must give them every possible assistance; but I dread the account of the first conflict between the French army and this patriotic band. It is the business of the Patriots to avoid it, and that of Bonaparte to seek it as soon as possible. . . . You have asked me two or three times for my speculations upon another session? Will you be so good as to give me yours? and as I wish to be master of the E[ast] I[ndia] subject by the autumn, be so good as to point out to me a course of reading.”

Wellesley’s expedition sailed from Cork on 15th June; before the end of September the only French troops left in Portugal were the garrisons of Elvas and Almeida; General Junot, with a beaten army of 26,000 men, had been conveyed in British ships to Rochelle; the Russian Admiral Siniavin had surrendered his whole fleet in the Tagus to Sir Charles Cotton. Such were the conditions of the famous Convention of Cintra, forced upon the French by the victorious little army under Sir Arthur Wellesley. Yet was the nation almost unanimous in demanding his degradation, if not his death, with that of the two generals who successively took command over his head. They were even blamed in the King’s Speech from the Throne for “acceding to the terms of the Convention.” The sagacious Whitbread and his friends found solace in the discomfiture of the Wellesleys.

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Bounds, near Tunbridge, Sept. 25th, 1808.

“. . . I conclude the same sentiment prevails all over the country respecting the Portuguese convention. Cobbet’s dissertation upon it is excellent, tho’ it by no means explains, nor can anything explain, the mystery. I grieve for the opportunity that has been lost of acquiring national glory, but am not sorry to see the Wellesley pride a little lowered. . . .”

Wm. Cobbett* to Lord Folkestone, M.P.†

“9 Oct., 1808. “My Lord,

“Thank you kindly for both your letters. It is, indeed, a damned thing that Wellesley‡ should

* Ex-sergeant-major and publisher of the well-known Weekly Political Register, which began in 1802. He was elected member for Oldham to the first reformed Parliament.

† Afterwards 3rd Earl of Radnor; Radical M.P. for Salisbury from 1802 to 1828: died in 1869.

‡ Sir Arthur Wellesley, whose share in the Convention of Cintra had been sent before a Court of Inquiry.

give the lie direct to the protesting part of the statement of his friends. How the devil will they get over this? Now we have the rascals upon the hip. It is evident that he was the prime cause—the only cause—of all the mischief, and that from the motive of thwarting everything after he was superseded. Thus do we pay for the arrogance of that damned infernal family. But it all comes at last to the House of Commons. The corruptions of that infamous [? place] sent them out,* and we are justly punished. . . .”

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey.

“Marlborough, Rio Janeiro, Oct. 11th, 1808.

“. . . My whole heart and soul is with the Spaniards, and I hope and trust we shall support them and fight for them to the uttermost. . . . This great event in Spain must of course put a stop to any plan we may have had to emancipate the Spanish Colonies. . . . I hope Bonoparte has now enough on his hands without thinking of invading England. He has overshot his mark, and, I have great hopes, has done for himself. However, he will die game. . . . I am very anxious to hear of my brother Jack† coming into play. I daresay he will have some Right Honble. Torpedo set over him to counteract his fire and genius; but in spite of the Devil, he is invaluable wherever he is, and the soldiers know that. . . .”

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Southill, 20 Dec, 1808. “My dear Creevey,

“To the usual occupations of hanging Mad Dogs, swearing Bastards, convicting Poachers, and such like country performances, has been added the amusement of Hunting, which I have resumed to the great benefit of my health, and the complete fugitation hope, of all critical Deposits in consequence of high

* Referring to the Indian appointments held respectively by the Marquess Wellesley and his brother Sir Arthur, and to the first Peninsular expedition of the latter.

† General Sir John Moore.

living. Besides, we have had a House pretty full of Company, amongst which have been the Lady Grey and Lady Hannah; so you will perceive with half an eye that, however acceptable your letter, as it really and truly was, you had but little chance of receiving any answer, till the frost came and locked up my Playthings. Now I can find a moment to thank you for it, and to ask for a continuation of your sentiments, both which I do with unaffected sincerity. I value your opinion, and you are one of the very few Persons who will say what you think of me to myself. I hope I deserve to be so treated.

“You mix more with the World in general than I am enabled to do from particular circumstances, and I believe you have the good of the Country at Heart. I further believe that you are interested in my Reputation. I acknowledge that in the course of the last Session of Parliament, I may have dwelt too much and too often upon topicks which are not generally interesting, because they are not generally understood, and I am quite aware that I may have spoken both too often and too much; but you confirm the feeling I before had that the Result of my Parliamentary Campaign was not injurious to my Fame, and I have heard from friends and foes the agreeable Truth which on that score you repeat to me. I shall go to the House of Commons to the coming Session with feelings very different from those which I carried there last January. You know that I was then piqued. I was not certainly ambitious of being placed nominally at the Head of a Party in the House of Commons, and really to be the Slave of a Party in the House of Lords; but I had been ambitious of being thought the fit Person in all essentials to fill the vacant Place. By the Person who had [illegible] held it with so much Dignity and Reputation,* that Ambition had been disappointed. I had closed my Conference by saying—‘We shall all find our Level;’ and however unconscious of it at the time, I daresay I was actuated by a desire to show that my level, at least in the present generation, was not very low. If what you say be true, my

* Right Hon. George Ponsonby [1755-1817].

gratification on that score is complete. I am no Candidate for the Lead: I have what I wanted. It is said I ought to have been the Leader, and nothing should tempt me to take the place, because I know on many accounts I ought not to be Leader, and ought never to have been the Leader. So much for that.

“I am fully aware of the apathy of the Publick and of their indifference towards the proceedings of the House of Commons, and of their Distrust of all Publick Men; and I cannot but agree with you that poor Fox did overset the Publick opinion with regard to Statesmen. The last administration completed the job. Still, whilst I have a seat in Parliament, and can obtain a hearing, I cannot help proceeding as if I thought the World would give me credit for the Purity of my Motives. The tone you propose to me to adopt in the ensuing session I will certainly attend to with assiduity, and altho’ I think in every point, both internal and external, our situation is nearly as forlorn and hopeless as any that ever was imagined by the most gloomy Politician, I will endeavour to act as if the case were not desperate—as if the corrupted and corruptors would be brought to a sense of Duty, and to see the Necessity of Retrenchment and Reform.

“I have written a shameful deal about myself, but as your letter was expressly on that subject, you must pardon me: and as it is for you alone that I write, am not afraid of sarcastical animadversion. . . .”

CHAPTER V. 1809.

Canning and Castlereagh, hitherto at one in maintaining the Continental policy of Pitt, fell at issue in 1809 as to the best means of carrying the same into effect. The seeds of their difference had been sown in the dispute about the Convention of Cintra. Canning, as Foreign Secretary, advocated a concentration of the whole military forces of Britain upon the liberation of Spain; Castlereagh, at the War Office, listened to expert advisers who had been damped by the retreat and death of Sir John Moore, and was urgent for creating diversions in other parts of Europe. Castlereagh had his way, with the result, among others, that the most powerful expedition that had ever sailed from England—40,000 troops and a splendid fleet with as many seamen and marines—were lamentably sacrificed in the swamps of Walcheren Island through the incompetence of their general; while Sir Arthur Wellesley sailed in April to assume command in a second Peninsular campaign. Great was the fury of the anti-war party in Parliament by reason of this resuscitation of the hated Wellesleys, but not greater than their rage at Lord Grenville, who, although he had acted with the Opposition until now, refused to be drawn into an unpatriotic line of conduct, or at Grey, Tierney, and other Whigs who showed scruples at embarrassing the Government in their operations.

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Southill, Jan. 11, 1809. “Dear Creevey,

“Your letter reached me at Woburn Abbey amidst rows, festivities and masquerades. . . . By all I can collect from the Duke of Bedford and FitzPatrick it is not the desire of Ponsonby and the wise heads in London that any great effort should be made for an attendance. . . . I have heard from Tierney since I saw you. He seems in flat despair about any effect to be produced by our exertions in Parlt. the ensuing session, and I am told that he wishes to abstain from active attendance altogether. I do not believe that any persons join with him in this feeling. I am sure I do not. It would be as unwise as impracticable to be seen and not heard in the House of Commons; and as his plan does not go the whole length of secession, it will amount in practice to nothing at all. . . . Lord Grenville intends to come down on the first day and make a general attack: after that, he does not at present mean to follow the matter up with the assiduity he displayed last year in the House of Lords, nor, indeed, in the absence of Grey and Holland, could it be expected. . . . I will only add for myself, that I have the greatest respect for Ld. Grenville, but that that respect would in no way prevent my taking any line I thought the right one. . . .”

“Southill, March 31, 1809.

“. . . Do pray tell me what is said about things in general, and in particular about myself, for I fear I am but roughly handled in a part of the world just now. . . . What do you think of the Westminster meeting? I cannot say how much I was surprized by Burdett’s unprovoked attack upon the great agriculturists, who are, almost without exception, real friends of Liberty and Reform—none more so than the head of them, the Duke of Bedford, who thinks parliamentary reform indispensably necessary to our existence. . . . I am to-day working hard at the local Militia; to-morrow I intend to go foxhunting, and on Sunday I hope to be regaled by an answer from you. . . .”

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey.

“London, July 18th, 1809.

“. . . The [Walcheren] expedition is expected to sail this week. The Naval part of it is well commanded. Strachan is one of those in our service whom I estimate the highest. I do not believe he has his fellow among the Admirals, unless it be Pellew, for ability, and it is not possible to have more zeal and gallantry.”

“Brook Farm, Cobham, Surrey, Sept. 19th, 1809.

“I go back to my ship on the 21st at Portsmouth, where she arrived from the Scheldt with a cargo of sick. I expect to go with her there, as we are to continue under the command of Sir Richard Strachan,* and as there are 200 of her seamen still there in the gunboats, &c. It is my wish to serve with Strachan, as I know him to be extremely brave and full of zeal and ardour, at the same time that he is an excellent seaman, and, tho’ an irregular, impetuous fellow, possessing very quick parts and an uncommon share of sagacity and strong sense. I hope Walcheren will be evacuated before we lose any more of our invaluable men. . . . The Cannings are in a damned dilemma with this expedition and the victory of Talavera. They mean, I understand, to saddle poor Lord Chatham with the first, but who can they saddle the victory with? They dare not attack the Wellesleys as they did my poor brother.† What a cursed set you all are! I certainly far prefer your set, but your set bungled miserably. However you are a more manly and gentlemanly set of bunglers and

* Moore, as a Scot, spells Sir Richard’s name more Scotico.

† Sir John Moore.

jobbers than the self-sufficient, chattering, intriguing Cannings. . . . I wish Parliament were met, for I long to see these fellows forced from their seats. As to peace, I can see no prospect of it as long as Bonoparte exists; and I believe, for our comfort, he is a cursed temperate, hardy knave, in mind and body. . . .”

On 21st September the quarrel between Castlereagh and Canning culminated in a duel, involving the resignation of both Ministers. Lord Wellesley was recalled from Spain to succeed Canning at the Foreign Office, and Lord Liverpool took Castlereagh’s place at the War Office. Another change shortly afterwards was the replacement of the Duke of Portland at the head of the Government by Mr. Perceval.

Lord Folkestone, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brooks’s, Sept. 21, 1809. “Dear Creevey,

“I cannot help writing to tell you what a curious scene is going on here. Old Portland is going both out of the Ministry and out of the world—both very soon, and it is doubtful which first; but the doubt arises from the difficulty of finding a new Premier, though both Perceval and Canning have offered themselves. Mulgrave is going too, they say—Castlereagh is quite gone, and Canning too, and the latter well nigh this morning quitted this sublunary globe, as well as the Foreign Office, for his friend Castlereagh on Wimbledon Common about 7 o’clock this morning as neatly as possible sent a pistol bullet through the fleshy part of his thigh. These heroes have quarrelled and fought about the Walcheren affair—Castlereagh damning the execution* of Lord Chatham, and Canning the plan of the planner, and being Lord Chatham’s champion. Lord Chatham’s friends, too, say that he is not at all to blame, that he

* I.e. the performance.

has a complete case against Castlereagh, and further, that Sir Richard Strahan has made him amende honorable, saying that he meant by his letter to insinuate no blame against him, and that he is ready to say so whenever and wherever called upon to do so.* On the other hand, Castlereagh’s friends are furious too—say that never man was so ill-used, and that he never will have any more connexion with his present colleagues.

“Lord Yarmouth was Castlereagh’s second—Charles Ellis† Canning’s. Castlereagh was not touched; Canning’s wound is likely to be very tedious—not dangerous. In the meantime, every official arrangement is at a stand, or at least quite unknown and the whole thing appears in utter confusion. Mother Cole‡ in vain shows himself all day long in St. James’s Street; the Whigs are thought of by no one; the Doctor§ cries ‘off,’ and the King has not yet sent for Wardle‖ or Burdett. I really think that any one might be a minister for asking for it—Mr. Lee (the spokesman at Covent Garden) as well as another; and if they do not take care, it will come to this. If Nobbs¶ does not, the Mob will, name the Minister, and then—why not Mr. Lee? The scene would be diverting, if it did not look so serious; but, I protest, I begin to think it alarming, considering that guineas at Winchester have passed for 22s. in paper.

“In the meantime, the diversions of Covent Garden go on bravely. The people behave well, and I hope they will beat the damned Managers. The Magistrates there, as usual, behaved shamefully, and endeavoured to excite a riot, but did not succeed. * “The Earl of Chatham, with sword drawn, Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strahan; Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em, Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham.”

† Charles Rose Ellis, M.P. [1771-1845],created Lord Seaford in 1826.

‡ Mr. Tierney.

§. Lord Sidmouth.

‖ Colonel Wardle, M.P., who led the attack upon the Duke of York in the affair of Mrs. Clarke, which cost His Royal Highness his office as Commander-in-Chief.

¶ George III.

Princess Amelia* is dying at Weymouth, and the Prince is not likely (I hear) to live long.

“I think I have exhausted my budget of news. Remember me to the ladies and believe me—

“Truly yours, “Folkestone.”

C. C. Western, M.P.,† to Mr. Creevey.

“Felix Hall, Sept. 24, 1809.

“. . . I wish that you may persist in your literary pursuits and particularly directed as they have to a comparative view of the conduct and character of modern statesmen with men of better times. By Heavens! the contrast is too disgusting. I know as little of history, even of my own country, as any gentleman need do, but it is impossible not to pick up enough to see and admire to an excess the sense and spirit of the old patriots, and certainly we have proof enough of the present men to make one dead sick at the very thoughts of them. . . . The duel! by the Lord, this surpasses everything. I have no doubt Canning was the aggressor, for the fellow is mad—evinced his insanity more than once last year. I delight in this duel. It is demonstration of the efficiency of our Councils. Here is an Administration—the King’s Own; the entire army is their sacrifice—the national character and safety too—and yet the Country quite passive. It is really too much to bear. And we are to have a Jubilee! It surpasses all imagination. I am expecting this loyal County to proclaim a subscription to illuminate, &c. I cannot really submit to it, though I shall be branded as a traitor. Do you think it could be morally justifiable to carry one s hypocrisy and acquiescence so far as to concurr in ever so cold a manner on such a diabolical measure. Let me hear from you in these extraordinary events. . . .”

* Youngest and favourite daughter of George III., whose madness was finally confirmed by sorrow for her death in 1810.

† Charles Callis Western [1767-1844], commonly known as Squire Western, was 42 years in Parliament, a staunch Protectionist, though a Whig, and champion of the agricultural interest. In 1833 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Western of Rivenhall.

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Southill, Nov. 8, 1809.

“. . . I am not surprised at people shaping towards Canning, because, as our friend Wilberforce shrewdly observes, he and I have been long enough in the political world not to be surprised at anything; but I know that those who shall trust a politician of that stamp, deserve to be betrayed and will have their deserts. I hope at least I shall so conduct myself as to deserve the approbation and support of the worthy part of the community. . . . The Earl of Essex, Lord Carrington and Mr. Giles are here, and the D. of Bedford, and the above-named noblesse approve Southill. . . . Mr. Adkin is in good health and trying ever and anon to repeat the stories he heard from you when shooting together, in which he does not always succeed. Owen Williams is come to Bedford, is invited to Southill and has accepted the invitation. I am not a little amused with the liberty given to the Emperor of Austria to cut brushwood in certain forests which are taken from him, together with other large territories, and I should very much have liked to have been at the stag hunt at Fontainebleau. . . .”

“Southill, Nov. 10, 1809.

“. . . Tom Adkin, who went to Bedford yesterday to meet his friend Williams at Palmer’s, was the first person who told us of the King’s letter to Perceval. Notwithstanding the awful presence of the Duke and the other Lords, he had got very drunk, and in his drunkenness he related this story, which he prefaced, as usual, by saying he had a fact to relate; which fact everybody laughed at; but the next morning Lord Carrington showed me a letter from Horner, in which the same story is told very circumstantially, and his lordship was very much surprized that what was said by Mr. Adkin ‘in that wild way’ should turn out to be true. I have no doubt that it is so, but the madness and folly of Perceval is inconceivable. Does he quite forget the narrow escape his administration had at starting from the mess made of Canning’s trial? Tierney had not seen the letter when he was here, or, if he had, he was silent about it. Neither did he mention to us Perceval’s letter to the D. of Northumberland, altho’ there was some discussion about the Earl Percy’s taking a seat at the Treasury Board.

“. . . I delight in the stoutness of Lord Holland: I believe him to have principles and to be capable of conduct worthy of his name: but he is hampered. It is a most fortunate circumstance that Canning has given mortal offence at Holland House. The wounds are deep, and I hope incurable. . . . You will hear Martyn’s language from many mouths—great lamentation at our not hanging together. I shall be still the person blamed; but do you think in the present state of affairs that if either Lord Henry Petty or Lord George Cavendish were to be acknowledged by me as leader in the House of Commons there would be a chance of keeping a party together? Should I not lose all power in one way and gain nothing in the other? Should I not bind myself to a compact I could not keep? Should I not at every turn be said to be endeavouring to outstrip my leader? and would it not be confusion worse confounded? Yet I suppose these are the only nostrums recommended. I cannot take them—this is between ourselves. . . . Pray tell me what Lord Derby says and pray tell me whether the report be true or false respecting Burdett’s declaration against the Catholick Question. . . .”

“Southill, Nov. 16, 1809.

“Many thanks for your letter, which contained the first information I have received of Lord Lansdowne’s death. It certainly very much changes the plans laid down by Tierney. You may be sure that my views as to my own personal conduct are the same as those stated in your letter to be the correct ones, and that I shall keep myself as quiet as if there was a leader in whom I confided and could act under. I shall not stir hand or foot. It is my intention to be prepared with such an amendment [to the Address] as you have described, and I told Tierney that such an amendment alone could satisfy the publick, or be consistent with the duty of a Member of Parliament.”

The following correspondence refers to Sir Arthur Wellesley’s passage of the Douro in the face of Soult’s army—one of the most brilliant and dashing operations of the third Peninsular campaign, 1809-14, of which it was the first act. Wellesley, having landed at Lisbon, in April, with 21,500 men, found himself near the centre of a vast semi-circle of French corps numbering upwards of 200,000. He decided to strike before his enemies could concentrate upon him, and marched straight upon Oporto, 170 miles to the north, where Soult lay with 24,000 men. The French Generals Franceschi and Mermet, falling back before his advance, retreated into Oporto, destroying the pontoon bridge across the deep and rapid Douro. The romantic episode of the barber of Oporto and his skiff, the resource and daring which Colonel Waters displayed in using these humble instruments to bring barges over from the enemy’s shore, the nerve of Wellesley and the splendid courage of his soldiers which seized and clinched the slender opportunity, can never be better described than they have been in Napier’s glowing narrative.

Major-Genl. R. C. Ferguson* to Samuel Whitbread, M.P.

“Tickhill, Bantry, 21 July, 1809. “My dear Sir,

“. . . I last night got a letter from Sir Arthur Wellesley and think it best to send you the original without making any comment on it. He is a very fine manly fellow, and I am sure (whatever

* [Sir] Ronald Crawfurd Ferguson [1773-1841], 2nd son of William Ferguson, of Raith, was M.P. for Kirkcaldy burghs 1806-1830; commanded the Highland Brigade of 42nd and 78th regiments at Vimeiro.

were the misrepresentations of the Ministers) you shd. not mean to say anything personally disrespectful to him. I know that in many points you like him, and I shd. be very sorry that anything shd. occur which shd. remove the mutual good opinion you have of each other. It is one of those things in which no advice can be given, and it must be left entirely to yourself, but I trust you will pardon me if I express a hope that you will either write a few lines to him or to me, such as I can send to him, which will do away any unpleasant impression that the newspaper reports may have occasioned.

“I desire, &c., “R. C. Ferguson.”

Lieut-Gen. Sir Arthur Wellesley to Major-Gen. R. C. Ferguson (enclosed in the above).

“Abrantes, 22nd June, 1809. “My dear Ferguson,

“I am in general callous to the observations of party and to the remarks of writers in the newspapers, but I acknowledge that I have been a little disturbed by a statement which it appears was made in the House of Commons by Mr. Whitbread—viz.: that I had exaggerated the success of the Army under my command, or, in other words, that I had lyed.

“I complain that Mr. Whitbread before he made this statement in the House did not read my letter with attention; if he had, he would have seen, first, that we were engaged on the 10th only with cavalry and a small body of infantry, with some guns; secondly, on the 11th with about 4000 infantry and some squadrons of cavalry; and on the 12th I stated nothing of numbers, but that the French were under command of Soult.

“From the nature of the action it was impossible for me to see the numbers engaged, so as to form an estimate of them in a dispatch; but I saw Soult, and knew when I was writing, not only that he was in the action, but that he was either wounded or had a fall from his horse; and I saw a very large body of troops march out of Oporto to the attack. I have since heard that the whole of the French infantry in Portugal, with the exception of Loison’s Corps, which might amount to 4000 men, were in this attack, and this [illegible] estimated to be 10,000 men. We took two pieces more cannon in action than I stated in my dispatch, and I believe the return of cannon which the French were obliged to leave on that day was not less than 50 pieces.

“After that, I don’t think it quite fair that I should, in my absence, be accused of exaggeration, or, in other words, lying. I believe you know that I am not in the habit of sending exaggerated accounts of transactions of this kind. In the first place, I don’t see what purpose accounts of that description are to answer; and in the second place, the Army must eventually see them; they are most accurate criticks: I should certainly forfeit their good opinion most justly if I wrote a false account even of their actions, and nothing should induce me to take any step which should with justice deprive me of that advantage. As you are well acquainted with Mr. Whitbread, I shall be obliged to you if you will mention these circumstances to him. I have thought it better to set him right in this way than to get any friend of mine in the House of Commons to have a wrangle with him on the subject.

“Believe me, Yours most sincerely, “Arthur Wellesley.

“I’ll tell you what I might have said without exaggeration—that, whenever we were engaged, we had fewer numbers than the enemy.”

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Sir Arthur Wellesley.

“Southill, July 30, 1809. “Dear Sir,

“I am very much concern’d to find by a letter I have received from Genl. Ferguson, inclosing one from you to him, that a report in some of the newspapers of what I am supposed to have said in the House of Commons relative to the operations of the army under your command at Oporto has been the cause of any uneasiness to you. You know full well that the newspapers very commonly misrepresent what falls from members of Parliament, and that it is impossible to answer for what is put in by the reporters. In this case I really don’t know what I have been made to say, but I can venture to assure you that nothing disrespectful towards yourself ever fell from my mouth, because all the feelings of my mind are of a nature so entirely the reverse. I have upon all occasions expressed my real opinion of you, and I trust that political differences have never led me, even in public, to underrate your past services, or my hopes of your future ones. I daresay I did express my opinion that the rejoicings of your friends in power upon the receipt of your Dispatch was greater than the occasion call’d for, in which was not to be included any sentiment derogatory to you. I am sorry that your very important occupations should be interrupted, even for the short time necessary to read this letter, by any circumstance relating to me; but I could not help writing to you, and I must detain you one moment longer to assure you that I wish you all possible success, and that I expect from an army commanded by you every happy result that its strength can possibly effect.

“I am, My dear Sir, Your very faithful servant, “S. Whitbread.”

Lieut.-Gen. Sir Arthur Wellesley to Samuel Whitbread, M.P.

“Badajos, Sep. 4, 1809.* “Dear Sir,

“I am very much obliged to you for your letter of the 10th of August [sic] which I received yesterday. As I had more than once received from you those marks of your attention and of your good opinion which you have been pleased to repeat in

* The date of Wellesley’s patent as Viscount Wellington of Talavera.

your letter, and as it indeed appeared by the report of your speech which I read that you had expressed the same sentiments on that occasion, I was anxious to remove from your mind an impression which it appeared had been made upon it, and which must have been injurious to me—that I had made an exaggerated statement of the operations of the troops under my command. In fact, I did not state with what numbers of the enemy the army was engaged when it passed the Douro, as I did not know them when I wrote my dispatch; and that was what I wanted to explain to you. I will not enter into any statement of our affairs in this part of the world; I daresay that you will hear and read enough, and speak more upon them than some of us will like. I rather think, however, that between numbers on the side of the enemy and strength of position on ours, we are so equally balanced that neither party will do the other much mischief. It will be satisfactory, however, for you to hear that the French begin to be convinced ‘que les Francois ne seront jamais les maitres des Anglois.’

“Ever, dear Sir, Yours most faithfully, “Arthur Wellesley.”

General Ferguson to Samuel Whitbread, M.P.

“Raith, Oct. 1, 1809. “My dear Sir,

“I have to thank you for your letter of the 25th ulto. accompanied by Sir Arthur’s to you. With respect to his rashness in advancing so far into Spain, I fear something may be said; but I should fain hope that in his account of the battle of Talavera he will be acquitted of the charge of exaggeration. Twenty pieces of cannon and 5 standards taken from the enemy will be strong evidence in his favour. I have had a long letter from him, in which he gives a melancholy picture of the Spanish army and of the Government. Indeed he seems to have no hopes of the ultimate success of the Spaniards. He tells me not to think of having think of having anything to do with him or his army, so my trip to Spain is at an end. We shall probably have fighting enough at home, beginning with a war of words, which (if the system of Government is not compleatly chang’d) will end in blows. If any of our friends come in, I hope they will not put the convenience of one individual in competition with the existence of the country. If they do, I hope that no honest man will support them. If Parlt. meets in Novr. I shall go to town, and should you be at Southill I shall not pass your door.”

Creevey resembled many of us in that he often began to keep a journal, and as often left off doing so. His diary during the autumn of 1809 was rather more continuous than usual.

Journal.

“25th Sept, 1809.—Left Whitfield for Gosforth on our way to Howick, and learnt there that a King’s Messenger had passed thro’ Newcastle in the morning on his way to Howick to Lord Grey.

“26th.—Sent on to Newcastle from Gosforth and ascertained the Messenger had been at Howick, and was returned with letters from Lord Grey, but that he himself was not gone to London, so we proceed to Howick.

“Nothing said before dinner of the Messenger, but after dinner Lord Grey mentioned that a Messenger had brought offers from the Ministers to him, and that similar ones had been sent to Lord Grenville, and that he (Lord Grey) had sent a refusal. Does not mention what the offers were, but that the Ministers talked of an extended administration. Conversation about Castlereagh’s duel with Canning. Lord Grey thinks Castlereagh in the right: that his cause of complaint against Canning was the latter having told the King and Duke of Portland three months ago he could not remain in the Cabinet with Castlereagh, and yet never mentioning this to Castlereagh, but living apparently well with him. Then the cause of the duel—Lord Grey considers Canning’s resignation owing to his not being able to succeed Duke of Portland as Prime Minister. Curran the Irish Master of the Rolls, Geo. Ponsonby and Frederic Ponsonby (Lady Grey’s two brothers), Lord Grey and myself the party after dinner. . . . Lord Grey decidedly against the plan of the campaign in Holland, and acquits Lord Chatham of all blame in the execution of it, and still more decided in reprobation of Lord Wellington’s Spanish campaign and of the conduct of Ministers about the battle of Talavera.

“Lord Grey very shy and artificial with me about politicks—makes frequent mention of Sir Francis Burdett and the No-Party men, and says, in answer to an observation of mine that the present Government can never last, however patched up, that in the present state of the House of Commons any Government may stand. I consider these observations as meant at my conduct last session, for doing all I could to expose what I thought the meanness and folly of his (Lord Grey’s) party, of which I had till then been one. I take, however, no notice of these observations, as it is not necessary I should apply them to myself; and I am more convinced than ever that I was right last session, and that the leaders of Whig party were to the last degree contemptible. I am in no way committed with Sir Francis Burdett or any views of his. I know him well, and think upon the whole unfavorably of him, but will not say so to Lord Grey without his giving me a fair and proper occasion for so doing.

“Wednesday, 27th.—. . . Nothing passed material after dinner. Some hit at my newspaper the Statesman as a no-party paper. Curran gone.

“Thursday, 28th, till Oct. 5th.—. . . Conversation after dinner and after supper always as artificial as the devil, Lord Grey shewing his spite at my conduct the last session, and his own folly by the following observations made by him—‘The Duke of York’s business last session in the House of Commons never gave the King a moment’s uneasiness.’—‘The Duke of York was the best Commander-in-chief the army ever had, except in the field!’—‘Adam was used shamefully in the House of C. last session.’—‘Lord Castlereagh’s business in the House of Commons last session about the writership did not do him the slightest injury.’—‘Canning calling Coke of Norfolk a landed grandee was damned good.’—‘Romilly had entirely failed in the House of Commons.’—‘The first man this country has seen since Burke’s time is Brougham.’—‘Piggott was the best speaker in the House next to Canning.’ . . . Lord Grey says tho’ he is against proscription in forming an administration, yet Canning is the last man he would unite with.

“Mrs. Creevey receives a letter from Lady Petre begging her and me to write letters of introduction in Edinburgh for her son, young Lord Petre, who is going there. Mrs. Creevey asks Lord Grey to let her send a note to Alnwick to bring him and his tutor over here. Lord and Lady Grey make such difficulty about beds, and, in short, fling such cold water upon the proposal, that we drop the subject. Take notice, there was room in the house—plenty. Lord Petre’s family have spent £15,000 at least in supporting Lord Grey’s party in elections, &c., &c., besides great intimacy between the families. So much for gratitude in political leaders to their supporters!. . .

“Friday, Oct. 6th.—Sir Chas. Monk and Loch the counsel came over from Alnwick sessions to dine at Howick, and as they were both very free-spoken and honest politicians, Lord Grey seemed devilishly frightened after dinner least anything should be said upon the subject. It was stupid enough. Loch and I had a good walk before dinner, and gave the Whigs their deserts.

“Saty., 7th.—We leave Howick with all kinds of civilities—squeezing of hands, &c., as if all parties were as pleased as Punch; and so, in fact, it was—they to get quit of us, and we to regain our liberty. Get to Gosforth, Charles Brandling’s, Mrs. Creevey’s brother and member for Newcastle, an inveterate Pittite, but who is quite stunned with the figure the Government has made.

“Sat., Oct. 14th.—We leave Gosforth for Low Gosforth. Little done or said at Gosforth during our stay about politicks. Charles Brandling all for Canning against Castlereagh, but evidently shook in his attachment to Canning from Castlereagh’s letter and statement in the papers, and Canning’s reply. Damns Perceval, Eldon and above all the Grenvilles—in favor of Lord Grey.

“Monday, Oct. 23.—Leave Low Gosforth for Shotton, Ralph Brandling’s, county of Durham. At Low Gosforth nothing but eating and drinking. . . . We receive a very kind letter from Lord Milton, inviting us to his father Ld. Fitzwilliam’s at Wentworth, which we are sorry we can’t accept.

“27th,—We leave Shotton on our way south. Terrible dull work at Shotton. . . .

“30th.—Arrive at Whitbread’s—Southill, Bedfordshire—Whitbread and Lady Elizabeth Whitbread (sister to Lord Grey) quite delighted to see us. Nothing but politicks between Whitbread and me from the moment we meet just before dinner till bedtime. Quite against Canning and the whole Government—approves Lord Grey’s letter to Perceval very much, but agrees with me that in the general sentiments he delivers upon all publick subjects, he talks like a madman. I tell him everything that has passed at Howick, about which he just thinks with me.

“Sunday, 31st.—Whitbread shows me a letter written to him by Grey upon his receiving Perceval’s offer, containing a copy of Perceval’s letter and Grey’s answer. I take copies of them. The writing on such an occasion very right in Grey, and the letter in many parts kind, but in many others very arrogant, and just treating Whitbread as a person entirely separated from Grey in politicks. Whitbread in his answer very affectionate to Grey, and very stout in the support of his own conduct at the same time.

“Same day, he shews me a correspondence between Sir Arthur Wellesley (Lord Wellington) and himself, occasioned by a speech of Whitbread’s in the House of Commons, stating that Wellesley’s account of the battle of the Douro in Spain* was an exaggeration. This was brought about by General Ferguson, a friend of both, a member of the House of Commons and a most admirable man. . . . I hate Wellesley, but there are passages in his letter that made me think better of him. . . .

* It was fought, of course, in Portugal.

“On the same day, Whitbread shews me a correspondence between Tierney and him. . . . Tierney, thinking Grenville and Grey are coming in, writes a letter to Whitbread offering his services to set everything to right that may be wrong, and, in short, meaning to bring Grey and Whitbread together again in politicks, and to procure for Whitbread any place in the supposed new government he may wish. . . . Whitbread, considering this very friendly in Tierney, returns him a very kind answer, shewing clearly he has no disinclination to office, but at the same time, stating he will not relinquish an atom of his political principles or make the least compromise.

“Whitbread evidently quite taken in by Tierney in this proceeding. Tierney finds out that Lord Grey’s party, if they come into office, can’t carry on the Government in the House of Commons against Whitbread; so now, instead of abusing him as was done all last session, he is to be cajoled.

“Saty., Nov. 4.—We leave Whitbread’s for London, having spent a very happy time at Southill, and with a most firm conviction that Whitbread—tho’ rough in his manners—tho’ entirely destitute of all taste or talent for conversation, and tho’ apparently almost tyrannical in his deportment to his inferiors—is a man of the very strictest integrity, with the most generous, kind and feeling heart.

“Lord and Lady Ponsonby pass us on the road to Southill. The Whitbreads wanted us to stay to meet them, but we would not, because Lord Ponsonby had been always just of opinion with Whitbread and me about politicks, till some months past, when he became quite against us, as I think, not only without reason, but against all reason; and as I know he is hard pressed for money, I suppose he is after a place, and cut him as a shabby politician.

“Sunday, Nov. 5.—Arrived in London. The first person I see is McMahon M.P. and Prince of Wales’s Secretary. I go in with him to Carlton House and write my name for the Prince. McMahon shows me a copy of a most mean letter from Perceval to the Duke of Northumberland, imploring his support of the Government, tho’ a stranger to the Duke, and offering Earl Percy a seat at the Treasury Board. I saw the Duke’s answer—a dry refusal, with thanks for all Perceval’s compliments.

“McMahon tells me a letter is certainly shewn about by Perceval, written to him by the King, threatening to dissolve the parliament if they don’t support his Ministry.

“Monday, Nov. 6.—I learn from Whishaw—a particular friend of mine, who lives almost entirely at Holland House—that the language now held there is that Grey and Whitbread are become quite united again in politicks—that all differences are at an end—that Lord Ponsonby (Lady Grey’s brother) is gone to Southill to confirm the union, and that Tierney and the Duke of Bedford are to go from Woburn to Southill on Tuesday, and Lord Carrington, Lord Essex, and Giles of the House of Commons [illegible] the same day, and all this visiting is represented at Holland House as a political mission to Whitbread to confirm him in his reported reconciliation with Grey. All this evidently got up by Tierney. There is no foundation whatever for saying Grey and Whitbread are more alike in politicks than they have been these two years. Tierney used to tell everybody, as he has often done me, that Grey and Whitbread were more separated than they actually were, because he then thought he could do without Whitbread; and the sooner he was flung off the better. Now he finds he can’t do without him, and he states, without an atom of foundation, that Grey and Whitbread are the same, and tries to cajole Whitbread into thinking so. I write to Whitbread and tell him all I hear from Holland House.

“Tuesday, 7th.—Lord Kensington and Ward dine with us, both full of their jokes at the expense of our political leaders.

“Wedy., 8th.—I have a letter from Whitbread. He says Lord Ponsonby never said a word upon politicks, Saturday, all the evening—that Whitbread was ill on Sunday and did not appear, and that my Lord was off on Monday before Whitbread. So much for his ‘mission.’ He says Tierney and the Duke and other Lords are there.

“I meet in the streets several politicians, tho’ the town is very empty—Owen Williams, Lord Kensington, Cavendish, Bradshaw, Maxwell, Lord Ossulston, Horner, Martin, Ward—all in the House of Commons—all, except Horner, inclined to talk very contemptuously of our political leaders. Horner is for doing nothing in the House of Commons this approaching session—damns the people as rank Tories—I defend them, as having been betrayed by political leaders, and am myself all for impeachment.* Martin is all for attacking the Ministers, but is affraid we shan’t hang together. . . .

“Friday, Nov. 10th.—Lord Kensington and Sir Philip Francis dine with us. Wardle’s motion for a new trial against Mr. Clarke and the Wrights had taken place the day before in the King’s Bench, and rule nisi granted. . . . Wardle shews me a correspondence between him and Lord Folkestone upon the subject of a communication made to Folkestone by Sir Rd. Philips for Wardle’s use in his legal proceedings against Mrs. Clarke, which Folkestone had withheld from Wardle and shewn to Mrs. Clarke. Folkestone appears to have acted wrong under some blind attachment to Mrs. Clarke. Wardle had thought at one time of calling him out, but now means to subpoena him on the approaching trial. I must prevent this if possible: it will produce a quarrel between the two, and do great mischief with the publick to have these two quarrel who have hitherto been so well together in the same pursuit.

“Saturday, 11th.—I find by a letter from Whitbread this day that Tierney has been proposing Lord Henry Petty or Lord George Cavendish as leader of our party in the House of Commons! Whitbread says he never can submit to it. Was there ever anything so contemptible! but the reason is obvious—Tierney wants Lord George to be the nominal leader, and himself the real one.

“We dine at Lord Derby’s—nobody but us. Lord Derby excellent in every respect, as he always is, and my Lady still out of spirits for the loss of her child, but surpassing even in her depressed state all your hereditary nobility I have ever seen, tho’ she came from the stage to her title.†

* Of the Duke of York.

† Eliza Farren, a well-known actress, became the 2nd countess of the 12th Earl of Derby.

“Sunday, 12th.—I meet Abercromby in my walk. He is as artificial as the devil—will scarcely touch politicks—thinks, however, the Wellesleys will now be beat if they are attacked properly; upon which I fire into our leaders for their meanness in not having attacked them long ago. He is very sore at such observation, and when I tell him that Wardle is on his legs again, all he can say is—‘Wardle is the agent of the Duke of Kent.’ Was there ever such nonsense? C. Warren the lawyer dines with us, and, as usual, full of sensible observations. He predicts the present reign will end quietly from the popularity of the King, but that when it ends, the profligacy and unpopularity of all the Princes, with the situation of the country as to financial difficulties, and the rapidly and widely extended growth of Methodism, will produce a storm.

“Monday, 13th.—Calcraft, Wardle and Payne dine with us. . . . Wardle says he is quite sure of succeeding both in gaining a new trial against Wright and in his prosecution of Mrs. Clarke and Wright for perjury, and he takes the whole business, as he has done throughout, with the most perfect composure. I can’t bring myself to think there is anything bad in him, and I have looked at him in all ways in order to be sure of him. I know he is in distress for money, but all the men from his part of the country dine with him and speak well of him. . . . In his approaching prosecution he means to subpoena the Duke of York and Lord Moira and Lord Chichester about the £10,000 given to Mrs. Clarke for suppressing the publication of the Duke of York’s letters to her. Warren has seen these letters: they were laid before him by counsel to advise whether they might be printed with safety to the publisher, and he told me such stuff was never seen. They consist of the Duke of York’s observations or information to Mrs. Clarke concerning the Royal family—his hatred of the Prince of Wales—his jokes about the Queen and the intrigues and accouchement of the Princess—all in the coarsest and most licentious language. What a damnable piece of work the examination of these Lords and Princes will be.

“Tuesday, 14th.—I find in the streets Lord Lansdowne is dead, and Lord Henry Petty of course succeeds him, so he leaves the House of Commons, and his being leader is at an end. I write to tell Whitbread. . . .

“Wednesday, 15th.—Sir John Sebright, Ld. Kensington, Western and [illegible] all dined with us. . . .

“Thursday, 16th.—We dine at Lord Derby’s: present—Lord Holland, Lord Grenville, Tierney, Lord Kinnaird and young Eden (Lord Auckland’s second son). One should have thought at such a time the conversation of such a party might have been worth hearing, but nothing could be lower—imitations of old Lansdowne and Lord Thurlow by Lord Holland, and such like things. The only political thing was—Lord Derby says, from all he hears, he thinks the appointment of so young a man as Manners Sutton* to Judge Advocate has given such offence, that a motion upon that subject would be a good one for the House of Commons at the opening of the session; upon which Tierney shrugs his head and says—‘Personal questions never answer.’ Was there ever such contemptible stuff at such a crisis? But this is the judicious leader, or rather adviser behind the curtain of the Whigs and Grenvilles. What is there that relates to all or any of the present Government that is not a personal question?

“Saturday, 18th.—We come down to Brighton. Walk all the morning with different people, but Sir Charles Pole is the only politician: shews me a letter from Tierney, saying Parliament does not meet till 20th January, and that therefore the Ministers were sure of another quarter’s salary. This a Privy Councillor too! what a low blackguard. He evidently is writing to Pole and others to coax them into voting as he does. Pole tells me the way in which Perceval has sollicited the assistance of N. Vansittart, Addington (Lord Sidmouth), Bragge Bathurst and others of that party, and of their answers; by which it appears to me they turn out, as they always have been—shabby fellows, and Sir Charles himself, I believe, is not much better.

“Grattan here, with whom I have frequent long walks. It is impossible to meet with anyone more

* He was then 27, and became Speaker in 1817.

amiable and unaffected; and considering his successful and brilliant publick life, his absence of all vanity is quite miraculous. His opinions upon present political persons in this country are worth nothing. He is a kind of stranger in a new country—has no longer any object of ambition—seems to consider his day as past, and to be perfectly satisfied with his lot. . . .

“This trial of Wardle’s indictment against Mrs. Clarke and the Wrights being to come on the first week in December, Western and I correspond upon the necessity of getting Lord Folkestone to London, and trying to set everything to right between him and Wardle before the trial comes on, as well for both their sakes as for the general cause.* . . .

“Monday, December 11.—Folkestone had been induced by Mrs. Clarke to think Wardle was an agent of the Duke of Kent, and that in that capacity he had bound himself by promises of great service to her which he had afterwards forfeited. He is now perfectly convinced that the whole of Mrs. Clarke’s account to him was fabrication, and he tells both Wardle, Western and myself that he has a higher opinion of Wardle than ever.”

Creevey goes on to state, in terms too little equivocal for modern taste, that Lord Folkestone admitted that he had a liaison with Mrs. Clarke while she was under the protection of the Duke of York—a circumstance only worthy of record as throwing light upon the character of the woman who cost His Royal Highness so dearly.

* Mrs. Clarke, the Duke of York’s mistress, used her influence to secure the promotion of officers, who paid her handsomely for her assistance. Colonel Wardle brought the matter before the House of Commons in January, 1809; it was referred to a Select Committee, which, while it acquitted His Royal Highness of having made any pecuniary advantage himself, reported very unfavourably upon his discretion, and he was removed from the command-in-chief. He was, however, restored in 1811.

“This discovery again frightens Western and myself to the greatest degree, considering, as we do, that should this fact appear upon the trial, it will be fatal to Folkestone’s character. Folkestone not sensible of this at first, but we frighten him to death by telling him of his danger.

“October 30, 1811.—As for poor Wardle, he is ruined since I last mentioned him—ruined by his excessive folly, and being so full of himself from his former success that it was no longer safe to advise him, and so he foundered last session upon a motion about the punishment of some soldier.”

CHAPTER VI. 1810.

Although the Government had sustained a stunning blow in the loss of its two most prominent members, Castlereagh and Canning, the Opposition found themselves in a still more disorganised plight, so as to be quite unready to gain any advantage from the confusion of their enemies. The rising spirit of the country withdrew all attention from everything except the war; the denunciations of ministerial measures and blunders fell upon deaf ears, and the Opposition, as is commonly to be seen under similar circumstances, took to quarrelling among themselves, mistrusting each other, unable to decide upon the choice of a leader. Not from want of candidates, to be sure; it is amusing to read of the bewildering variety which was offered to them.

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Southill, Jan. 7, 1810.

“. . . Lord Grey passed a night here on his way to town. He was determined to be, and was, very kind, but we should not have held it long. It seems not decided that Ponsonby is not still to be continued Leader. I said ‘not mine.’ I had been disowned in such a manner on a topick of the greatest importance I could no longer fight under his banner. Lord Grey said if he chose to retain his situation he felt himself bound to support him. I could not help smiling, but I said only that I questioned much whether there would be any followers. He said he believed I was much mistaken. . . . Now write to me once more and tell me what you think of my state of mind from what I have written. I always take advice and criticism in good part from a friend—I know I do—so cut away boldly. I have no object but the publick good: I want nothing: I seek nothing. If I do wrong, ’tis because I am not wise eno’ to do right. . . . All about Lord Grey is quite private.”

Lord Milton, M.P.* to Mr. Creevey.

“Milton, Jan. 8, 1810. “Dear Creevey,

“I fully agree with you upon the trial that is about to be given to the H. of C. and lamentable indeed will it be if the issue is favourable to the Gentleman at the end of the Mall,† as Michael Angelo‡ calls him. It must completely damn Parliament if it takes no notice of the authors of the expedition to Walcheren, and all the disgraces and losses consequent upon their mismanagement in all quarters. . . . I am rather uneasy at hearing that the old trader§ is to be the manufacturer of the amendment, but, short of a sacrifice of principle, I think a great deal ought to be done to embrace as many persons as possible; for, after all, nothing but a majority in Parlt. can lead to the practical benefit of getting rid of the present administration. . . . I trust the Marquis‖ will meet with the fate you predict for him. He is a great calamity inflicted upon England, and I heard to-day that, upon this last business with America, he has sent a proposition to her, the alternative of which is to be war. Here is the advantage of having the Conqueror of the East for our foreign secretary.”

* Afterwards 5th Earl Fitzwilliam.

† George III.

‡ Michael Angelo Taylor, M.P., whose house in Whitehall was a constant and favourite rendezvous of the Whig party.

§ Mr. Whitbread.

‖ Marquess Wellesley.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“1810.

“. . . The Hon. Company are (as well as all other companies and most individuals) singularly obliged to Providence for restoring our gracious Sovereign. His death or idiocy would have been in the nature of a quo warranto. He is nearly recovered, and I hope to God will be able to prorogue. If a regency had been got up for a short time, with the present men as its ministers, I am confident Eldon, Perceval, &c. (who, when driven to desperation never think of violent measures, but only become more base, cunning, mean, &c.) would have licked the dust before the P. to good purpose. I wish the old ruffian,* however, may not have renewed his term. . . . Melville (as I learn from Scotland) wrote to Ld. Grenville urging him to have me put out of Parliament, on the ground that I was suspected of writing an article in the Edinr. Review highly disrespectful to Pitt! . . . My authority is exceedingly good—one of the law officers of Govt, in Scotland. . . . I conclude the article alluded to is Ld. Erskine’s speeches; and, without saying I wrote it, I can only say I am ready to avow all it contains, in any place, and before any number of Grenvilles, Pitts or Dundasses. . . .”

“1810, Temple.

“. . . I hope I need not assure you that my opinion as to Pitt is much too deeply rooted, and formed upon too long an examination of that Arch-juggler’s proceedings, to be at any time even in the least degree modified by any reason of party expediency or party concert. I need scarcely add that no other motive (such as fear of giving offence) could ever reach me. Indeed, any notion of such sentiments giving offence in any quarter of our friends, could only have the effect of making one speak more loudly if possible. At the same time, I fancy that personal feelings are all that influence the Grenvilles on this point—I should rather say Ld. G. himself, for the rest don’t seem to have liked Pitt. . . . I agree with you entirely as to

* George III.

the probable fate of Pitt’s reputation. He was indeed a poor hand at a measure, whatever he may have been at a speech. This all men may easily perceive; but a little inquiry into the facts of such questions as the Regency—Slave Trade—Restriction and E. I. Coy. makes one almost disbelieve the evidence of recollection, and doubt whether he actually did succeed in hoodwinking the country for twenty years . . . As to this rebellion agt. legitimate authority, Ld. H[olland] won’t touch the subject, no more will young C.* nor Eden, nor Macdonald, &c; and Lord Derby being applied to by Thanet, declined interfering, as did the D. of Devonshire and Lord G[rey], each on his own ground—Lord D. on that of general, vague and groundless panic, quite worthy of his panic when Gladstone and Co. went to Knowsley and made him give over supporting us at L’pool.”

Lord Folkestone to Mr. Creevey.

“Jany. 9, 1810. “Dear Creevey,

“Are you dead or sick? or have you got a place? that I do not hear from you. Do not be so infernally lazy, but write. . . . I send you the last news from Felix. The upshot of the whole will be that, at the nomination, the Tory Candidate will have a great majority: no Whig Candidate will start but Burgoyne, who will make himself and the cause ridiculous. I am expecting a county meeting in Berks on the state of the nation. I send you an address I have prepared for the occasion. I wish you would look at it, and revise and criticise it with a severe, not a friendly, eye, and let me have your opinion. . . .

“Ever yours, “Folkestone.”

While Mr. Creevey was attending assiduously to his duties in Parliament, Mrs. Creevey sometimes remained at Brighton, and at such times Creevey’s

* Hon. James Abercromby, M.P., afterwards Speaker, who went by the nickname of Young Cole, as Tierney did by that of Old Cole.

letters assumed the character of an almost continuous journal.

“Saturday, 20th Jan.—. . . Left Brighton with Grattan: dined at the Piazza: went at night to Brooks’s: found Whitbread there in consequence of my letter: various others, all civil to the greatest degree. Morpeth, Lord R. Spencer, Fitzpatrick, Sefton, all greeted me most cordially, and then I had a long prose with Whitbread.

“Lord Grey continues his insolence, but the others are all courting him prodigiously—Holland, the Duke of Bedford and Grenville, and with the latter he has unreserved conversations upon all subjects. The amendment is Grenville’s drawing and Whitbread quite approves it. It is no great things, but it will do. . . .

“21st.—. . . Before I got to town, notes were out for a meeting at Ponsonby’s to-morrow night. There was a note at my house for Ord, but none for me. Ossulston told me this morning that Lord Grey had asked him whether ‘he thought Creevey would go to Ponsonby’s if he was asked.’ On Ossulston saying ‘Yes,’ the other shook his head with an air of distrust. Ossulston wished me to go, but I said certainly not, upon such a case as that. From his house I went to Lord Grey’s, and found him alone. He was civil, in good spirits, and looked remarkably well—talked generally of our running the Ministers hard: but not a word in detail of Ponsonby’s meeting, or anything else, and so we parted.

“I then went to Whitbread’s, who, I found, would not go to Ponsonby’s, considering himself to have been personally insulted by him; but very wisely deciding that his case should not be made a reason for any one else absenting himself. . . . He told me that Tierney had said to Ponsonby, in going over the persons to be asked and arriving at my name, that ‘Ponsonby must himself decide, for he knew as much as he [Tierney] did.’

“On coming home to dress, I found a note from Abercromby, stating that he asked a minute’s conversation with me at Brooks’s at night; which was that he had been requested to learn from me, with every friendly wish to consult my own feelings, whether, if I was written to by Ponsonby, I wd. come to his house, and that it was thought right to tell me this communication was not made at the suggestion of Mr. Tierney. I said if I had received a letter from Ponsonby I had no doubt I should have gone, and so it ended. Gentlemen got into corners to whisper ‘that they had no doubt but Creevey would go to Ponsonby’s,’ and the Marquis of Lansdowne and I paraded for a quarter of an hour together, and he was much more affable than he has been for ages. . . . Lord Grey began to be very gracious, and begged me finally to write to Maxwell and Sir Charles Pole to bring them from Brighton. On my telling him Pole was not likely to be well enough to come, he said:—‘Damn him! I don’t believe he would vote with me if he came. The Doctor (Sidmouth) can’t make up his mind.’

“22nd.—A note in George Ponsonby’s own writing, and sent by his servant, to request me to come to his house to-night; and so I shall go. . . . Went to Ponsonby’s: Milton, Lord A. Hamilton, Ossulston, Romilly, Ferguson, Coke of Norfolk, &c., there . . . so I am glad I went. Much pampered—pointed by Lord George Cavendish.

“23rd.—Parliament met. The King’s speech very long, and capable of being worked to the devil. . . . Lord Barnard moved the address, Peel seconded it, and made a capital figure for a first speech.* I think it was a prepared speech, but it was a most produceable Pittish performance, both in matter and manner. I perceive we shall by no means cut the figure to-night that Tierney has held out. . . . Castlereagh started from under the gallery, two rows behind Canning, and everything that related personally to himself he did with a conscious sense of being right, and a degree of lively animation I never saw in him before. Base as the House is, it recognised by its cheers the claims of Castlereagh to its approbation, and they gave it.

* The Speaker, Charles Abbot [afterwards Lord Colchester], pronounced it to be “the best first speech since that of Mr. Pitt.” Peel was only two and twenty.

When he came to his expedition, he fell a hundred fathoms lower than the bogs of Walcheren.

“Canning was sufficiently master of himself to let off one of his regular compositions, with all the rhetorical flourishes that used to set his audience in a roar; but he spoke from a different atmosphere. He was at least two feet separated from the Treasury bench, and in the whole course of his speech he could not extort a single cheer. . . . Whitbread was stout and strong—upon Wellington particularly. . . . Notwithstanding Tierney’s calculations and prophecy that we should be in a majority, we were beat by 96. . . . Their strength was composed of five parties—the Government—Castlereagh’s—Canning’s—the Doctor’s and the Saints. In looking at the majority going out, Castlereagh said with the gayest face possible:—‘Well, Creevey, how do we look?’ . . .

“We had a grand fuss in telling the House. The Princess of Wales, who had been present the whole time, would stay it out to know the numbers, and so remained in her place in the gallery. The Speaker very significantly called several times for strangers to withdraw; which she defied, and sat on. At last the little fellow became irritated—started from his chair, and, looking up plump in the faces of her and her female friend, halloaed out most fiercely:—‘If there are any strangers in the House they must withdraw.’ They being the only two, they struck and withdrew. . . . In the Lords, Grey made an admirable speech, disputed the military, moral and intellectual fame of Lord Wellington most capitally, and called loudly upon the Marquis [Wellesley], as the Atlas of the falling state, to come forward and justify the victory of Talavera.

“24th.—Dined at a coffee-house: went to Brooks’s at night. Lord Grey came in drunk from the Duke of York’s where he had been dining. He came and sat by me on the same sofa, talked as well as he could over the division of the night before, and damned with all his might and main Marquis Wellesley, of whose profligate establishment I told him some anecdotes, which he swallowed as greedily as he had done the Duke’s wine. He and Whitbread and I sat together and were as merry as if we had been the best friends in the world. . . . Then the Right Hon. George Ponsonby came and sat by me, and we talked over the last session a little; but I found him very sore and very bad.

“25th.—Perceval has given notice of thanks to Wellington on Monday. . . .

“26th.—. . . On Lord Porchester’s motion for an enquiry into the expedition to Walcheren, we beat the Ministers by a majority of nine. I did not expect it; tho’ I saw that, if we could move together, our first division (of 167) on the Address must be fatal to them. It is the most perfect triumph possible for the enquiry is to be public, like that on the Duke of York, not in a Select Committee. There were circumstances in the division above all price. Canning was in the minority with Perceval—Castlereagh in the majority with us. He sat aloof with 4 friends; and these 5, instead of going out, decided the question in our favor. Had they gone out we should have been beat by one! I counted the villains going out, and in coming up the House I pronounced with confidence that they were beat. Castlereagh bent his head from his elevated bench down almost to the floor to catch my eye, and I gave him a sign that all was well. He could scarce contain himself: he hid his face; but when the division was over, he was quite extravagant in the expression of his happiness. . . .

“27th.—Walked in the streets; they were all alive and merry. Tierney says ‘the business of last night will end in smoak,’ which confirms me in my conviction of its infinite importance. . . . I do not think any minister that ever was could stand a public enquiry into our ordinary expeditions; much less such a minister as this into such an expedition. . . . Walked with Bainbridge. He told me that, after our conversation two months ago, in which we agreed entirely about the fatal influence of Tierney over Grey, and the necessity of these leaders having their eyes opened as to their conduct to the Insurgents,* and the utter ruin such a system would bring upon them, he was so impressed with the matter that he went down to Lord

* The extreme wing of the Opposition, who afterwards assumed the ominous title of “the Mountain.”

Thanet to have it out with him; who agreed with him in everything, and he (Lord Thanet) was induced to write an elaborate letter to Grey, expostulating with him upon all their various proceedings.

“28th, Sunday.—Dined at Western’s. I have got so much master of the Talavera campaign, that I meant to have had a round upon it; but I find Whitbread is so well primed upon the subject, and so many others in the same way, that I shall desist. Supped with Lord Thanet at Brooks’s, from mere curiosity, having heard so much of his talents. He is certainly a quick, clever man, but his earldom has done great things for his fame in the intellectual line. . . .

“Lord John Townshend attacked George Ponsonby with the most honest indignation on notes having been sent out to say there wd. be no division to-morrow on the thanks to Wellington, after notes had previously gone round to say there would be. . . . The Right Hon. George could only say, over and over again—‘I don’t agree with you, my lord’—‘My lord, I by no means agree with you.’

“29th.—All confusion to-day, owing to this change about dividing on the thanks to Wellington. Rank mutiny has broken out, and it is now said we are certainly to divide. Milton, Folkestone, Lord J. Townshend, George Ponsonby, junr.—in short, all the Insurgents. This is all because our leaders, having once been in a majority, cannot bear ever to be in a minority again. A damned, canting fellow in the House, Mr. Manning, complained of members’ names being printed* as a breach of privilege, and so it wd. have passed off, if I had not shewed them that, so far from its being a breach of privilege, it was a vote in King William’s time ‘that members’ names should be printed, that the country might know who did, and who did not, their duty.’ . . . Wellington’s thanks are put off till Thursday. . . . Lord Huntly ordered to attend at the Bar of the House as a witness on the enquiry into the Scheldt expedition. So now the Ministers are nail’d.

“30th.—Went at Milton’s desire to help him to

* I.e. in the division lists published in the newspapers.

draw up an amendment to Wellington’s thanks. I shall like to hand Sir Arthur and his battle down to posterity in the Journals in its proper colours. I have quite pleased Milton with my amendment; but was sorry when I left him to find that he meant to take it to Ponsonby for his approbation.”

Creevey here quotes his draft amendment, which is very long.

“Surely this hits him hard enough, and yet it is mild as milk; but the great merit of it is that it is quoting his own dispatches in his own words.

“Met Grey and Tierney in the streets. They both stopt, and I begun about the thanks to Wellington. Grey immediately said he never could see the sense of there being no division in the House of Commons on that subject; that he himself would have divided the Lords if he could have found anybody to divide with him, and, as it was, he had protested against it. Tierney blamed the folly of the note which said there was to be no division, and let out that Lord Temple was to divide for Wellesley if there was a division; and here is the whole mystery about keeping off a division. But we are to divide: and the leaders with us.

“31st.—. . . Perceval fought three pitched battles on naming the Finance Committee, and was beat in them all. In that between Leycester and Wm. Cavendish, about which I was most anxious, I saw the tellers count wrong by 3. I called to have the House told again, and again I saw them make the same mistake. I shewed it to General Tarleton, who became furious; and the Speaker called him and me to order in the most boisterous manner. It ended in the House being counted a third time, and the tellers were sent out into the galleries to be more certain. In going they picked up young Peel, the seconder of the Address, in concealment, who, being brought in, voted for Cavendish. They then counted the House again, and they counted right, making 3 more than before, and with Peel making the majority of 4. Otherwise we had been equal, and the Speaker would have decided the thing undoubtedly against us. We then stuffed Sir John Newport and Sir George Warrender down their throats, without their daring to oppose us. There never was a more compleat victory, and the majority of the Committee is now so good, anything may be done with it. So much so, that Freemantle said after all was over to Mr. Cavendish, that ‘if Lords Grenville and Grey come in, this Committee will be a terrible thing for them!’

“February 1st.—All our indignation against Wellington ended in smoak. Opposition to his thanks was so unpopular, that some of the stoutest of our crew slunk away; or rather, they were dispersed by the indefatigable intrigues of the Wellesleys and the tricks of Tierney. . . . In short he and our more ostensible leaders cut the ground from under our feet in deference to Lord Grenville. My consolation is that they will be dragged thro’ plenty of dirt by this same great man and his friends the Wellesleys. It is already given out by the Grenvilles that the present Finance Committee, composed as it is, would overturn any Government. It certainly will produce most unpleasant matter for placemen and pensioners.”

On 2nd February began the inquiry in Committee of the whole House into the Walcheren expedition. Witnesses gave evidence at the Bar of the House. On the motion of Mr. Yorke, the galleries of the House were cleared of strangers, in order to prevent incorrect reports of the proceedings being published in anticipation of the publication of the official minutes. During the course of the inquiry a long and detailed description was forwarded daily to Mrs. Creevey by her husband; but as the character of this famous inquiry is fully on record, it does not seem desirable to quote more than a few sentences here and there.

“8th.—. . . A message from the King to the House of Commons for £2000 per ann. for Lord Wellington. This is too bad! The question is to come up to-morrow week. . . .

“9th.—. . . Went with Lord Archibald Hamilton to the Westminster meeting in Palace Yard. There were 5000 or 6000 persons present, apparently of the lowest extraction. Cochrane and Burdett spoke with great applause, and Burdett has since presented to the House the petition of the meeting for a reform of Parliament—the same petition that was presented by Lord Grey in 1798, and beginning—‘Whereas by a petition presented in 1798 by Charles Grey Esq., now Earl Grey.’ This is comical enough, and we shall see how he takes it.

“Feb. 17th.—Call’d on Whitbread, Lord Derby, Mrs. Grey and Lord Downshire. Walked with Abercromby, who had had a letter from his brother, who is with Wellington’s army. It is dated the 31st January, and they had just heard that a corps of 45,000 French were at Salamanca. If this be true, Wellington has very little time to effect his escape from these two armies that are approaching him in different directions. His career approaches very rapidly to a conclusion; but what is one to think, at such a period, of the King’s message yesterday to Parliament to propose our taking 30,000 Portuguese into our pay?* . . .

“Dined at George Ponsonby’s with Lord Temple, Lord Porchester, Charles Wynne, Bowes [?], Daly, Byng, Calcraft, Abercromby, Petty, Brougham, Maxwell and some others. Went to the opera with Mr. and Mrs. Ord who had dined at Lord Ponsonby’s, where a political conversation had taken place. . . . Lord Ponsonby expressed himself quite delighted with the present conduct of every part of the Opposition—that Whitbread was everything that was conciliatory, and that he (Lord Ponsonby) would vote for reform in Parliament (tho’ he did not approve of it), or anything else, to keep the party together. . . . He seems

* With this result, that, in July, 1813, Wellington was able to write to Lord Liverpool: “The Portuguese are now the fighting cocks of the army. I believe we owe their merits more to the care we have taken of their pockets and their bellies, than to the instruction we have given them” [Despatches, x. 569].

wanting to get back to his old place and not knowing how.

“19th.—. . . Went into the House of Lords, and up comes my Lord Grey with a tender squeeze of my hand, to tell me with the utmost animation an excellent story of Wellesley. He has written to Lord Grenville to tell him he is sick, and begging him not to agitate the question of taking the 30,000 Portuguese troops into our pay to-day in his absence. In addition to this (conceiving himself unworthy of credit, I suppose) he encloses an opinion or certificate of his physician—four sides of paper upon the nature of his constitution! The physician’s name is Dr. Knighton, accoucheur (as Grey says) to Poll Raffle, Wellesley’s Cyprian.

“My Lord Grey came to me again to tell me of ‘a damned job’ by Bishop Mansel’s brother. . . . When I saw him cast his canvassing eyes about him to bow to every member of the Commons he barely knew, and then thought of what I had seen of his pride and tyranny at Howick a few months ago, I knew not whether one ought to laugh or cry at such folly in a person who might be so powerful if he was right.”

The next few days supply commentary chiefly upon the course of the inquiry into the conduct of Lord Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan in the ill-fated Walcheren expedition. Mr. Creevey says that universal indignation was concentrated upon Lord Chatham, who tried to throw the blame upon Sir Richard and the Admiralty.

“21st.—Called on Waithman* with some anxiety that he was going to fail on Friday on the question in the Common Council about Wellington’s pension, but he seems confident they shall not. He at once embraced my idea of what ought to be done, and of

* Robert Waithman [1764-1833], an active reformer, whose career is commemorated in the name of a street near Blackfriars Bridge, and by one of the two obelisks in Ludgate Circus.

his own accord requested me to draw a petition for them to the House of Commons, of which I think I can make a very good case for them, and a damned pinching one for Wellington. . . . Dined at Sam Heywood’s, with Lords Grey, Lauderdale and Derby, Romilly, &c. . . . Lord Derby told us that Sir Henry Halford had told him yesterday that he had been detained the Lord knows how long with Lord Chatham, making him up by draughts and nervous medicines for his examination last night, and after all he sent word he was ill, and could not come. . . .

“22nd.—Took the petition I had drawn to Waithman, but he has drawn a good one himself, so I don’t know that he will use mine. . . . The Opposition in the House of Lords cut a great figure last night, independent of their powerful number. . . . I heard Wellesley open his plan of taking the 30,000 Portuguese into our pay, and the most sanguine expectations I have ever formed respecting him were more than realised. His speech (tho’ he had shammed ill for the purpose of preparing it) was an absolute and unqualified failure. . . . Lord Grenville’s answer to him was one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard: he shook his former friend to atoms. . . . Lord Lansdowne, I hear, made an admirable speech, not the less valuable for containing a very severe censure on the low and dirty Sidmouth who took part against them. . . .

“23rd.—Went to Lauderdale’s at his request to look at some motions he is going to make about India, and spent a most agreeable hour with him. There is the devil to pay with the India Company, and the Government have given up for the present bringing forward the renewal of their charter. I went to Lord Hutchinson afterwards. He thinks Wellington ought to be hanged. He says that in his last dispatch but one he writes word that he has 25,000 British troops—that he is expecting 5000 more—that he has 25,000 Portuguese troops almost as good as British—that the French are in the greatest difficulties in the Sierra Morena, and that Portugal is in perfect safety. In his last dispatch he has written under the greatest possible fright, and has pressed the Government for positive instructions whether he is to come away or stay. Lord Hutchinson thinks orders are gone for him to evacuate Portugal.”

How slender were the grounds for Lord Hutchinson’s version of Wellington’s despatches may be seen by perusing those here referred to, viz. Wellington’s letters to Lord Liverpool of 31st January and 9th February, 1810.* The possibility, even the probability, of evacuation is calmly discussed, with an assurance that, should he be forced to it, he could bring the army away in safety. But how little Wellington had lost faith in his power to hold his ground is shown by the fact that, at this very time, the lines of Torres Vedras were being secretly, but swiftly, fortified.

“Mr. Whitbread’s motion [for papers relating to the Walcheren expedition] was carried by 178 against 171. I never expected to be in a majority upon such a question, nor did the House of Commons know what they were doing when they voted as they did. The vote is the severest possible censure upon the whole transaction—upon Lord Chatham, upon the King and upon Ministers. It is making all these different parties do justice to an unsupported individual (Sir Richard Strachan) whether the King will or no. It is a direct vote against royal favoritism, and in favor of justice and fair play. There has been nothing like it in the present reign. The truth is that people did not consider the blow it gave to the King, but they voted as against the rascality of Chatham and in favor of Strachan. . . .

“Waithman carried his motion in the Common Council for a petition to the House of Commons against the Wellington Pension Bill. This was one of the best hits I ever made—to get this history of Wellington thus handed down to posterity on the Journals of Parliament, at the suit of the first and

* Wellington’s Despatches, vol. v. pp. 464, 480.

greatest Corporation of the capital itself of England. Whether it is my petition, or Waithman’s, or a mixture, I am indifferent: either will do the business. The obligation of the Wellesley family to me is this—that, but for me, my Lord Wellington would only have been the object of a resolution of the Common Council; whereas they have now kindly introduced him with their strictures upon his character to parliamentary notice and history. . . .

“24th.—. . . The vote of last night produces the greatest sensation in the town to-day; and I must confess we have used our victory with no great moderation. St. James Street and Pall Mall have been paraded by the Opposition for three or four hours in numerous divisions, all overflowing with jokes, as well at the expense of the Ministers as of the Gentleman at the end of the Mall, and of the satisfaction he will derive from the address when Perceval carries it to him at Windsor.

“Another event of great importance has taken place this morning. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, has been tried in the King’s Bench for a libel contained in his paper some time past upon the King and his reign. Perry defended himself against a very vindictive speech of Gibbs’s, and the jury declared him Not Guilty in less than 2 minutes. So the Press is safe: at least as yet.”

Sir Francis Burdett having published in Cobbett’s Political Register a letter to his constituents declaring the imprisonment of a Radical orator by order of the House of Commons to be illegal, the Speaker’s warrant was issued for his arrest. He stood a siege of two days in his own house, being supported by the populace, whose idol he was for the moment. One life was lost in the mellay; finally, an entrance was effected, and Burdett was imprisoned in the Tower, obtaining his release on the prorogation of Parliament. The following invitation was issued from his prison:—

Sir Francis Burdett to Mr. Creevey.

“Tower, May 10, 1810. “Dear Crevey,

“Pray look into this case—a job of the Church. When will [you] come again to dinner? You shall have two bottles of claret next time, and as good fish.

“Yours, “F. Burdett.

“I hope Mrs. Crevey is well.”

Capt. Graham Moore, R.N., to Mr. Creevey.

“Deal, March 9th, 1810.

“. . . I wish I had time or you had leisure to learn from me, if you do not know, what kind of fellow Strachan is. In two words, it is scarcely possible to have more zeal, ardour and spirit on service than he has. He slaved like a Dray Horse during the whole of the offensive operations on the Scheldt, but he never troubled his head about documents, being always more ready to blame himself than to prepare to meet accusation. He never approved of the plan, but determined to exert all his faculties for its success. We have not a more gallant fellow, nor a more active, complete seaman, in our service. He is continually getting into scrapes, owing to his vivacity and openness, and very apt to be influenced by designing people. . . . Lord C[hatham] has treated him in the most shabby way, and imposed on his good nature, of which he has a large share. . . .”

William Cobbett was at this time undergoing his sentence of £1000 fine and two years’ imprisonment for his article in the Weekly Register of 1st July, 1809, denouncing the flogging of some mutinous militiamen at Ely, who were sentenced to receive 500 lashes each. At the present day the punishment of the journalist seems as outrageous as that against which he inveighed, but a century has wrought some curious changes in our sentiments.

Wm. Cobbett to Mr. Creevey.

“Newgate, 24th Sept., 1810.

“. . . You will easily guess that I have little time to spare; but the fact is, that I seldom do anything after two o’clock, when I dine. The best way, however, is to favour me with your company at dinner at two, and then the day may be of your appointing, I being always at home, you know, and every day being a day of equal favour. . . . I give beef stakes and porter. I may vary my food to mutton chops, but never vary the drink. I think it is a duty to God and Man to put the Nabobs upon the coals without delay. They have long been cooking and devouring the wretched people both of England and India.”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brougham, Penrith, Sunday [1812].

“. . . As for Portugal, with all our good luck, we are now clearly paying millions for a few periods in the H. of C.—that Canning, &c., may twit one man and praise t’other, and tell us how ‘every Frenchman that falls is in itself a gain,’ &c., &c. It would be a dear bargain if Pitt were the speaker; but such driv’ling as we pay for is past all bearing.

“I don’t know Cobbet, or I would send him a good motto from Dr. Johnson about special juries and imprisonment. The lines are very pat in themselves as a quotation, but coming from Johnson they are still better; and they clearly contain his opinion, at least on special juries, for they occur in his ‘London,’ imitated from the 3rd Satire of Juvenal, and the original passage has nothing parallel.

“‘A single jail in Alfred’s golden reign Could half the Nation’s criminals contain; Fair Justice then, without constraint adored, Held high the steady scale, but sheath’d the sword; No spies were paid—no special juries known— Blest Age! but ah, how diff’rent from our own!’”

CHAPTER VII. 1811.

The death of his youngest and favourite child, Princess Amelia, in the autumn of 1810 upset the poor old King’s intellect for the last time. He settled into hopeless insanity, and the chief business before Parliament in 1811 was a Bill constituting the Prince of Wales Regent. Great was the stir among the Whigs, who began fitting each other into the great and little offices of the new Government; for who could doubt that the great turn of events, so long and ardently anticipated, was indeed at hand, and that the Prince, as head of the Whig party, would send his father’s servants to the right about, and form a Ministry of his own friends. Judging from Creevey’s correspondence, neither he nor any of his friends entertained the slightest suspicion about the sincerity of the Prince’s devotion to Liberal principles, nor understood how much his politics consisted of opposition to the Court party. It was, therefore, with as much surprise as dismay that Creevey beheld the change in the Prince’s attitude towards Ministers as soon as he assumed the Regency.

Lord Erskine to Mr. Creevey.

“Reigate, Jany. 10, 1811. “Dear Creevey,

“I send you the Act which you thought never could have passed. . . . Lord Eldon told me he never had heard of it and expressed his astonishment. He said that those gentlemen who had served the King as foreign ministers at a period when the King had a power by law to remunerate their services by a pension, if he chose to grant it, had as good a right to it as he—the C[hancellor]—had to his estate; and of that there can be no doubt.

“I observe Bankes has given notice to revive his Committee [on Public Expenditure]. I have seen him, and he seems to justify his resolution; but surely Martin and you, as lawyers, will not mix yourselves as the author of the first ex post facto law, touching the rights of subjects, that has ever passed. . . . I really think that some step should be taken by those who, as the friends of reform, ought to take care that it does not become odious.

“Bankes says the act is Perceval’s, but I have good authority for believing that Perceval would not justify the ex post facto clause.

“Yours very sincerely, “Erskine.”

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey [at Brighton].

“Great George St., 19th January, 1811.

“(For God’s sake be secret about this letter.)

“My hopes of seeing you to-morrow are at an end, owing to a most ridiculous resolution of our party to have another division on Monday, in which of course we shall disclose still greater weakness than in our last division. I had actually paired off with John Villiers for the week, but I am sure you will think I am right in staying over Monday, when I tell you that McMahon told me he was sure the Prince would be hurt if I was not there, and when you read the enclosed note from Sheridan. Nevertheless I give the Prince credit for not originating this business, but that it has been conveyed to him by Tierney or some such artist. I mean to be down to play a week or ten days on Tuesday. Wm. and C. had a very comfortable dinner again yesterday upon my mutton chops at this house, and then went to the House, and just as we had returned home again at ten o’clock, and I was beginning to dress myself to go to Mrs. Taylor’s, Whitbread came and desired to have some conversation with me. . . . Sam’s visit was to take my advice. He said things had now come to such a state of maturity that it was necessary for him to decide (but here he has just been again, and I am afraid I shall not have time to tell).

“Well—office was offered him; anything he pleased, but had he any objection to holding it under Grenville as First Lord, if he [Grenville] held as before the two offices of First Lord and Auditor, with the salaries of both? I know not with what disposition he came to me; he stated both sides of the question, but said his decision must be quick. I had a difficult responsibility to take upon myself, but I set before him as strongly as I could the unpopularity of the Grenvilles—the certainty of this [illegible] place being again and again exposed—the impossibility of his defending it after having himself driven Yorke from receiving the income of his tellership whilst he is at the Admiralty, and Perceval from receiving the income of Chancellor of the Exchequer whilst he is First Lord and Chancellor of the Dutchy—that his consistency and character were everything to him, and that, if I was him, I would compell Lord Grenville to make the sacrifice to publick opinion, and have nothing to do with the Government.

“I went to him this morning, and he had done as I advised him. He had told Grey his determination and he has just been here to shew me his letter to him upon the subject—to be shewn Lord Grenville. It is perfect in every respect, and will, whenever it is known, do him immortal honor. The fact, however, is, my lord will strike. They one and all stick to Whitbread; they can’t carry on the Government without him. There is no anger—no ill will in any of them; all piano—all upon their knees. Is not this a triumph?”

[Enclosure in above, from Mr. Sheridan.

“Friday night, Jany. 18th. “My dear Creevey,

“It is determined in consequence of the earnest Desire of high authority to have a last debate and division on the Regency bill on Monday next. Here is a Conclave mustering all Hands, and I am requested to write to you as it is apprehended you mean to leave Town to-morrow. I conjure you at any rate to be with us on Monday.

“Yours ever faithfully, “Bly. Sheridan.”]

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey.

“Great George St., Saty., Feby. 2nd, 1811.

“I came home at half-past four that I might have time to write to you, and Whishaw came instantly after and has staid with me till five. . . . I went to dine at Hutchinson’s and after all he never came. He was kept at Carlton House till twelve at night, so Lord Donoughmore and I dined together, and he was, as he always is, very pleasant. At Brooks’s I found Sheridan just arrived from Carlton House, where the conclave has just broken up, and the Prince had decided against the pressing advice of all present not to dismiss the Government. Sheridan was just sober, and expressed to me the strongest opinion of the injurious tendency of this resolution to the Prince’s character. Lord Hutchinson said the same thing to me to-day, and added that never man had behaved better than Sheridan. I said all I thought to both Hutchinson and Sheridan in vindication of Prinny, but I presume I am wrong, as I stand single in this opinion. I went, however, to Mrs. Fitzherbert at twelve to-day, an appointment I made with her yesterday in the street, and she and I were agreed upon this subject. The Prince has written to Perceval a letter which is to be sent to-morrow, stating to him his intention, under the present opinion of the physicians respecting his father, not to change the Government at present, and at the same time expressing the regret he feels at being thus compelled to continue a Government not possessing his confidence, and his determination of changing it should there be no speedy prospect of his Majesty’s recovery after a certain time.

“Now I do not see, under all the monstrous difficulties of his situation, any great impropriety of his present resolution, particularly as he means to have his letter made publick.

“Mrs. Fitz is evidently delighted at the length and forgiving and confidential nature of Prinny’s visits. She goes to-morrow and will tell you, no doubt, how poor Prinny was foolish enough to listen to some idle story of my having abused his letter to both Houses, and how she defended me. Poor fellow, one should have thought he had more important concerns to think of. I went from her to Whitbread, and he again conjured me to attach myself to the new Government by taking some situation, and went over many—the Admiralty Board again—Chairman of the Ways and Means, &c. I was very guarded, and held myself very much up, and said I would take nothing for which there was not service to be done—nothing like a sinecure, which I considered a seat at the Admiralty Board to be; but of course I was very good-humoured. He repeated the conversation between him and Lord Grey about me. He said my name was first mentioned by Miss Whitbread, and, having been so, Lord Grey replied—‘Although I think Creevey has acted unjustly to me, and tho’ in the session before last he gave great offence to many of my friends by something like a violation of confidence, yet on his own account, on that of Mrs. Creevey and of anybody connected with them, I had always intended, without you mentioning him, to express my wishes that he might be included in the Government.’ Upon which Whitbread stated from his own recollection of my speech that gave offence, his perfect conviction of its being no breach of confidence; and so the thing ended with their united sentiment in favor of my having some office.

“I am affraid you will be hurt at not seeing any immediate provision for me in this new Government, should it take place; but I beg you to give way to no such sentiment. . . . They are upon a new tack in consulting publick opinion. Lord Grey and Lord Grenville have most unequivocally refused to accede to a proposal of the Prince of Wales, and which was stated to be nearest to his heart, viz. to reinstate the Duke of York as Commander-in-chief. What think you of this in Grey? and his language to Whitbread is they must no longer be taunted with ‘unredeemed pledges.’ I mention these things to shew you they are on their good behaviour, and that, with such views, they must do what they ought by me. I am perfectly satisfied with the state of things—this is, supposing a Government to be formed—and perfectly secure of any wishes of mine being accomplished.”

“21st Jan., 1811.

“I am very much gratified to find you approve my counsel to Sam, and Sam for acting upon it. Every succeeding moment convinces me of the necessity there was for acting so, and of the infinite advantage and superiority it will give him over all his colleagues at starting.

“What shall you say to me when I tell you I am not to vote to-night after all? Villiers won’t release me from contract of pairing off; at least he consented only to stay upon terms that I could not listen to, such as—if my being in the division might be of any use to me in the new arrangement, that then he would certainly stay. This, as you may suppose, was enough to make me at once decline any further discussion. . . . However, it is universally known how I am situated, and McMahon told me just now of his own accord that the Prince had told him this morning ‘that Villiers would not release Creevey from pairing off with him; that it was very good of Creevey to stay after this, and to show himself in the House, as he knew he intended.’ . . . Here has been Ward* just now to beg I would come and dine with him tête-à-tête, and that I should have my dinner at six precisely, as he knew I liked that: so I shall go. I know he was told the character I pronounced of him one night at Mrs. Taylor’s after

* Hon. John William Ward, created Earl Dudley in 1827.

he was gone, upon which occasion I neither concealed his merits nor his frailties, and he has been kinder to me than ever from that time. . . . I don’t know a syllable of what has transpired to-day between Prinny and the grandees, but I must not omit to tell you that the night before last my Lord Lansdowne* for the first time condescended to come up to me at Brooks’s, and to walk me backwards and forwards for at least a quarter of an hour. He asked me how I thought we should get on in the House of Commons (meaning the new Government), whether we should be strong enough; to which I replied it would depend upon the conduct of the Government—that if they acted right they would be strong enough, and that so doing was not only the best, but the sole, foundation of their strength, and my lord agreed with me in rather an awkward manner, and was mighty civil and laughed at all my jokes, and so we parted.”

“Great George St., 1st Feby., 1811.

“I was very much provoked at being detained so long on the road yesterday that I was just too late for the last Bill, so I eat my mutton chops and drunk a bottle of wine, and then tea, and then sallied forth to Mrs. Taylor’s; but alas, she was dining out, so on I went to Brooks’s, where I found Mr. Ponsonby and others; and then came Whitbread, Sheridan, and Lord Hutchinson, the latter of whom insisted upon my coming to dine with him tête-à-tête to-day, as he had so much to say to me. He had been dining yesterday with the Prince, and was to be with him again this morning. You may suppose I intend accepting his invitation; for to-day Whitbread was deeply involved in private conversation with these gentry; but, before he left the room, he came up to the table where I was, and said—‘Creevey, call upon me to-morrow at twelve if it is not inconvenient to you;’ and, having left the room, Ward, who was there, said—‘There! Mr. Under-Secretary, you are to be tried as to what kind of a hand you write, &c., &c., before you are hired;’ and then we walked home together, and he told me he had

* Formerly Lord Henry Petty.

been offered to be a Paymaster of the Forces, and that he had refused it, and that he was sure this notice of Whitbread was to offer me an under-secretaryship in his office. I went accordingly to Sam this morning, but quite armed, I am certain, against all disappointment, and with all the air of an independent man. He began by giving me his opinion that the Prince would not change the Government, and that he was playing a false, hollow, shabby game. He said the Queen had written him a letter evidently dictated by Perceval, [illegible] most cursedly, and that he had been quite taken in by it. He expressed himself strongly of opinion that he [the Prince] ought instantly to change the Government; that after all that had passed between him, the Prince and Lords Grenville and Grey, it would be a breach of honour not to overthrow the ministers instantly. I confess I was more penetrated, upon this part of the conversation, with Sam’s anxiety to be in office than I was with the weight of his arguments against the Prince. At the same time, it is due to him to add that Sheridan and Lord Hutchinson insist openly that the Prince, in justice to his character, is bound to make this change; and again, there certainly is nothing to make the Prince expect any rapid amendment of the King. . . . Well, this opinion of Whitbread being advanced and maintained by him as aforesaid, he proceeded to say that, in the event of the change taking place, he was very anxious to know from myself what I should look to—that he and Lord Grey had talked over the subject together—that the latter had spoken of me very handsomely, and said that, tho’ I had in the session before last, fired into the old Government in a manner that had given great offence to several persons, yet that he was very desirous I should form part of the new Government. Whitbread added his own opinion that it was of great importance I should be in the Government, and then added—‘The worst of it is there are so few places suited to you that are consistent with a seat in Parliament; but what is there you should think of yourself?’ So I replied that was rather a hard question to answer; that though I was a little man compared to him in the country, yet that the preservation of my own character and consistency was the first object with me; that I could go as a principal into no office—that was out of the question—and I would not go into any office as a subaltern, where the character of the principal did not furnish a sufficient apology for my serving under him; that with these views I certainly had looked to going with him into any office he might have allotted to him. He said such had always been his wish, and then said—‘You know by the Act of Parliament that created the third Secretary of State, viz., that for the Colonies, neither of the Under-Secretaries of State can sit in Parliament, and that was what I meant when I said there were so few places consistent with a seat in Parliament.’ He said Grey and he had taken for granted I would not go back to my old place, or a seat at that board, after firing as I had done into the East I. Company; to which I replied they were quite right, and I added that, whenever I might be in office or out, I reserved to myself the right of the free exercise of my opinion upon all Indian subjects. He then said, with some humility, would I take a seat at the Admiralty Board; that Lord Holland would be there, and that he, of course, would have every disposition to consult my feelings. I said my first inclination was certainly against it; at the same time, I begged nothing might be done to prevent Lord Holland making an offer of any kind to me; that he was a person I looked up to greatly on his own account, as well as his uncle’s;* that in all my licentiousness in Parliament I had never profaned his uncle’s memory; it had been exclusively directed against his enemies; that I would take a thing from Lord Holland that nothing should induce me to do from any Grenvilles; at the same time, I was giving no opinion further than this, that I begged Whitbread not to prevent Lord Holland from making me an offer—let it be what it may. . . .”

How little real union there was among the various sections of the Opposition, and how greatly the Whigs dreaded the projects dearest to the Radicals, are well illustrated in the following letters.

* C. J. Fox.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“April, 1811. “Dear C.,

“The enclosed answer to a mutinous epistle which I fired into Holland House t’other day may amuse Mrs. C. and you. Burn it when you have read it.

“Yours ever, “H. B.”

[Enclosure from Lord Holland.

“. . . There is much truth in your complaints of the present state of public affairs. But how is the evil to be corrected? There is a want of popular feelings in many individuals of the party. Others are exasperated with the unjust and uncandid treatment they have received, and are every day receiving, from the modern Reformers. Another set are violent anti-Reformers, and alarmed at every speech or measure that has the least tendency towards reform. There is but one measure on which the party are unanimously agreed, and no one man in the House of Commons to whom they look up with that deference and respect to his opinion which is necessary to have concert and co-operation in a party. . . . It is a state of things, however, which cannot possibly last. Before next meeting of Parliament, the Prince must either have changed his Ministers, or he must lay his account with systematic opposition to his government. Even though the old leaders of the party* should be unwilling to break with him, they will not be able to prevent their friends from declaring open hostility against his government. If such a rupture should take place, many would of course desert the party; but those who remained, agreeing better with one another in their opinions, and consisting of more independent men, would in fact be a more formidable opposition than the present. . . . ”]

* Lords Grey and Grenville.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Wed.

“. . . I wish you would come to town and let us have a few mischievous discussions. . . . A report is very prevalent that the siege of Badajos is raised, previous to another fight. I daresay this will prove true. . . . I am assured that the Ministers have private letters from Welln., preparing them for a retreat.”

As time went on, although the King’s malady became confirmed, so also seemed the Regent’s inclination to maintain his father’s Cabinet. The irritation of the Whigs increased in proportion as their hopes sank lower. A peep down the Prime Minister’s area seems to have opened Creevey’s eyes for the first time to the profligacy of the Heir Apparent, to which he had been blind enough in the rousing old days at the Pavilion. So greatly may judgment vary according to the point of view!

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey.

“20th July, 1811.

“. . . Prinny’s attachment to the present Ministers, his supporting their Bank Note Bill, and his dining with them, must give them all hopes of being continued, as I have no doubt they will. . . . The folly and villainy of this Prinny is certainly beyond anything. I was forcibly struck with this as I passed Perceval’s* kitchen just now, and saw four man cooks and twice as many maids preparing dinner for the Prince of Wales and Regent—he whose wife Perceval set up against him in open battle—who, at the age of 50, could not be trusted by the sd. Perceval with the

* The Right Hon. Spencer Perceval, became Prime Minister on the death of the Duke of Portland in October, 1809, and was assassinated by Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, 11th. May, 1812.

unrestrained government of these realms during his father’s incapacity—he who, on his last birthday at Brighton, declared to his numerous guests that it was his glory to have bred up his daughter in the principles of Mr. Fox—he who, in this very year, declared by letter to the said Mr. Perceval, and afterwards had the letter published as an apology for his conduct, that he took him as his father’s Minister, but that his own heart was in another quarter—by God! this is too much. We shall see whether he does dine there or not, or whether he will send word at 5, as he did to poor Kinnaird, that he can’t come. I have been walking with Kinnaird, and this excuse that came too late from Prinny, the Duke of York and the Duke of Clarence has evidently made a deep impression upon his lordship’s mind against the Bank Note Bill, and everything else in which the Regent takes a part.”

Journal.

“July 12th, 1811.—. . . We are prorogued till the 22nd of next month only, but the general opinion is the King will die before that day, and then of course Parliament meets again. Publick opinion, or rather the opinion of Parliamentary politicians, is that, in the event of the King’s death, Lords Grenville and Grey will be passed over and the present ministers continued, with the addition of some of the Prince’s private friends, such as Lords Moira and Hutchinson and Yarmouth and old Sheridan. The latter is evidently very uneasy at the present state of things. He sat with me till 5 o’clock on Sunday morning at Brooks’s—was very drunk—told me I had better get into the same boat with him in politicks—but at the same time abused Yarmouth so unmercifully that one quite perceived he thought his (Yarmouth’s) boat was the best of the two. Apparently nothing can be so base as the part the Prince is acting, or so likely to ruin him. . . .

“Brighton, Oct. 30th.—The Prince Regent came here last night with the Duke of Cumberland and Lord Yarmouth. Everybody has been writing their names at the Pavilion this morning, but I don’t hear of anybody dining there to-day. . . . I presume we shall be asked there, altho’ I went to town on purpose to vote against his appointment of his brother the Duke of York to the Commandership-in-Chief of the Army.

Oct. 31st.—We have got an invitation from the Regent for to-night and are going. I learn from Sir Philip Francis, who dined there yesterday, the Prince was very gay. . . . There were twenty at dinner—no politicks—but still Francis says he thinks, from the language of the equerries and understrappers, that the campaign in Portugal and Lord Wellington begin to be out of fashion with the Regent. I think so too, from a conversation I had with one of the Gyps to-day—Congreve, author of the rocketts, and who is going, they say, to have a Rockett Corps.* He affects to sneer rather at Wellington’s military talents. The said Congreve was at the same school with me at Hackney, and afterwards at Cambridge with me; after that, a brother lawyer with me at Gray’s Inn. Then he became an editor of a newspaper . . . written in favour of Lord Sidmouth’s administration, till he had a libel in his paper against Admiral Berkeley, for which he was prosecuted and fined £1000. Then he took to inventing rocketts for the more effectual destruction of mankind, for which he became patronised by the Prince of Wales, and here he is—a perfect Field Marshall in appearance. About 12 years ago he wrote to me to enquire the character of a mistress who had lived with me some time before, which said mistress he took upon my recommendation, and she lives with him now, and was, when I knew her, cleverer than all the equerries and their Master put together.

“Nov. 1st.—We were at the Pavilion last night—Mrs. Creevey’s three daughters and myself—and had a very pleasant evening. We found there Lord and Lady Charlemont, Marchioness of Downshire and

* Afterwards Sir William Congreve, Bart., M.P., F.R.S. Wellington disapproved of Congreve’s invention when it was first brought to his notice. “I don’t want to set fire to any town, and I don’t know any other use of rockets.” But he changed his opinion after witnessing their effect in action at the passage of the Adour in 1814.

old Lady Sefton. About half-past nine, which might be a quarter of an hour after we arrived, the Prince came out of the dining-room. He was in his best humour, bowed and spoke to all of us, and looked uncommonly well, tho’ very fat. He was in his full Field Marshal’s uniform. He remained quite as cheerful and full of fun to the last—half-past twelve—asked after Mrs. Creevey’s health, and nodded and spoke when he passed us. The Duke of Cumberland was in the regimentals of his own Hussars,* looked really hideous, everybody trying to be rude to him—not standing when he came near them. The officers of the Prince’s regiment had all dined with him, and looked very ornamental monkeys in their red breeches with gold fringe and yellow boots. The Prince’s band played as usual all the time in the dining-room till 12, when the pages and footmen brought about iced champagne punch, lemonade and sandwiches. I found more distinctly than before, from conversation with the Gyps, that Wellington and Portugal are going down.

“The Prince looked much happier and more unembarrassed by care than I have seen him since this time six years. This time five years ago, when he was first in love with Lady Hertford, I have seen the tears run down his cheeks at dinner, and he has been dumb for hours, but now that he has the weight of the empire upon him, he is quite alive. . . . I had a very good conversation with Lord Charlemont about Ireland, and liked him much. He thinks the Prince has already nearly ruined himself in Irish estimation by his conduct to the Catholics.

“Nov. 2nd.—We were again at the Pavilion last night. . . . The Regent sat in the Musick Room almost all the time between Viotti, the famous violin player, and Lady Jane Houston, and he went on for hours beating his thighs the proper time for the band, and singing out aloud, and looking about for accompaniment from Viotti and Lady Jane. It was curious sight to see a Regent thus employed, but he seemed

* This was a German volunteer regiment, which disgraced itself at Waterloo by deserting the field at the very crisis of the French cavalry attack.

in high good humour. . . . There is nothing like a Minister about him, nor yet any of his old political friends or advisers—no Sheridan, Moira or Hutchinson. Yarmouth and the Duke of Cumberland are always on the spot, and no doubt are his real advisers; but in publick they are mute, and there is no intercourse between the Regent and them. Sir Philip Francis is the only one of his old set here, but he is not here on the Prince’s invitation, nor in his suite, and is evidently slighted. Tom Stepney and I last night calculated that Francis and Lord Keith made out 150 years of age between them, and yet they are both here upon their preferment with the Regent—the first, one of the cleverest men one knows, and the other, one of the richest. What a capital libel on mankind! Francis said to me to-day:—‘Well, I am invited to dinner to-day, and that is perhaps all I shall get after two and twenty years’ service.’ What infernal folly for such a person to have put himself in the way of making so humiliating a confession.

“Nov. 3rd.—. . . I have heard of no one observation the Regent has made get out of the commonest slip-slop, till to-day Baron Montalembert told me this morning that, when he dined there on Friday with the staff of this district, the Prince said he had been looking over the returns of the Army in Portugal that morning, and that there were of British 16,500 sick in Hospitals in Lisbon, and 4,500 sick in the field—in all, 21,000. It might be indiscreet in the Prince to make this statement from official papers, but he must have been struck with it, and I hope rightly, so as to make him think of peace. . . .

“Nov. 5th.—We were at the Prince’s both last night and the night before (Sunday). . . . The Regent was again all night in the Musick Room, and not content with presiding over the Band, but actually singing, and very loud too. Last night we were reduced to a smaller party than ever, and Mrs. Creevey was well enough to go with me and her daughters for the first time. Nothing could be kinder than the Prince’s manner to her. When he first saw her upon coming into the drawing-room, he went up and took hold of both her hands, shook them heartily, made her sit down directly, asked her all about her health, and expressed his pleasure at seeing her look so much better than he expected. Upon her saying she was glad to see him looking so well, he said gravely he was getting old and blind. When she said she was glad on account of his health that he kept his rooms cooler than he used to do, he said he was quite altered in that respect—that he used to be always chilly, and was now never so—that he never had a fire even in his bedroom, and slept with one blanket and sheet only. . . .

“Nov. 6th.—We were again at the Pavilion last night . . . the party being still smaller than ever, and the Prince, according to his custom, being entirely occupied with his musick.

“Nov. 9th.—Yesterday was the last day of the Prince’s stay at this place, and, contrary to my expectation, I was invited to dinner. We did not sit down till half-past seven, tho’ I went a little past six. The only person I found was Tom Stepney: then came Generals Whetham, Hammond and Cartwright, Lords Charlemont, Yarmouth and Ossulston, Sir Philip Francis, Congreve, Bloomfield and others of the understrappers, and finally the Regent and the Duke of Cumberland. We were about sixteen altogether. The Prince was very merry and seemed very well. He began to me with saying very loud that he had sent for Mrs. Creevey’s physic to London. . . . At dinner I sat opposite to him, next to Ossulston, and we were the only persons there at all marked by opposition to his appointment of his brother the Duke of York, or to the Government generally, since he has been Regent. He began an old joke at dinner with me about poor Fonblanque, with whom I had dined six years ago at the Pavilion, . . . [when] the Prince and we all got drunk, and he was always used to say it was the merriest day he ever spent. However, it was soon dropped yesterday.

“The Duke of Cumberland and Yarmouth never spoke. The Prince was describing a pleasant dinner he had had in London lately, and was going over each man’s name as he sat in his order at the table, and giving to each his due in the pleasantry of the day. Coming to Col. [Sir Willoughby] Gordon he said: ‘To be sure, there’s not much humour in him!’ upon which Ossulston and I gave both a kind of involuntary laugh, thinking the said Gordon a perfect impostor, from our recollection of his pompous, impudent evidence before the House of Commons in the Duke of York’s case; but this chuckling of ours brought from the Prince a very elaborate panegyric upon Gordon which was meant, most evidently, as a reproof to Ossulston and myself for quizzing him.

“We did not drink a great deal, and were in the drawing-room by half-past nine or a little after; no more state, I think, than formerly—ten men out of livery of one kind or other, and four or five footmen. At night everybody was there and the whole closed about one, and so ended the Regent’s visit to Brighton.”

And so, it may be added, ended Creevey’s intimacy with the Regent. Henceforward he acted in constant opposition to his future monarch’s schemes.

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey.

[1811?].

“. . . I suppose you have heard that Mr. Canning has entirely disbanded his little Troop. He dismissed them, desiring they would no longer consider him as the leader of any Party in the House of Commons. Various reasons are assigned for it. C. Ellis says that a gentleman whom he did not name, but who is supposed to be W[illegible] suspected an immediate negociation with Ministers, and implied that he was the mouthpiece of the party; upon which Canning, in a moment of pettishness, set them all adrift. There are various conjectures, but the only fact is that they are released from their allegiance. Ward says it is hard to serve a year without wages, but he hopes to get a good character from his last place. The story is that Huskisson has been off some time and is coming in. . . . All Canning’s friends are very sore at this last move; but more because the chief sensation it excites is laughter, and tho’ jokers themselves, they cannot endure any ridicule against their own lot. . . . The Regent went to the Dandy ball last night, and only spoke to M. Pierrepont, one of the four who invited. He fairly turned his back upon the others. He sent a message to Sr. Harry Mildmay, saying he wished to speak to him; who replied that it must be a mistake, because His R. H. had seen him and took no notice whatever of him. . . .”

CHAPTER VIII. 1812.

The Marquess Wellesley, who had joined Perceval’s Cabinet in 1809 on the resignation of Castlereagh and Canning, himself resigned in February, 1812, partly owing to dissatisfaction at the manner in which the Government supported the Peninsular war, but chiefly because of the Regent’s persistence in refusing to listen to any proposals of Roman Catholic relief. The King’s recovery being now considered out of the question, it was fully expected that the Regent would avail himself of the occasion of a reconstruction of the Cabinet to put his own political friends in power. However, instead of dismissing Perceval, he invited Grey and Grenville to join his administration, which they refused to do so long as Catholic Emancipation was a forbidden subject. The Regent bitterly resented their conduct, and continued Perceval in office, until that Minister was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons on 11th May. Meanwhile, another and a striking personality had appeared in Parliament, Henry Brougham, to wit. Elected for Camelford for the first time in 1810, he had registered a vow not to open his mouth in the House for the first month; which vow he kept, indemnifying himself for his self-control by incessant oratory ever after. George Ponsonby was still leader of the Whigs in the Commons; but Brougham’s energy and eloquence were so striking that he had not been four months a member before he was reckoned as one of the most formidable of the many candidates for the first place. His letters to Creevey during the early months of 1812 are very numerous; but it is difficult to fix the exact stage of proceedings to which they refer, owing to his omission to date them except by the day of the week.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Saturday, 6 o’clock [May? 1812].

“The intriguing is going on briskly. Wellesley has seen P.,* and then Wy. saw Grey. Grey says all is afloat and nothing settled, but that all will be settled before Monday. This shows a nibble at least, and I lament it much. To be in the same boat with W. and Canning is pretty severe. I see no chance of their making such a thing as one can support; indeed I feel in opposition to them already, should they agree about it. . . . Holland and Wellesley are at the bottom of it all, and have been together to-day, and at York House. The Spanish madness and love of office of Lady H[olland] is enough to do all the mischief we dread. Anything without the country is real madness or drivling.

“In the Comee. on Orders in C[ouncil] we sat this morning till four, and I have been all day at a Sheriff’s Jury on damages, so am knocked up and can add no more.

“H. B.”

“H. of Coms. [in pencil] Friday, 22nd May, 1812.

“They are all out. The answer of Prinny is short—that he is to comply immediately with the address to try to form a Govt. I had no hand in this bad work. I would not vote. It is the old blunder

* The Prince Regent.

of 1804—acting at Canning’s benefit. The old rotten Ministry was to my mind.”

Mr. Creevey had a safe seat at Thetford, one of the Duke of Norfolk’s boroughs, but his ambition was fired by an invitation to contest one of the seats for his native Liverpool. Brougham, at the same time, having received notice to quit from a new proprietor of Camelford, determined to stand for the other Liverpool seat; and, on the dissolution taking place, these two gentlemen went down to fight Mr. Canning and General Gascoigne.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Brougham, Friday, [May] 1812.

“On my return from a visit to the Jockey* I received yours. While there, I passed my time as you might suppose—drinking in the evening, and in the morning going thro’ tête-à-tête with him the red book and other lists of baro’s. It was quite a comedy. I believe I can almost come up to the never-to-be-forgotten or surpassed night enjoyed by Ld. S[efton] and yourself with that venerable feudal character. We had women—and speeches—in the first style: the subjects infinitely various, from bawdy to the depths of politics, and this morning at breakfast he was pleased to enter largely on the subject of the Daiety and his foreknowledge; settling that question as satisfactorily as if it had been one touching the Gairter, which he likewise discussed at length. I assure you I have had two choice days, and there wanted only some one Xianlike person to enjoy it with, and the presence also of a few comforts—such as a necessary, towels, water, &c., &c., to make the thing compleat. He goes up to-morrow to Airundel, and he is coming here on his way (to talk about the dissolution), which will give me a more quiet slice of his humours; for there was rather a crowd of parasites. . . .”

* The 11th Duke of Norfolk.

There follows here a long discussion of the question whether Creevey and Brougham—either of them, both, or neither—should stand for Liverpool. Creevey is comfortably settled in Thetford; Brougham is inclined to stand without him, lest he should “turn out poor Tarlton,” who is as good an opponent of the Tory Government as if he had been an out-and-out Radical. As to finding himself returned as Canning’s colleague—“only fancy the folly of being coupled with Canning! . . . it would be laughable to join us together.” Then he continues—

“. . . As to being out of Parlt.—don’t laugh at me if I say I really should submit to such a fate with composure, indeed with cheerfulness. I am fond of my profession, which you’ll say a queer taste; but I really so delight in it more and more every day. I see also how greatly I might rise in it by this means, and how infallibly I should command anything parliamentary that I might chuse, after a few years. This is clear, and I might be as much of a demagogue as I thought fit to be—I mean, in a good sense—and these times require looking outside of Parlt., in my opinion, as much as any we have lived in.”

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey.

“House of Commons, (May) 25th, 1812.

“Oh dear! I have been waiting for Whitbread’s latest intelligence, till I have little time left. First then, when Prinney sent for Wellesley, the latter began by mentioning some of the Opposition as persons to be consulted with; to which the former replied—‘Don’t mention any names to me now, my lord, but make an Administration for me.’ To which the other says—‘In a business of such nicety I trust your Royal Highness will not press me for time.’—‘Take your own time,’ says Prinney, ‘tho’ there is not a shilling left in the Exchequer.’ Well, off sets Wellesley, calling at the doors of the Opposition—Grey, Grenville, Holland and Moira; and yesterday some minutes of their conversations were made that had taken place between Wellesley, Grey and Grenville about the Catholic question and the war in Spain. There is some vague kind of coincidence of sentiments expressed between them on these subjects—no other subject mentioned. With this first fruit of his expedition Wellesley went to Carlton House last night at seven, and just as he was beginning to dilate upon his success, Prinney told him he was busy, and that he must call again to-day. . . . This I know to be quite true; it comes from Grey through Whitbread to me.

“This is the whole effect of the defeat of the old Government, and in the meantime the said old Government have one and all contracted with each other in writing never to act with such a villain as Wellesley again; in which they are quite right, but what think you of such a patron for our friends? Well: we had Whitbread and Lady Elizabeth at Holland House yesterday, Milton, Althorp, Lord John Russell, Sheridan, Lord Ossory, Fitzpatrick, Horner, Bennett and many more, and we had a very merry day, occasioned by my jokes about our new patron the Marquis [Wellesley]. Poor Holland was quite inimitable, but I will tell you more about it to-morrow. They will be all ruined: they have flung Whitbread overboard: he has just told me so himself, and that Lord Grey had just told him so in the coolest manner. Not a word of this! but it is death to them. He told me yesterday his fixed determination to have nothing to do with Wellesley and Canning, and they have anticipated him. . . .”

“House of Commons, Tuesday, 26th.

“. . . Well: nothing is known to-day except that Prinney saw both Eldon and Liverpool yesterday for a long time before he saw Wellesley, and that a Cabinet Council of the old Ministers was summoned to Liverpool’s office last night, and sat for a long time. . . . Well, the jaw is over. Castlereagh says the old Government is still out, and he knows nothing of any new one. It is true that Prinney told Wellesley that Grey and Grenville were a couple of scoundrels, and that Moira was a fellow no honest man could speak to. Wellesley then told him the danger he was exposed to, both himself, his throne and his country, washed his hands of him and his concerns, and is actually gone out of town. Ferguson told me he knew all this, and of course Moira is his authority. Canning will have nothing to do with the old Government, and has just renewed his motion about the Catholic question. Prinney must be stark staring mad, by God! . . . The projected exclusion of Whitbread from the new Cabinet is spreading like wildfire against Grey and Grenville.”

“Brooks’s, 27th.

“Well, after all that passed between Prinney and Wellesley on Monday night, after all the foul language about Moira, &c., late last night Prinney sent for Moira and flung himself upon his mercy. Such a scene I never heard of; the young monarch cried loud and long; in short he seems to have been very nearly in convulsions. The afflicting interview was entirely occupied with lamentations over past errors, and delight at brighter prospects for the future under the happier auspices of his old and true friend now restored. Moira told him generally the terrible state of the country, which the other said had been concealed from him by his Ministers, and that he had not seen a paper these three or four weeks. Moira suggested to him that perhaps he would wish to be more composed before they went further into detail, and this was agreed to, so he has been there again to-day for three hours. I saw him come away at a little before four, and Lord Dundas called with me at his door and found he had gone off to Lord Wellesley’s, where Grenville and Grey now are hearing the substance of this long interview of Moira with his Master . . . My jokes about Wellesley are in great request. Lady Holland said to me on Sunday in the drawing-room after dinner—‘Come here and sit by me, you mischievous toad, and promise that you won’t begin upon the new Government with your jokes. When you do, begin with those Grenvilles.’ I dined at old Tankerville’s yesterday, who said—‘Creevey, never desert Wellesley! give it him well, I beg of you.’ Sefton asked me to dine there to-day, evidently with the same view. Sheridan is more base in his resentment against Whitbread than you can imagine, and all from Drury Lane disappointment.”

“House of Commons, 28th.

“. . . Just after I finished my letter yesterday, I met Sheridan coming from a long interview with the Prince, and going with a message to Wellesley; so of course I walked with him and got from him all I could. . . . He described the Prince’s state of perturbation of mind as beyond anything he had ever seen. He conceives the different candidates for office to be determined upon his ruin; and, in short, I begin to think that his reign will end in a day or two in downright insanity. He first sends for one person, then another. Eldon is always told everything that passes, and the Duke of York (Lord Grey’s friend and slave) is the unalterable and inveterate opposer of his brother having anything to do with the Opposition. He and Eldon work day and night to keep Prinney in the right course. Melville is a great favorite too. To-day he (Prinney) has seen the Doctor* and Westmorland, Buckinghamshire, and now Moira is with him. Canning has been found out in some intrigue with Liverpool already. There has been some explanation between Grey and Whitbread, certainly creditable to the former. He has admitted to the fullest extent the importance of the Brewer† and his own unalterable and unfavorable opinion of Canning. He maintained this opinion to his friends as strongly as he could, and pressed them, as they valued able and upright men to shuffling rogues, to stand by Whitbread and abandon Canning. In this proposition, however, he stood alone. Petty and Holland even were against him. Grey pronounced that tho’ he was bound by this decision, he knew such decision must inevitably be their ruin. He has told all this to Brougham, as well as to Whitbread, and you know he always at least tells the truth. Of course you will not quote this. . . . From Lisbon the accounts

* Lord Sidmouth. † Mr. Whitbread.

are very unfavorable. The American embargo has produced the greatest consternation, and our Commissariat is utterly destitute of money or credit. In addition to this, General officers write home that the ravages of the late sieges and other things have made a supply of 30,000 men from this country absolutely necessary, if Portugal alone is to be kept.”

“Brooks’s, Friday, 29th.

“Everybody as wise as we were yesterday. Moira has seen Prinney to-day again, but nothing done. Moira told him he must decline being any longer employed in so hopeless an undertaking, and is determined to have the thing concluded one way or other. Prinney tells him no Prince was ever so idolized by the people of this country as himself, and that he is quite strong enough to go on with any Government that he gives his support to. Wortley is to give another notice on Monday of a motion for Tuesday to bring this infatuated man to his senses. By God! if he continues in his present state he will be having such things said of him as will rouse him with a witness. . . .”

“Brooks’s, Saturday, 30th.

“It really begins to be almost too farcical to write about this madman and his delay.”

“York St., Monday, 1st June.

“As Folkestone, Bennett and I are to go from the H. of Commons this afternoon to dine at Richmond, I begin my dispatch here, least I should have no time to do it at the House. Folky and Bennett return at night, but I shall sleep there. . . . The more one sees of the conduct of this most singular man [the Prince Regent], the more one becomes convinced he is doomed, from his personal character alone, to shake his throne. He is playing, I have no doubt he thinks, some devilish deep game, from which he will find he is utterly unable of extricating himself without the most serious and lasting injury to himself and character. . . . I dined at Taylor’s last night with that excellent young man Lord Forbes,* and I have never seen a greater appearance of worth and honor in any young man in my life. Besides being Moira’s nephew, he is an aide-de-camp to the Regent, and he has received such usage from his Master, either on his uncle’s account or his own voting in Parliament, that he won’t go near him, and greatly to the horror of Taylor, he came to dine yesterday with the yellow lining and the Prince’s buttons taken away from his coat. He said never again would he carry about him so degrading a badge of servitude to such a master. To Taylor, who was done up in the neatest edition of the said badge, this was too much. On Saturday, a great lot of us dined at Kit Hutchinson’s request at the British Coffee House, with the gentlemen educated at Trinity College, Dublin; Kit in the chair, and it really was most entertaining. Irish genius for speaking and eloquence was never more conspicuous: upon my soul, I think five or six fellows who spoke—quite young men—spoke as well as Pitt. . . .”

“House of Commons.

“Well, now we have made a start. Mr. Canning has got up with due pomp and dignity, and has declared he has full authority to state from his noble friend Lord Wellesley that he, Lord Wellesley, has this morning received from the Regent his Royal Highness’s commands to form an administration. So much for this first official act of the new Whig Government! . . .”

“Richmond Hill, June 2nd.

“Very large paper this, my precious, but we must see what we can make of it. As the day is so charming and the country so inviting, I have resolved to stay over the day, and accordingly my cloaths have gone to be washed. I leave, therefore, this eventful day in London to all the heart-rending anxieties of politicians, who, I think, have as hopeful a prospect of disappointment as ever politician had. I cannot bring myself to regret that I am not to serve under

* Not the Scottish peer of that name, but the eldest son of the 6th Earl of Granard by a daughter of the 1st Earl of Moira. He was father of the present Lord Granard.

Marquis Wellesley or Mr. Canning. . . . We shall now see what this singular association of statesmen will be able to do. Canning is for Orders in Council, Grenville considers them as the source of all the existing national distress. Grenville thinks the country incapable of sustaining the expenditure of the war: Wellesley thinks such war to be starved by our penury. Grey is against all secret influence; Prinney says he will part with his life rather than his household. Prinney, Wellesley and Canning have each betrayed everybody they have had to do with—pretty companions for a man of honor like Grey! . . . Prinney will not strike yet to Grey and Grenville without conditions to which they will not submit. What is to be done, too, on minor subjects? What is Jack Horner to do with his notice of motion on McMahon’s salary, or how is Bankes’s bill to be permitted to pass, which, besides abolishing patent places of all kinds as they become vacant, goes immediately to strike off our Paymaster-Genl., our Postmaster, our Mustermaster, &c., &c., &c., all of which said places so to be abolished are doubtless looked up to with great affection and anxiety by the young friends and by the old Whigs, by the Vernons, Wards and McDonalds, &c., or by the Ponsonbys, Freemantles, &c., &c. I flatter myself both Tierney and Huskisson are to be Cabinet Ministers, which, considering that Burke and Sheridan, Dunning and [illegible] used to be considered as not elevated enough in rank to be admitted into such high company, will be well enough.

“I must, upon the whole, condemn Grey as acting most unwisely in putting himself forward as a candidate for power under all the circumstances of the country. He would have done much better to wait till Grenville’s death or some other event dissolved the fatal connection with that family. He ought to have let Wellesley and Canning perish in their own intrigues, and he ought to have permitted the old and feeble Government to conduct the country so near its ruin that men could no longer doubt either its condition or the authors of its calamities. In such a case, which would have inevitably arrived, the country and the Crown would have called for his assistance, and in such case only, my belief is, could he have done permanent good to the country with honor to himself. . . . Grenville I consider a dead man, and Prinney, Wellesley and Canning are both madmen and villains. . . . In the meantime, we must have sport. Amongst other things, we must have the Bank made to pay us in specie . . . which would give you and me £700 per annum more than we have. This would be something like, so we shall see what we shall see.”

“Richmond Hill, Wednesday, 3rd.

“I have dilly-dallied so long here that if I don’t set out directly I shall not get in time to write you a word, my precious, so I will first fire a little shot at you before I leave this place. William brought us last night just such intelligence as I was prepared to expect from Petty that the Marquis [Wellesley] had been with Earl Grey and had offered him and his friends four seats in the Cabinet; that he himself had condescended to become First Lord of the Treasury, that there must be some limitations of concession to Ireland, with a great variety of other restraints upon the four poor Foxite and Grenville Ministers, the whole of which induced the Earl to give the Marquis the most unqualified rejection of these proposed indignities. Ha! ha! ha! or Oh dear me! which of these exclamations is best suited to the occasion. Is one to laugh at our poor foolish party having so obviously and so fatally for themselves played the game of these villains Wellesley and Canning, or is one to cry at the never-failing success of rascality in this country? Oh how glad I am that I had no hand in making this madman Wellesley preside over the destinies of this country, to sacrifice the thousands of brave lives that he will assuredly do in Spain and Portugal, and to torture by poverty and privations the thousands that will feel the effects of his extravagance in England.”

“York St., Thursday, 4th.

“Betty and I are just put into port for the purpose of my writing you a single line before the post goes. We have had a very prosperous voyage to Mrs. Fitzherbert’s and old Lady Grey’s, both of whom we found at home. We have seen in the streets various persons—Albemarle, Lord Henry Fitzroy, Parnell,* &c., &c. Well, Prinney is in a capital way, is he not? There was a meeting last night at Grenville’s of opposition lords to hear the history of all that has passed on the late occasion, and there was another similar one of the Commons to-day at Ponsonby’s. . . . Wellesley, we are told, was as good as turned out of Carlton House when he went back with Grey’s refusal on Tuesday, and this accounts for the ‘violent personal objections’ which he describes Prinney as having to Grey and others. It is a rare mess, by God! . . .”

“Friday, 5th.

“. . . Moira has done nothing yet. Everybody has refused him, but he is quite taken in by the Prince’s cajolery, and there is no saying what folly they may not commit in their selection of a Ministry. . . .”

“York St., Saturday, 6th.

“. . . In coming up from the House I was much surprised to meet Sam (Whitbread) covered with smiles. He was enquiring where he could find Sheridan. . . . I presumed his trip to town was merely upon private business, and in this persuasion I remained till almost 3 o’clock this morning, when old Sheridan became drunk and communicative. He then told me he had sent an express for Sam, and that the said Sam had been dining at Moira’s, with him Sheridan. Further than this he did not tell me, excepting the expression of his own conviction that Sam was the man both for the Prince and the People, and that Wellesley, Canning and Grenville must all be swamped and flung overboard. Was there ever anything equal to this? . . . If Sam does come in, it must now be upon his own terms, and I cannot think, after all my honest conduct to him, he could desert me. . . . The Whigs evidently know of an offer made to Whitbread, and are as civil to-day as be damned. . . .”

* Henry Brook Parnell, M.P. [1776-1842], created Lord Congleton in 1841; grand-uncle of Charles Stewart Parnell.

“Brooks’s, Monday, 8th.

“. . . I found from Sheridan yesterday just before dinner that Moira was First Lord of the Treasury, and that it was expected that the writs of Canning and others would be moved for to-night in the Commons. . . . He said he and Whitbread were to dine at Moira’s yesterday, and he concluded with his regret that Whitbread was not Chancellor of the Exchequer. . . . I came, of course, here in the evening, and I soon found there was a meeting of the party at Ponsonby’s to which, as I had no summons, of course I did not go. I found from people as they returned from this meeting that Whitbread had given great offence by giving his opinion that Grey and Grenville had pushed the thing too far in insisting, under all circumstances of the case, upon the surrender of the household. . . . This morning brought to my bed a note from Whitbread desiring to see me, which of course I instantly complied with, and from himself I learnt all the particulars of his intercourse with Moira. . . . Moira produced his plan for revoking Orders in Council, conciliating America by all manner of means, the most rigid economical reform, nay, parliamentary reform if it was wished for: in short every subject was most agreeable and satisfactory. . . . So far so good . . . but I have such a devil of new matter pressing upon me I must be off. Huskisson has just announced to people in the streets that Moira’s powers are revoked, and that a message is coming from the Prince saying he (Moira) cannot form a Government, and that he has ordered his old servants to proceed with public business.”

“House of Commons. Same date.

“Well, this is beyond anything. Castlereagh has just told us that Moira resigned the commission this morning, and that His Royal Highness had appointed Lord Liverpool Prime Minister. Was there ever anything equal to this? . . .”

“House of Commons, Tuesday, 9th.

“. . . There has been a meeting of Government members at Lord Liverpool’s house to-day, and he has declared to them the intention of the Government not to oppose the Catholic question as a Government measure, but everybody is to do as he pleases. Of course the measure will now take place and it will be done by Liverpool, Eldon,* &c. This convinces me more than ever of the great fault committed by Grey and Grenville in letting their negociations go off about the Household . . . but they are all at once so prodigiously constitutional, one almost suspects one’s own judgment. They are, at all events, dished for the present, and most lucky will they be to be so, if anything like a rupture with America is now determined upon by that country, because that event, I am positive, gives check-mate at once to the revenue of this country.”†

“House of Commons, Wednesday, 10th.

“Well, the Doctor‡ succeeds Ryder as Secretary of State for the Home Department; Lord Harrowby succeeds the Doctor; Lord Bathurst succeeds Lord Liverpool, Bragge Bathurst is Chancellor of the Dutchy—such is the worthy new Administration. Is it not capital? so much for ‘No predilections’ nor yet ‘resentments.’”

Sydney Smith to Mr. Creevey (who had written at Lord Grey’s request to desire him to vote for Lord Milton).

“June 6th, 1812.

“Your letter followed me here, where I had come after voting for Lord Milton,§ one of the most

* It was done by their party, but not until sixteen years had passed; Liverpool was dead, and Eldon as strongly opposed as ever to emancipation.

† War with the United States began exactly nine days after these words were written.

† Lord Sidmouth.

§ Eldest son of the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam.

ungainly looking young men I ever saw. I gave my other vote for Wilberforce,* on account of his good conduct in Africa, a place returning no members to parliament, but still, from the extraordinary resemblance its inhabitants bear to human creatures, of some consequence. An election out of Westminster is sad work—at the moment of the greatest ferment, York was, in the two great points of ebriety and pugnacity, as quiet as average London at about 3 o’clock in the morning.”

The following extracts are from the exceedingly voluminous reports which Mr. Creevey sent almost daily to his wife during the contest for Liverpool.

“Tuesday, ½ past one. (September, 1812.)

“The name of this place is the Fair Unknown, a single house 14 miles this side of Colchester and about 30 miles on this side of Thetford.

“No horses, by Jingo! so I’ll eat a tight little beef stake, tho’ it is so early in the day; but what, you know, am I to do till the horses come home? . . . Oh, I find the name of my present residence is Copdock. . . .”

“Thetford, Wednesday, September, 1812.

“. . . So the parliament is really dissolved, my pretty, and I have seen the principal people of my constituents, and they behave like angels to me. I mean your Bidwells, Faux’s, Pawsons, &c., &c., take a deep interest about Liverpool, and will do whatever I wish as to the time of bringing on my election here, so as to forward my views at Liverpool, will not be the least offended if I succeed at Liverpool for electing to sit for the latter place, and will bring in any other person in my place whom the Petre family shall name. . . . This is something like, is it not? What is more, they talk of dining at their own

* William Wilberforce [1759-1833], M.P. for Hull 1780, and for Yorkshire 1784. An active philanthropist, his name must ever be associated with the suppression of the Slave Trade.

expense on the day of election, i.e., giving me a dinner instead of my giving them one, and so to save me as they say, from being plundered. I begin to think Mankind’s damned fair, don’t you? . . . I am now perfectly at ease upon this subject, and to be sure there was never anyone so fortunate as I am in escaping the agony of any dilemma upon an occasion of such complicated importance.”

Unpleasant rumours began to fly about presently concerning the intentions of the Duke of Grafton, who owned the second seat for Thetford, the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Petre owning the other. Creevey had become the guest of Mr. Bernard Howard at Fornham, near Bury, pending a summons to Liverpool. He was getting nervous about the tricks his colleague in that candidature might play him, for he had learnt already to regard Brougham with considerable distrust.

“. . . Forster speaks very mysteriously about Ossulston’s having the Duke’s seat (for Thetford) again, which alarmed me not a little. Our neighbour, Marchioness Cornwallis, was passing in her barouche, and calls Howard to the carriage, who was alone in the road.

“‘And so,’ says she, ‘the Duke of Grafton turns Mr. Creevey out of Thetford at last.’

“‘Upon your soul!’ says Barny, ‘then there’s a volley for you, for Mr. Creevey is now at my house, and is to be member for Thetford next Thursday, and for Liverpool the week after.’

“So the Gordon chienne* went off as grumpy as be damned! . . . Howard is very good to me and I amuse him very much. He is confidential about young Harry and the dukedom, which he evidently expects to be in possession of before long.

* The Marchioness Cornwallis (who died in 1850) was daughter of Jane, Duchess of Gordon, wife of the 4th duke.

I see he means never to sell his seats. Jockey does.”*

“Fornham, Sunday, 4th October.

“Diddy† has no letter again to-day from Roscoe,‡ but he expects one by express in the course of the evening. I should not be least surprised if the Liverpool election did not take place till to-morrow week, and that in that event I might safely stay over the Thetford one on Thursday. . . . This express, whenever it comes from Roscoe, will bring with it, of course, some of Brog-ham’s ingenuous remarks. . . . Bernard Howard is deeply affected with the apparent treachery of my colleague [Brougham], and his evident wishes to give me the go-by; but we shall see what we shall see.”

The express came that night; a note from Brougham, and a letter from Roscoe with news from Liverpool.

“. . . Gascoigne and Tarleton§ came here to-day, both indifferently supported, particularly the latter, who came on horseback with only two friends. They are neither of them popular. . . . Canning, it is said, will make his appearance on Monday. . . . Gladstone is his commander-in-chief. Believe me, our prospects are very flattering.”

Creevey, therefore, had to set out for Liverpool post haste, but found time at every stopping-place to write to his wife. He was duly elected without opposition for Thetford on 8th October.

* The 11th Duke of Norfolk was known as “the Jockey.” He died in 1815, and was succeeded in the dukedom by the abovementioned Bernard Howard, great-grandfather of the present duke.

† Creevey’s pet names among his family were Diddy and Nummy.

‡ William Roscoe [1753-1831], historian, &c.; represented Liverpool in 1806, but lost his seat in 1807.

§ The old members for Liverpool. Tarleton retired in favour of Canning. Colonel (afterwards General Sir Banastre) Tarleton [1754-1833] was for twenty-one years member for Liverpool.

“Cambridge, Monday, 5th Oct.

“You will be somewhat surprised to see Diddy’s handwriting from his favorite University. The accompanying letter from Wm. Roscoe will explain this movement. . . . Bernard Howard has been as good to me as possible, and you would delight in his suspicions of Brougham. . . . Come, Mr. John Horn, where are my eels and mutton-chops?—Here they are, by Jingo, and the said John, who is an old friend of mine of five and twenty years’ standing, says he can give me an excellent bottle of port.—No such thing: I never tasted worse. The chops were, however, damned fair. . . . I send for the approbation of yourself and my dears, Diddy’s colours at Thetford. . . . To Diddy himself they produce most agreeable sensations; they constitute to him a certain seat in parliament, and they remind him of a connection really virtuous, without propitiating a capricious bitch, and without Villain [Brougham] always frightful. So I am as happy as a grig with little Thet, and don’t care a damn for Liverpool my little Pet.”

Arrived in Liverpool, Creevey was plunged into the thick of a hot contest, the details whereof are of little interest at this day. At that period, the poll remained open for many days, generally a fortnight, and Creevey reported progress every night to his wife at Brighton. Brougham succeeded at first in reassuring him as to his good faith.

“Liverpool, 11th Oct.

“. . . I must say Brougham behaves as well as a man can possibly do, and I am every day more struck with the endless mine of his intellectual resources. Nevertheless his speech to the crowd yesterday was thought not near so good as mine. . . . The people pet me in a way that is, upon my soul, affecting. . . . Lord Hutchinson says the Russian accounts of their victories are all lies, and that they are inevitably ruined, and the French quite safe in Moscow, having quite cut off all the trade of Petersburgh and Riga.”

“14th October.

“. . . We had an excellent day yesterday: Sefton, Stanley,* Brougham, Roscoe, Ashton, Heywood, &c., &c. To be sure it is quite astonishing to see the superiority of our friends over those of the enemy as to rank and good manners, and then they do behave so perfectly to one, it is quite beautiful. . . . Sefton has really been most interesting to me since breakfast in discussing the education of his son, Lord Molyneux, who is sixteen years of age, at Eton and a tutor with him. Who would think that these people (I mean he and my lady), in the midst of their eating and drink and play and racing, &c., &c., are eternally at work in the education of their children? . . . My lady is greatly touched at my writing to you every day, and praises me much for it. . . .”

“Well, my pretty, Diddy and Brog-ham are fairly done—beat to mummy; but we are to take the chance of some miracle taking place in our favor during the night, and are not to strike till eleven or twelve or one to-morrow. We had to do with artists who did not know their trade. Poor Roscoe made much too sanguine an estimate of our strength. . . .”

Creevey and Brougham withdrew from the contest next day, Creevey being at the bottom of the poll with 1060 votes, but claiming a moral victory.

“To play second fiddle to Brougham,” he wrote to his wife, “would not be worth a dam. If it be an object worthy my ambition to get possession of Liverpool and to keep it, then I say that my game, and my game only, has been played, and that the whole dramatis personæ, Brougham and Canning included, might have been puppets selected by myself to serve my own ulterior purposes. Depend upon it, Diddy never played a slyer part than in his unassuming, modest character in which he has appeared before his fellow townsmen.

* Afterwards 13th Earl of Derby.

“. . . My popularity with all sides I find still keeps up to the last, tho’ I was last upon the poll. . . . There is to be a grand affair here on Friday—a dinner and a ball and supper for Canning. He goes dining out daily, to Boulton’s and such places. I envy not his happy lot! . . .”

“Croxteth Park, 17th Oct., 1812.

“Now for the first time since Diddy left home, can he sit down in quietness to write to his pretty. . . . As to the result of the campaign, disastrous as it is in the extent of the defeat, it is impossible to consider the whole as unfavorable to me. In the first place, my friends will have no occasion for their compassion for my being but of parliament. This is everything to begin with. Then I have begun a connection with the town of Liverpool to be used or not at my discretion on future occasions. . . . Canning, in the present state of things, must be shortly in office, and then he vacates, and I never will believe that as a Minister of State he will submit to the club canvassing. . . . You never saw a fellow in your life look so miserable as he has done throughout. . . . I have been perfectly amazed during this campaign at the marvellous talent of Brougham in his addresses to the people. He poured in a volley of declamation against the immortal memory of Pitt the day before yesterday, describing his immortality as proclaimed by the desolation of his own country and the subjugation of mankind, that, by God, shook the very square and all the houses in it from the applause it met with. Yesterday he renewed the subject by a comparison of Fox with Pitt, that was done with equal skill and success. Still, I cannot like him. He has always some game or underplot out of sight—some mysterious correspondence—some extraordinary connection with persons quite opposite to himself.’

“Knowsley, 19th Oct.

“. . . We are all mighty gracious here. My lady [Derby] told me before we went in to dinner yesterday to sit with my best ear next to her. . . . We sat down 22 to dinner, all of them Hornbys, except 4 Hortons, 2 Ramthornes, young Ashton and myself. My lord was in excellent spirits, and, for such company, it went off all very well. . . . I never saw Lady Stanley looking so well, or in such good spirits. She and her lord are damned attentive to Diddy, so upon the whole, you know, it is very well he came. . . . I won a shilling last night, I’d have you know, and then ate some shrimps, and Lady Derby would have some negus made for me alone; and all the toadys laughed very much, because my lady did, so it was all very well. . . .

“There is beginning to be damned distress in Liverpool already, and if the Americans will but continue the war for a twelvemonth, Masters Canning and Gascoigne and their supporters will have enough of it.

“. . . Let me not omit to mention to you that Col. Gordon,* who you know is with Wellington, is in constant correspondence with both Grey and Whitbread, and that his accounts are of the most desponding cast. He considers our ultimate discomfiture as a question purely of time, and that it may happen on any day, however early; that our pecuniary resources are utterly exhausted, and that the [illegible] of the French in recovering from their difficulties is inexhaustible; that Wellington himself considers this resurrection of Marmont’s broken troops as an absolute miracle in war, and in short Gordon considers that Wellington is in very considerable danger.† Of course you will not use this information but in the most discreet manner.”

Creevey took his defeat with equanimity, falling back upon his seat at Thetford. Not so Brougham, who could not but feel sore at his exclusion from an

* The Hon. Sir Alexander Gordon, brother of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen. He was aide-de-camp, first to his uncle, Sir David Baird, then to the Duke of Wellington, and was killed at Waterloo.

† Marmont having been defeated at Salamanca on 22nd July, Wellington occupied Madrid. But on 21st October he was forced to raise the siege of Burgos and begin his retreat upon the Portuguese frontier, which partook more of the nature of disaster than any operation ever undertaken by him.

arena where he felt so well qualified to excel. And when Brougham felt sore, he made it his business to make others smart also; never did he forgive Grey for the philosophy with which that gentleman accepted Brougham’s departure from Parliament.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Knowsley, 19th Oct. “The Hoo, 1812.

“. . . Should I (being quite certain that I am out for good, inasmuch as I see no possible seat and have received from all the leaders, except Grey, regular letters of dismissal, thanking me for past services, &c.) should I take parliamentary practice or not? My first intention was quite clear agt. it; for, tho’ I don’t affect to say a large bit of money would be disagreeable, yet gold may be bought too dear, and I don’t like to lower myself, either in Parlt. or the country, to Adam’s level. I never hesitated on this till I began to get angry with the leading Whigs for their cool way of taking leave [of me]; as much as to say—it is out of the question our ever bringing you in again. This, and the knowledge of others, as Plume [?], &c., being brought in, has rather raised my spleen, and given me an inclination to go into that line and make enough to buy a seat (with what I can afford to add, viz. £2000 or £2500), and then come in and enjoy the purest of all pleasures—at once do what I most approve of in politics and give the black ones an infernal licking every other night! Now really this is my only inducement, and I am half doubting about it. My judgment tells me not to go into Committee practice; but what do you think? I own I shall be pleased if you are as clear agt. it as I feel; but pray give your opinion with dispatch. Talk it over with Ward if you see him. . . .”

CHAPTER IX. 1813-1814.

The Tories came back triumphant from the polls in 1812. Lord Liverpool had succeeded Perceval as Prime Minister; although Canning remained still an ominous, brooding figure on the skirts of the party. Castlereagh had succeeded Wellesley at the Foreign Office, and his charming manner and amiability stood him in far better stead as leader of the House of Commons than greater rhetorical gifts could have done. Moreover, his able and far-sighted conduct of foreign policy, coupled with the favourable progress of the Peninsular campaign, impressed men at last with the conviction that Napoleon had overshot his mark, and that the will of England was to be enforced. Under these depressing circumstances, the old Whigs inclined to withdraw from active hostilities in Parliament; while the Radicals—“the Mountain,” as they delighted to call themselves—cast about for some new weapon of offence against the hated Administration. There was one ready to their hand—one that was to serve them for many a year to come; and it was Brougham, though without a seat in Parliament, who best saw its value and how it was to be wielded.

It were an unpleasant and unnecessary task to repeat the unlovely story of the Prince Regent’s married life. It is enough to remember that, in order to please his father, George III., and induce him to pay his debts, the Prince married Princess Caroline of Brunswick in 1795. She never was an agreeable woman; there never was the slightest affection between them, and, after the birth of their only child, Princess Charlotte, they separated; and the Prince, among many other less venial loves, returned to Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom he had solemnly married in 1786; and for whom, as Mr. Creevey has already explained in these papers, he maintained a remarkable establishment at Brighton and in London. Meanwhile, the Princess of Wales resided at Blackheath, and the profligate life of her husband sufficed to attract to her a large share of popular commiseration. News filtered slowly to the provinces in those days of tardy communication, else the public scandal must have roused the nation to dangerous manifestations.

In 1806, owing to manifold indiscretions of this unfortunate Princess, a Commission of twenty-three Privy Councillors was appointed, at her husband’s instance, to inquire into her conduct. She was acquitted on the charge of having borne an illegitimate child, though censure was passed upon her mode of life. George III. refused to allow Princess Charlotte to be taken out of her mother’s custody, but when the kindly old King became hopelessly mad, the power passed into the hands of the Regent, who forbade his wife to see her daughter more than once a fortnight. Thereupon the Princess addressed a letter of remonstrance to her husband. The only acknowledgment she received was as follows, from the Prime Minister:—

Lord Liverpool to Lady Charlotte Campbell.

“Fife House, 28 Jany., 1813.

“Lord Liverpool has the Honour, in answer to Lady Charlotte Campbell’s note of this morning, to acquaint her Ladyship for the Information of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales that the Prince Regent, having permitted the Lord Chancellor and Lord Liverpool to communicate to His Royal Highness the Contents of the Letter which they had received from the Princess in such manner as they might think proper, the Letter of the Princess was read to His Royal Highness.

“His Royal Highness was not pleased to signify any commands upon it.”

After the general election of 1812, it was obvious that the Opposition had no further grounds for hope from their ancient friendship with the Prince Regent. He had thrown them overboard, as he never hesitated to do anybody who had ceased to be useful or amusing to him. Brougham, therefore, who had been presented to the Princess of Wales in 1809, and who perceived how the sympathy excited by her unfortunate position might be made to reflect odium upon Ministers, and at the same time to injure the Prince Regent, proffered his legal services to the Princess. Associated with him was Whitbread, who, however little may be thought of his discretion, was probably perfectly disinterested and sincere in desiring that justice should be done. Acting under the advice of these counsellors, after waiting in vain for an answer to her letter to her husband, the Princess caused the said letter to be published in the Morning Chronicle. The result was the appointment of another commission of three and twenty Privy Councillors, who, by 21 votes to 2, supported the Prince’s decree about the intercourse that should be permitted between his wife and daughter. From this time forward Brougham, perceiving the means of avenging the treatment of the Whigs by the Prince Regent and, at the same time, making political capital out of the Princess’s wrongs, became indefatigable in the cause. He and Whitbread drew to themselves the cordial support of the Radicals, who waxed indignant with the old Whigs by reason of their constitutional scruples in taking action against the Regent. Thus the schism in the Opposition grew ever deeper; nor was it any part of Brougham’s plan that it should be healed, so long as he should be out of Parliament. He wrote incessantly to Creevey about the varying phases of the case, which it would be wearisome and unprofitable to follow in detail. A few extracts follow as examples of the style and spirit of his letters, in which the Prince Regent is usually referred to as “Prinney” or “P.,” the Princess of Wales as “Mrs. P.,” and Princess Charlotte as “young P.” The sequence of Brougham’s letters is matter for speculation, owing to his habit of not dating them. In some cases the exact date can be learnt from the postmark.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey [at Brighton].

“Brooks’s, 1813. “Dear Creevey,

“Come to town to-morrow for Mr. Prinney. Let me console you with the news that the fellow was hissed to-day going to Court, and hooted loudly. All this is good . . . A word or two upon the question of peace or war. Canning was down yesterday— Bogey* for war—Ld. Grey semi-pacific—Sam† the only peace-maker. Prinney ill—dropsy, [illegible], strictures, &c.—it will do!”

“Temple. “Dear C.,

“In order to keep you up in the affairs of the Prinnies as they go on, I write from time to time, for if I let some days pass it would take too long a time at this busy season, when I really have my hands quite full, were there no Prinnies in the world. Also, this way of apprizing you of things as they happen enables you to form a safe opinion by being kept constantly informed.

“The scene at Carlton House is quite perfect: there is nothing at all equal to it. I laughed for an hour. Of course Mrs. F[itzherbert] must be religiously kept concealed. I have an arrear of things which are too long to write, and some things to shew; so these must be left till you come to town. The most curious is young P.’s letter to old P. which gave rise to all the row at Windsor.

“Notwithstanding the opening all letters, which we at first thought under the Dss. of L. would have been terribly inconvenient, things have got back nearly into their own channel, for young P. contrived to send her mother a letter of 28 pages, and to receive from her the Morning Chronicle with all the articles about herself, as well as the examination. Now these, I take it, are exactly what old P. had rather she did not see. She takes the most prodigious interest in the controversy, and I am going to draw up a legal opinion respecting her case. . . . I plainly see it excites no small anxiety, for the D. of Glos’ter asked me very earnestly if I knew from whence the articles in the M. C. came, and was greatly [illegible] when I told him Yarmouth was the man in Courier, which he certainly is. Of course, my helping Perry to his law is a profound secret. I told the D. I knew nothing about it. He had no right to put the question.

“A strange attempt was made by McMahon to

* Lord Grenville.

† Whitbread. The question was the dispute with the United States.

bribe and then to bully the editor of the Star (which is greatly in the Pss’s. interest). He wanted him to insert a paragraph against her. Last Saturday he went again, and such a scene passed as I would fain send you, having before me the man’s own written statement; but I dare not, in case it is sent you. It began with enquiries and offers—to know the advisers of his paper on the subject of the Pss., and whether she had anything to say to it, and offers of paying for a paragraph; and ended with his saying he should come again on Monday; and then going to see the press, and talking to every one of 20 printers, and giving them 2 guinea to drink!! We had a man to meet him and identify and witness his bribery on Monday, and I expect his report. . . .

“In a few days we must open our batteries in form. Sam [Whitbread] has had it out with Sheridan at Southill, and writes that he is quite convinced they have no case at all. . . . I expect to see the Govt. jib, for tho’ the fire of the outposts is really most formidable, it is distant and scattered;—that of the City is very near and loud, and Prinney is likely to be frightened by it. . . . As for little P. in general, it is a long chapter. Her firmness I am sure of, and she has proved to a singular degree adviseable and discreet; but for anything further, as sincerity, &c., &c., one must see much more to make such an exception to the rule credible. However, my principle is—take her along with you as far as you both go the same road. It is one of the constitutional means of making head against a revenue of 105 millions (diminished, I am glad to say, this year in the most essential branch of all—excise), an army of ½ million, and 800 millions of debt. . . .”

“Lancaster, Monday, 1813.

“You will think it rather cool my not coming to town as soon as possible in the present state of affairs, but I have two reasons. I think Mrs. Prinnie will be insisting on some further measures the moment she sees me, and I wish it to subside into an arrangement before I return. I shall come up as soon as they begin to negociate. My other reason is a degree of dislike of the whole concern, which has, in spite of myself, come over me since the row with the Commissioners, especially on account of Erskine. The blackening of Ellenboro’ is not sufficient to counterbalance this. I can’t help thinking the omission of the questions venial, as long as the evidence was not published; and then the charge agt. the Comms. was only their going beyond the inquiry assigned to them, and recommending a sort of censure on an ex parte proceeding. Which was wrong, I think; but one can’t help regretting anything which damages, not Grenville, but the whole Whigs. This should always be avoided if possible.”

“Brougham, Sunday, 6 April, 1813.

“. . . Now on this question [that of bringing in a declaratory bill regarding the Princess of Wales? once for all, do not listen to Sam [Whitbread]. He has no head. Depend upon it he has not. He is good for execution, but nothing for council, except, indeed, as far as his courage and honesty go, which are invaluable, but not of themselves sufficient. The idea of the galleries being shut would frighten him to death, for he speaks very much with an eye to the newspapers. Now my belief is that if a good and popular ground for shutting them could be got (as this may be made) a most prodigious step would be gained. But, it will be said, why degrade the House in this way? I reply, if the House is base enough after making a row 3 years ago about its privileges, when they were to be used against the people, now to yield up everything like the privileges which can really serve the people, it deserves to be brought into every sort of contempt, and the sooner the people quarrel with it, the better. Perhaps you may think my desire too romantic a one—viz. to see a whole session pass with shut doors. I certainly do wish devoutly to see it, knowing the price we pay for reading debates; but at present I am only speaking of such a shutting as may produce acquiescence in the Bill, which will become necessary should the Courts decide against us. While mentioning Whitbread, I must say that his two capital blunders in the Pss. business certainly don’t tend to raise my notion of his judgt. . . . Pray don’t forget to let me know what the Mountain mean to do about the Livery dinner.”

“20 April, 1813.

“. . . Mrs. P. (a bore which I always thought awaited you, tho’ I have put it off as well as I could) insists positively on your going there to dinner as soon as you return. She would have had you meet Mrs. Beauclerk there yesterday, but I said you were at Brighton. . . .”

“York, Wednesday, 10 May, 1810. “Dear C.,

“I find by Ly. C. Lindsay that there is an idea of another letter from the Pss. to Prinnie, and that Whitbread has written one. Pray try to impress upon him the fatal effects of any more letters. She will be called the Compleat Letterwriter and become generally despised. At all events, let some time elapse and see what they mean to do.”

“Temple, Monday, 1813.

“. . . I have nothing to tell you, except that Mother P. certainly goes to the Tea Garden to-morrow night, to meet her husband. It was her own idea, but I highly approve of it on his account; and as the Dss. of York goes, it is fit Mrs. P. should go too, if it were only for 5 minutes. The consternation of Prinnie is wonderful. I’ll bet a little money he don’t go himself, so that the whole thing will have gone off as well as possible. Young P. and her father have had frequent rows of late, but one pretty serious one. He was angry at her for flirting with the D. of Devonshire, and suspected she was talking politics. This began it. It signifies nothing how they go on this day or that—in the long run, quarrel they must. He has not equality of temper, or any other kind of sense, to keep well with her, and she has a spice of her mother’s spirit: so interfere they must at every turn. . . . I suspect they will befool the above duke. He is giving in to it, I hear, and P. will turn short-about, in all likelihood, after making him dance and dangle about, and perhaps break with his friends, and put on his dignified air on which he piques himself, and then say—‘Your Grace will be pleased to recollect the difference between you and my daughter.’

“I may be wronging the young man after all, for I am out of the way of hearing anything. Since the last time I saw you, I have only been twice to the westward of Charing Cross. Once was to see Lord Thanet. He is quite well again, and in high force—particularly abusive of Prinney, whom he objects to on account of his vulgarity, and compares to the Bourgeois Gentilhomme in Moliere—a name which has got about, and must inevitably annoy P. more than even ‘our fat friend.’ . . .”

“Temple, Wednesday [1813].

“. . . The cry against Sam [Whitbread] is high and, like all base things, higher since he left town. . . . The bitterness is among the jobbers and understrappers of the party, who wish to blow up the coals, and put an end to the party at once, for reasons too obvious. . . . Grey, as you may suppose, partakes of little or none of the violence, now the heat is off. . . . Fitzpatrick’s last words, I believe, were—La pièce est finie, uttered with his usual cool and determined tone to Lord Robert, there being servants in the room. He had said immediately before to Lady Robert (who was going, and said she should see him again)—‘Not in this world’—from whence your piety will naturally derive an inference, by way of admission, of a future state. He leaves about £10,000 in legacies. . . . I thought you might like to hear these particulars respecting the end of by far the most clever of the quiet class I have ever seen, and the most perfect judgt. of any class.* . . .”

Lady Charlotte Lindsay to Mr. Brougham.

“Wednesday.

“Everything went off remarkably well last night. We waited at the D. of Brunswick’s till we heard that the Duchess of Y[ork] was at Vauxhall; we then

* General Richard Fitzpatrick [1747-1813], for thirty-three years M.P. for Tavistock; a most intimate friend of C. J. Fox.

proceeded there, and were much huzza’d and applauded by the crowd at the door, and also by the people in the gardens, which was much more than I had expected, having considered it always as the enemies’ quarters. There were a few hisses at last, but very few indeed. The Duke of Gloucester escorted the Pss. round the walks, and the Duke of Kent handed her out and took care of her to the Duke of Brunswick’s house, where we supped. In short, nothing could be more right and proper, dull and fatiguing, than our last night’s adventures. . . .”

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey.

“Holland House, Wednesday.

“. . . Lord Darlington is to marry his bonne amie Mrs. Russell, alias Funnereau, this week;* and his daughter has chosen Mr. Forester. Neither of these alliances are brilliant. Mme. de Stael continues to be an invariable topick. The servants at assemblies announce her as Mrs. Stale. Her daughter, the seduisante Albertine, is very much relished by those who know her well.”

The reference in the following is to General Sir John Murray, who raised the siege of Tarragona, and embarked his troops on the approach of Suchet, for which he was afterwards tried by court-martial. Wellington’s despatch of 3rd July contains criticism of Murray’s operations, the responsibility for which the Opposition sought to throw upon Wellington.‡

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Chillingham, 23 July, 1813.

“. . . I think Wellington’s observations about Murray shamefull: he would have been mad to fight

* They were married on 27th July. Lord Darlington was created Duke of Cleveland in 1833.

† Wellington’s Despatches, vol. x. p. 509.

20,000 French with 12,000 Spaniards and 4000 English and Germans. As usual—Wellington never allows an excuse, nor ever enables an officer to execute anything. He left Beresford at Albuera in the same situation.”

“Walton, Thursday night.

“. . . Is it true that Leveson has the credit of working the intrigue for Canning? I was sure, and I told Brougham and Whitbread so—that the visits of him and his wife to Connaught Place announced an intrigue, and that I knew them too well to believe that any other motive but the basest took either of them there. . . . Brougham must rejoice at the escape of his client: however the Canningites are no strength to these Ministers, and I look forward to rare fun next session. If all these peerages take place, I am for a regular attack on the prostitution of public honours, and a seriatim show-up of all the new Ministry. . . . From what one can hear, the Congress will be a pleasant scene for Milord Castlereagh. He cannot but be in a scrape; and Norway, St. Domingo, the Slave Trade, Poland and Saxony, are rare topics for future discussion. Have you read Brougham upon Norway in the last number of the Edinburgh Review? If not, do it, as he is very good. . . .”

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Brougham, Sept. 15, 1813.

“. . . My wound is almost well now, leaving only a fine large mark, like a slash, on my head, forehead and eyelid. . . . I came off extremely well on the whole, as you would have allowed had you seen the cut, which was such as to send all the people—Bigges, &c.—out of the room fainting, except the surgeon and Strickland, who showed much skill in assisting him to take up the artery. He was in the carriage with me, and when taken out was supposed to be cut in pieces, from his bloody figure; but, on water being applied, the blood was all found to be my property, and he not even scratched. . . . Let me, in expressing my entire abhorrence of Newcastle—its natives, its inns, drives, horses, roads, precipices, pools, &c., &c., say how skilful a surgeon they have in the person of Mr. Horne, who attended me, and who is really a wonderful young man. To be sure he has some practice; for I suppose the bodies of half the natives, in whole or in fragments, pass through his hands in the course of a year. To be out of Hell, Newcastle certainly is the damnedest district of country anywhere to be found. . . . Your account of the Brighton festivities is invaluable. I am glad to be prepared for the Jockey,* with whom I shall certainly take the earliest opportunity of beginning the subject, in order to make him admit before witnesses his having had his journey to Brighton for his pains, and thus to confirm his hatred of P.† . . . I beg to remind you of my predictions, viz. Wellington’s retreat in Novr. or Decr., and a separate peace on the continent before Xmas, tho’ he clearly will never make such terms now as he used to do formerly.‡ . . .”

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Chillingham, 24th Sept., 1813.

“I have been looking out for a letter from you to tell me all the news of the south, and your fêtes at the Pavilion, at which I conclude you were, being in such favour with our magnanimous Regent! In the 1st place—is it true that Parliament is to be assembled on the 4th of November? If so, I am in despair, as in town I cannot be, and to be out of it will drive me wild. Money, I conclude, is the want, and as I feel disposed to have a fight for every shilling, and to state a grievance for each vote in supply, I am miserable at the chance of the campaign opening without me. To be sure, affairs look better on the Continent, and the

* The Duke of Norfolk. See vol. i. p. 50.

† The Prince Regent.

‡ The prediction was not fulfilled. Soult was driven across the Pyrenees on 2nd August; San Sebastian fell on 31st; the battle of the Nivelle was fought on 10th November; Wellington went into winter quarters early in December on French soil; Napoleon abdicated on 6th April, 1814.

capture of St. Sebastian is of the greatest importance to the safety of our army. We grumblers can have nothing to say, but the question of expence nothing can stave off. . . . To-day Ld. Grey was to have been in the chair at the Fox dinner at Newcastle: this kept me from the dinner, as Ld. Grey and the principles of Mr. Fox have long ago parted company. I looked on the meeting as a beat up for political friends—as a sort of levee where I shall always be the worst attender. . . .”

The year 1814 was one of great excitement, political and social, in London. In early spring the Russian, Prussian, and Austrian armies entered France, the British army having been already established on the north side of the Pyrenees since the previous autumn. The Allies entered Paris on 31st March; a few days later Napoleon abdicated and was allowed to retire to Elba; Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne of France, and visited London in May, to be followed in June by the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and other royalties. The proclamation of peace on 6th May marked the beginning of a series of fêtes and rejoicings, which continued at intervals all through the summer. Unfortunately, they served to bring into harsher relief than before the scandalous relations between the Prince Regent and the Princess of Wales. The Queen having commanded two drawing-rooms to be held in June in honour of the foreign royalties, the Princess intimated her intention to appear at one of them; whereupon the Queen wrote to the Princess, informing her that she had received a communication from her son, the Prince Regent, stating that it was necessary he should be present at her court, and that he desired it to be understood, for reasons of which he alone could be the judge, that it was his “fixed and unalterable determination not to meet the Princess of Wales upon any occasion, either public or private.”

One hundred years have not passed since these events, yet what a distance have we travelled in the development of popular judgment! It would not be possible for any Prince in these days to trample thus upon public opinion, and to treat in this tyrannical manner a wife whom it had been proved impossible to convict of infidelity. The offence thus offered to public morality and self-respect goes far to account for the profound apprehensions for the monarchy which men of all parties began to entertain in view of the great increase in popular power which parliamentary reform, not to be staved off much longer, must necessarily entail.

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey [at Brighton].

“Holland House, Saty.

“. . . The great wonder of the time is Mme. de Stael. She is surrounded by all the curious, and every sentence she utters is caught and repeated with various commentaries. Her first appearance was at Ly. Jersey’s, where Lady Hertford also was, and looked most scornfully at her, pretending her determination not to receive her as she was an atheist! and immoral woman. This harsh resolve was mitigated by an observation very agreeable to the observer—that her personal charms have greatly improved within the last 25 years. She (Mme. de Stael) is violent against the Emperor, who, she says, is not a man—‘ce n’est point un homme, mais un système’—an Incarnation of the Revolution. Women he considers as only useful ‘pour produire les conscrits;’ otherwise ‘c’est une classe qu’il voudroit supprimer.’ She is much less ugly than I expected; her eyes are fine, and her hand and arm very handsome. She was flummering Sheridan upon the excellence of his heart and moral principles, and he in return upon her beauty and grace. She is to live in Manchester Street, and go occasionally to breathe the country air at Richmond Inn.

“During the debate on the Swedish treaty, Mr. Ward* came into the Coffee House, assigning for his reason that he could not bear to hear Ld. Castlereagh abuse his Master; upon which Jekyll said—‘Pray, Ward, did yr. last Master give you a character, or did this one take you without?’ Those present describe Ward as being overwhelmed, for, with all his talent, he is not ready at repartee, tho’ no doubt by this time he has some neat epigrams upon the occasion. Lady Jane has had a return of spitting of blood, and she was blooded twice last week; the pain in her breast is very troublesome, and I much fear she is fast approaching to an untimely close of her innocent and valuable life.† There are reports, but I believe idle ones, of marriages between Lady Mildmay and Ld. Folkestone, and Sir Harry [Mildmay] and Miss Thayer. Ld. H. Beauclerk is certainly to marry Miss Dillon. The Greys . . . are not invited to the fêtes at C[arlton] House, nor any more of the Opposition than usual. . . .”

Lord Folkestone to Mr. Creevey.

“April 5, 1814.

“. . . . If you should happen to hear in the world that I am going to be married to Mildmay’s sister, you need not put yourself to the trouble to deny it. I have not any pretensions to suppose that Mrs. Taylor interests herself enough about me to presume to write to her, but I wish you would tell her from me that I should have been glad to have had an opportunity of informing her in person how immutable with me is the power of black eyes.‡ . . .”

* Afterwards Lord Dudley.

† It had been strange if life had long endured in a patient treated for phthisis by blood-letting!

‡ The marriage took place 24th May, 1814. Miss Mildmay was Lord Folkestone’s second wife, and great-grandmother of the present Lord Radnor.

Thomas Sheridan* to Samuel Whitbread, M.P.

[April, 1814.]

“Bonaparte has signed his resignation—Bourbons proclaimed—Victor, Ney, Marmont, Abbé Sieyes, Caulincourt, &c., &c., &c., have sign’d. The Emperor has a pension of 200,000 per ann.: and a retreat in the Isle of Elba. . . . There are to be immense rejoicings on Monday—white cockades and tremendous illumination. Carlton House to blaze with fleurs de lis, &c The royal yatch is ordered to take the King (Louis)—the Admiral of the Fleet the Duke of Clarence to command her—all true, honor bright—I am just come from the Prince.

“Th. S.”

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Thomas Sheridan.

“Cardington, April 10, 1814. “My dear Sheridan,

“I thank you for your letter, and I daresay you will not be surprized when I tell you that the Circumstances which have led to, and attend upon, this great Event, are such as to enable me to contemplate it with entire satisfaction.

“A Limited Monarchy in France, with Religious Liberty, a Free Press and Legislative Bodies such as have been stipulated for before the Recognition of the Bourbons, leave their Restoration without the possibility of Regret in the Mind of any Man who is a Lover of Liberty and a friend to his kind. Paris safe, Bonaparte suffered to depart, after the experiment had been fully tried of effecting a Peace with him, upon terms such as he was mad to reject—‘Tis more than I dared to hope!

“Then the great Example set of the Fidelity of all His Generals, and of the Armies they commanded, up to the very Moment that He himself gave all up for lost and opened his own Eyes to the consequences of His own desperate Folly, must surely have its effect on the World, and redeems many of the Treacheries

* Son of R. B. Sheridan.

Men have committed against their Leaders. I confess it pleases me beyond measure. . . . God grant us a long and glorious Peace.

“If the Regent had but a true friend to tell him that he has only two things to do at home to complete the Happiness and Splendour of this Epoch!* I hear He says I am the worst Man God Almighty ever formed, except Bonaparte! but I could tell him how to be as justly popular as Alexander himself.† . . . No Murders, No Torture, No Conflagration—how ill the pretty Women of London bear it?”

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brooks’s, 1814. “Dear C.,

“Nothing new. The Boneys & Co. are understood to have left Fontainbleau on the road to Italy. What a fall! and what a triumph for sound doctrines of freedom! The Coles‡ look very low. Their chance of office is at 100 per cent. discount, and the Holland Housians are in a sad quandary. Our dinner was good and well managed, and a good spice of Whiggism. . . . The Duke of Sussex talked very sad stuff: his last feat was the following toast—‘Respectability to the Crown, durability to the Constitution and independence to the People!’ He talked of the Stuarts and made an odd allusion to their fate and the Bourbons. The King of France is to make his palace at Grillons. He comes to-morrow. . . . It is pleasing to see so many happy faces.”

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Temple, 1814. “Dear C.,

“I write to congratulate you on this most speedy and compleat, as well as favorable termination

* One was the rehabilitation of the Princess of Wales, the other, probably, Roman Catholic Emancipation.

† The Emperor Alexander I. of Russia, at that time in high favour with the English Whigs.

‡ Tierney, Abercromby, &c.

of the Revolution. I pass over the reasons for approving of it as regards France. These are many—but I look chiefly to England. We have been working day and night (and seldom succeeding) to knock off a miserable £10,000 or £20,000 a year from the patronage of the Crown. This event cuts down 50 or 60 millions at once. If we had made peace with Bpte., Prinney would have been bitterly annoyed, the aristocrats humbled, the ministers (a good, quiet, easily-beaten set of blockheads) turned out, and a much worse and stronger set of men put in their places; but who could nave looked to any real diminution of Army, Navy and expenditure? It would have been impossible. Now, there is not a pretence for keeping these sources of patronage open. Besides—the gag is gone, which used to stop our mouths as often as any reform was mentioned—‘Revolution’ first, and then ‘Invasion.’ These cues are gone. It really appears to me that the game is in the hands of the Opposition. Every charge will now breed more and more of discontent. The dismissal of officers and other war functionaries will throw thousands out of employ, who will sooner or later ferment and turn to vinegar. All this will tell agst. Govt. and the benefits of the peace. The relief from taxes, &c., will never be able to tell much for them.

“One should think these things evident enough, and yet the Cole school, and Holland House above all, are in perfect despair. I am, however, glad to find Grey as right and factious as can be. . . . Thanet is exactly in the same spirit, tho’ he expects nothing from the folly and moderation of our friends and their fear of annoying Prinnie. By the way, Ld. Grey dines with Mother P. on Wednesday next to meet the D. of Glo’ster, to the no small annoyance of the Coles. . . . Pray don’t forget that a Govt. is not supported a hundredth part so much by the constant, uniform, quiet prosperity of the country, as by these damned spurts which Pitt used to have just in the nick of time, and latterly by the almost daily horn and gun under which we nave been living.”

“Lancaster, 1814.

“. . . As for a seat in Park, generally, I should feel that the use of it is nearly gone if the peace is made and discussed. Allow me just to observe in passing (a subject I don’t think I have ever alluded to before) the great use of Whig boro’s; for, without any extravagant pretensions, I can’t help thinking it a little strange that my being left out permanently is, to all appearance, now a settled matter. This is the more odd, because Grey is so decidedly anxious for my coming in. Were I, by any chance, once again in that place, I certainly have some little arrears to settle with more folks than one.”

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Dover St., June 4, 1814.

“. . . I have just received a petition from Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, complaining of cruelty and partiality in her mode of confinement, and stating various instances where indulgences have been obtained for money. If I do not hear from you that you wish me to delay presenting it that you may be present, I intend to present it on Monday. We reckon your letter received yesterday to be quite provincial in its Politicks, and even the House of Commons—all but Wynne—seem to think it a case that in some shape they must interfere, if nothing shall be done to set the matter right out of doors. . . .”

The correspondence between the Queen, the Prince Regent, and the Princess of Wales having been sent to the Speaker, was communicated by him to the House of Commons, whereupon arose debate.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Temple, Monday, [June, 1814]. “Dear C.,

“Just as I was going to begin a letter to you, entered old Hargrave, as mad as Bedlam, and I have been so completely bored to death by him that I can scarcely write at all. . . . The Doctor on Saturday evening gave notice of the letter being delivered to P.* on Friday, but I made him again apply yesterday to know if there was any answer, and the Dr. said he had not received P.’s commands to make any answer to it. All being safe and right, you see it is fired off, and I may add that I was finally decided in favour of publishing to-day by the apprehension of Alexr., &c.,† coming in a day or two, and taking off the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Bull.‡ I have, moreover, made Mrs. P.§ go to the opera to-morrow evening, but without any row, merely to show she does not skulk. If there is a good reception, so much the better.”

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brooks’s, Saturday.

“. . . The Kings dine with Liverpool to-day—Prinny to-morrow, and with Ld. Stafford on Monday; a review on Tuesday and I believe to Oxford afterwards. Alexander grumbles at the long dinners of the Regent’s. I like the Prussians very much; they are the best.”

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“June 11, 1814.

“. . . The Emperor [of Russia] has as yet returned no answer nor returned any civility to the Pss.’s message and letter by St. Leger. They [the Princess of Wales, &c.] go to the Opera to night, and if you were here she would be sure to be well received. Why the Devil are you not here? Brougham will, I suppose, certainly stand for Westminster, which will be favourable to him in the Cry that will be raised for him. You must come and stop as long as you are wanted. The Pss. shall not compromise anything.

* The Prince of Wales.

† The Emperor of Russia and other foreign royalties.

‡ The British Public.

§ The Princess of Wales.

She is sadly low, poor Body, and no wonder. What a fellow Prinny is!”

Brougham entertained the idea of standing for the vacancy in Westminster, but Sheridan was already in the field.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Temple, 29 June, 1814. “Dear C.,

“As you may be amused to hear the infinite follies of mankind, I write to say that the Whigs have just discovered Old Sherry to be ‘an old and valued friend and an ancient adherent of Fox.’ They therefore support him. To be sure, he has ratted and left them—he kept them out of office twice—and he now openly stands on Yarmouth’s influence and C[arlton] House, and Ld. Liverpool is supporting him! . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Mrs. Creevey.

“14 June, 1814.

“. . . The Emperor of Russia sent for Lord Grey, Lord Grenville, Lord Holland, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Erskine, and had long conversations with all of them. Lord Grey represents him as having very good opinions upon all subjects, but quite royal in having all the talk to himself, and of vulgar manners. He says the Emperor was much indebted to his sister the Dutchess of Oldenburg for keeping him in the course by her judicious interposition and observations. In truth he thinks him a vain, silly fellow, and this opinion is much confirmed by what the Austrian who is in London now, and who went with Buonaparte to Elba, states to be Buonaparte’s opinion as he (the Austrian) heard him deliver it. It seems there is no subject more dealt in by Buonaparte than criticism upon people. He said to this Austrian:—

“‘Now I’ll tell you the difference between the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. The Emperor thinks himself a very clever fellow, and he is a damned fool; whereas the King of Prussia thinks meanly of his own talents, and he is a very sensible man.’

“Grey, Holland, &c., &c., agree in their opinion of Buonaparte, in that Buonaparte seems the most popular person possible with all parties, both foreigners and our own grandees. Blücher is a very nice old man, and so like your old friend Lord Grey* that Lady Elizabeth Whitbread cried when she met him at Lady Jersey’s. Platoff is so cursedly provoked at the fuss made with him that he won’t accept an invitation to go out. To be sure, as Russ. is the only language he speaks, I don’t much wonder at his resolution. They are all sick to death of the way they are followed about, and, above all, by the long dinners. The King of Prussia is as sulky as a bear, and scarcely returns the civilities of the populace.

“Prinny is exactly in the state one would wish; he lives only by protection of his visitors. If he is caught alone, nothing can equal the execrations of the people who recognise him. She, the Princess, on the contrary, carries everything before her, and had it not been for an accident in her coming into the opera on Saturday night, whilst the applause of the Emperor and King was going on, by which means she got no distinct and separate applause, tho’ certainly a great deal of what was going on was directed to her. By the bye, I called on her this morning, and saw very different names in her calling book from what I had ever seen before. Lord Rivers was the first name, Lady Burghersh the second, and so on, which, you know, is capital. All agree that Prinny will die or go mad. He is worn out with fuss, fatigue and rage. He came to Lady Salisbury on Sunday from his own dinner beastly drunk, whilst her guests were all perfectly sober. It is reckoned very disgraceful in Russia for the higher orders to be drunk. He already abuses the Emperor lustily, and his (the Emperor’s) walzing with Lady Jersey last night at Lady Cholmondeley’s would not mend his temper, and in truth he only stayed five minutes, and went off sulky as a bear, whilst everybody else stayed and supped and were as merry as could be.”

* The 1st Earl Grey.

“June 21, 1814.

“Well, my pretty, I hope you admired our little brush last night in the presence of all the foreign grandees except the Emperor.* It was really very capitally got up, and you never saw poor devils look so distressed as those on the Treasury Bench. It was a scene well calculated to make the foreign potentates stare as they did, and the little Princes of Prussia laugh as they did. . . . We have now, however, a new game for Master Prinny, which must begin to morrow. Whitbread has formal authority from young Prinny† to state that the marriage is broken off, and that the reasons are—first, her attachment to this country which she cannot and will not leave; and, above all, her attachment to her mother, whom in her present distressed situation she likewise cannot leave.

“This is, in short, her letter to the Prince of Orange in taking leave of him, and a copy of this letter is in Whitbread’s possession. What think you of the effect of this upon the British publick?

“Since writing the last sentence Whitbread has shown me Princess Charlotte’s letter to the Prince of Orange. By God! it is capital. And now what do you suppose has produced this sudden attachment to her mother? It arises from the profound resources of old Brougham, and is, in truth, one of the most brilliant movements in his campaign. He tells me he has had direct intercourse with the young one; that he has impressed upon her this fact that, if her mother goes away from England, as she is always threatening to do from her ill usage in the country, that then a divorce will inevitably take place, a second marriage follow, and thus the young Princess’s title to the throne be gone. This has had an effect upon the young one almost magical.”

* The “brush” was that, knowing the foreign potentates were to be in the Gallery of the House of Commons, Sir M. Ridley was put up by the Opposition to move a resolution respecting the marriage of Princess Charlotte of Wales to the Prince of Orange.

† The Prince Regent’s daughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales.

Although there is no reference in these papers to the scene in the House of Commons when the Duke of Wellington was admitted to receive the thanks of the House, still it is agreeable to remark that, while Mr. Whitbread and his party had not scrupled to avail themselves of the difficulties of the campaign in the Peninsula as the means of bringing reproach upon the Government and their officers in the field, it was Mr. Whitbread who now objected that the grant to the Duke moved by the Speaker, viz. £10,000 a year, commutable for £300,000, was too small.

Three days later a debate, in which Mr. Whitbread took a leading part, arose upon Lord Castlereagh’s motion to increase the allowance to the Princess of Wales from £35,000 to £50,000 a year. This was moved and carried in the earnest hope that the Princess would carry out her wish to go to the Continent, and that she would stay there. The removal of this rock of offence to the Ministry was by no means to the liking of the Opposition.

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Dover St., July 1, 1814. “My dear Creevey,

“You will have seen by the papers that Castlereagh laid upon the Table on Wednesday papers relating to the Princess of Wales’s pecuniary situation, which were ordered to be referred to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next. In the evening of Wednesday I received at the House of Commons a note from Lady C. Campbell No. 1, enclosing the note from C[astlereagh] No. 2, to which I replied, ‘I would see Brougham in the evening and we would communicate further.’ I did see Brougham after the debate, at Michael Taylor’s, and we agreed that the offer was to be refused, and that the mode of refusal should be by letter to the Speaker.

“Yesterday morning before 10 o’clock I had sent a note to Lady C. Campbell to say ‘that I had seen Brougham, that we had agreed upon the mode of proceeding respecting this insidious offer made in so unhandsome a manner, and that I would be at Connaught House at two o’clock, to submit the result of our counsel, in the shape of a letter to the Speaker.’ At two o’clock I was preparing to set out to recommend the letter No. 3, which is the production of Brougham, when to my infinite surprise I received from the Princess the Papers Nos. 4 and 5, to which I replied by the Note, No. 6. I then went and found Brougham in Westminster Hall, to whom I communicated the contents. His convulsions in consequence were very strong. I then went to Lady C. Lindsay who burst into tears upon perusing the papers. I then called upon St. Leger, who was thunderstruck and mortified to the greatest degree, but he entreated me to call upon the Princess; which I did, and found her and Lady C. Campbell together. She received me very civilly, and told me she saw I disapproved of what she had done. With the proper prefaces and in the mildest tone, I told her that I did exceedingly disapprove it; and that after her communication of the night before, I had reason to complain of her having sent an answer without having previously shown it to me or Brougham, and that I was much chagrined and disappointed at what she had done: that the crisis had just arrived, which would have put her in possession of all she wanted; and that I firmly believed her income would have followed on her own terms; but that the last paragraph of her letter appeared to me to have surrendered everything, and her words would be retorted upon her whenever she wished to assert the rights of her station. She said she meant to relinquish nothing, and particularly that she meant to go to St. Paul’s (for which measures had been taken). I told her I thought ‘it might impair the tranquillity of the mind of the Prince Regent’ if she were present, and she would be told so. We parted by my wishing her success, and that all might answer her expectation.

“You may suppose the effect the communication of these matters had upon Sefton, Tierney, Jersey, &c. Tierney had been in counsel with us, and was quite decided. In the evening I received the enclosed 7, 8 and 9, to which I shall only answer that when called upon I will advise, but it shall be on my own terms.”

H.R.H. the Princess of Wales to Samuel Whitbread, M.P. [Note No. 5, referred to in above letter.]

“The Princess of Wales informs Mr. Whitbread that she has been extremely surprised at the contents of his note. The Princess does not view the offer made to her by the Crown, through Lord Castlereagh, in the light in which Mr. Whitbread views it. As no conditions derogatory to Her as Princess, or to her Honor as a female, have been annexed to the fulfillment of her rights. The Princess of Wales can have no scruple, therefore, whatever, in accepting the proposal which has been made to her, and the Princess cannot expect anything very respectful or attentive in the manner of the offer, coming from persons who has been at variance with her so many years. Considering this as an act of justice, and not an act of grace, she has accepted it accordingly and incloses a copy of her letter to Ld. Castlereagh for Mr. Whitbread’s perusal. A refusal to the Crown would have made her extremely unpopular. The Princess is, besides, weary of all the trouble she has endured herself, and been the occasion to her friends, and takes the whole blame upon herself by exhonorating Mr. Whitbread from all responsibility whatever as to the issue of the event. The Princess of Wales shall never forget the true and sincere interest which Mr. Whitbread has on all occasions evinced towards her, but there are moments in life when every individual is called upon to act for themselves.”

Samuel Whitbread, M.P., to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales. [Note No. 6 referred to in the above letter.]

“Dover St., June 30, 1814.

“Mr. Whitbread has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the note of your Royal Highness, enclosing the Copy of Your Royal Highness’s answer to Lord Castlereagh, and to present his most humble duty to your Royal Highness.”

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Temple, 1st July, 1814. “Dear C.,

“I suppose you have heard of Mother P. bungling the thing so compleatly—snapping eagerly at the cash, and concluding with a civil observation about unwillingness to ‘impair the Regent’s tranquillity!!’ &c. This was all done on the spot and in a moment, and communicated to Sam and me next day, ‘that we might be clear of all blame in advising it.’ We are of course fully justified in giving her up. I had written a proper letter to the Speaker, refusing, which would only have made the House certain to give it [the grant to the Princess]. The intelligence came before my letter reached her.

“However, tho’ she deserves death, yet we must not abandon her, in case P. gets a victory after all, therefore I have made her send St. Leger to the Bp. of Lincoln (Dean of St. Paul’s) to notify her intention of going in state on Thursday, and demand proper seats for her and her suite. They are trying to fight off, but tho’ they may dirty themselves, nothing shall prevent her from going. This is a healing and a good measure.

“Again—there is a second letter from Castlereagh, mentioning a bill to ‘confirm the arrangement of 1809;’ and as this involves separation, it has (as well it may) alarmed her, and now she is all for asking our advice! They may make such a blunder, as all along they have blundered; if they do, we are all alive again, and shall push it. Say now it strikes you.

“As for Westr.—it now appears that Ald. Wood is only making a catspaw of old C[artwright]* and that he counts on his dying, and leaving a place for him—the Alderman. He has avowed that he would rather see Sheridan, or any court tool, returned than a Whig in disguise, viz., me; and he asserts plainly that, on the comparison, ‘more is to be hoped from Cart.’s parliamentary talents than from B.’s—the former being greater.’ This has opened some eyes—for they justly conclude he can’t be really speaking his mind. . . . I can’t help fearing Burdett is doing something, but I don’t know for certain. Holland House from personal hatred [i.e. of Brougham] supports Sherry; the Russells and Cavendishes, I understand, quite the contrary. . . .”

The next stage in this intolerable scandal was the refusal to the Princess of a seat in St. Paul’s Cathedral on the occasion of the national thanksgiving for peace on 7th July.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Monday.

“. . . Mrs. Prinny comes into court this day. She sent St. Leger to see the Ld. Chamberlain about St. Paul’s, who wd. not see him. A letter then was written to which she got an answer last night. She was told there was no place for her. So the game is alive once more. Sefton is in high spirits, and Sam and Brougham are to see her this day, and get, if possible, a letter or message from her upon the subject, setting forth this new indignity, and I trust spurning the money upon such terms. So we shall recover from the scrape she placed us all in. . . . What think you of Cochrane setting all at defiance, refusing to solicit a pardon from the pillory, maintaining his innocence, &c.?—that it is the sentence, not the infliction that he minds; and as for pardon, he will die

* John Cartwright [1740-1824], the “Father of Reform.”

sooner than ask it.* Burdett takes the field for him. I find many people take the field for him as to innocence, or at least have doubts, tho’ the doctrine is that the conviction is a sufficient reason to send him back to his constituents.”

“4th July, 1814. “Dear C.,

“First as to Mother P.† I was sure of my adversary giving some opening; so yesterday, in reply to St. Leger’s asking seats, Lord Hertford (cornuto, husband, father, &c.) in his own proper person writes saying the whole seats in St. Paul’s are arranged by the Regent, and Mrs. P. can’t have one. I have just despatched a Dft. of a letter to Mr. Speaker in which Mrs. P. takes the highest ground, saying she had accepted in the belief of its being an earnest of a new system of treatment, &c., and in order to show her conduct to the P. was only because she must vindicate herself, and not arising from any vexatious views; but now she finds she and the offer and all have been wholly misconstrued, and that her conduct has been supposed to proceed from an unworthy compromise; and in short, throwing up, on the ground of the treatment continuing, &c., &c. . . . This is decisive, I think, and gives us the game again. . . . However, if she refuses to send it (which I fear) we are done, or nearly so. I wrote her a long and very severe epistle on Saturday, accusing her of everything, &c. She is the better for it, and promises, &c. . . . Now as to Westr. I hear Burdett really is trying to put down the Major and bring me in. Meantime Sherry‡ talks of W. as a

* Lord Cochrane, afterwards 10th Earl of Dundonald [1775-1860], one of the most splendid naval commanders that ever paced a quarterdeck, was tried for a Stock Exchange conspiracy, and, though undoubtedly innocent, was convicted with his own uncle and one de Berenger, who were the real culprits. Cochrane was sentenced to an hour’s pillory, a year’s imprisonment, and a fine of £1000. He was dismissed the Navy, and expelled from the House of Commons; but his constituents in Westminster immediately returned him again to Parliament. In 1828, after continuous sea-service under foreign Powers, he was reinstated as rear-admiral in the Royal Navy.

† The Princess of Wales.

‡ R. B. Sheridan.

close boro’ in his family, and he is to have a meeting forthwith. G. Byng told me he had declared himself for me, and was ready to go from house to house, ‘and by Gad to wear out two shoes in it,’ meaning two pair. . . . There is a strange backwardness in Sam [Whitbread] about Westr. Whether it be that he never can be led to believe that there is no occasion for anybody in Parlt. other than himself—or that he thinks Westr. too much for me—or that he really can’t feel easy in going agt. Sherry—I know not, but he won’t speak to any one.”

To the chagrin of the irresponsible members of the Opposition, the Princess of Wales, having declined the increase to her allowance voted by Parliament, left the country in August, for which Brougham bitterly blames Whitbread—unjustly, as far as one can see.

“9th Aug., 1814.

“. . . By G—d, Sam is incurable—all this devilry of Canning, &c., and Mrs. P. bolting, &c., is owing to his d——d conceit in making her give up the £15,000—of himself, without saying a word to any one.”

CHAPTER X. 1814-1815

The peace having reopened the Continent to English travellers, Mr. Creevey took his wife, who was in failing health, in the autumn of 1814, to spend the winter at Brussels; than which, as affairs turned out, he could scarcely have chosen a less tranquil resting-place for an invalid.

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey [at Brussels].

“Holland House, 23rd Sept., 1814.

“. . . We have all assured Mr. Jeffrey* that you and Mr. Creevey will be glad to see him, so do not be surprised at receiving a visit from that very dear little man, who has the best heart and temper, although the authors of the day consider him as their greatest scourge. . . . You will thank us much for his acquaintance, as he is full of wit, anecdote and lively sallies. . . . The strange intrigue about the Dss. of Cumberland’s not being received is likely to become publick.† From the letters I have seen, our old Queen is likely to come off second best, as her actions are directly in contradiction to her professions; but all these Court

* Francis Jeffrey, the distinguished lawyer and judge, and editor of the Edinburgh Review.

† The Duke of Cumberland did not marry till August, 1815. His wife was Princess Frederica, daughter of the Duke of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, and widow, 1st, of Prince Frederick of Prussia, and 2nd, of Prince Frederick William of Salmo-Braunfels.

squabbles are trumpery and uninteresting in the greatest degree. I hear nothing of the meeting of Parliament, and conclude it will stand over Xmas. We hear reports of disunion among the luminaries who govern us, especially in those at Paris as to the subject of France, both as to its limits and its ministry; but it is so much their interest to agree, that it will not transpire beyond a little grumbling. . . .”

Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey.

“Holland House, 17th Oct., 1814.

“The peace, as it is with some stretch of courtesy called, satisfies no one class of people. Those who hate France think enough has not been done to reduce her power of mischief, and those who feel some little sympathy with her from a recollection of the original cause in which she engaged, and to which late events have in some degree brought her back, lament her humiliation, and resent yet more the triumph of her enemies. When a male child is born, every woman in the house looks an inch higher; and when a legitimate King is restored, every sprig of Royalty in Europe becomes more insolent and insufferable. . . . I have, I own, a little tendresse for the Dutch King whom you laugh at. It does not seem that the Flemish have any. . . .

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Temple, Nov. 24, 1814. “Dear Lord Creevey,

“I beg to begin by informing you that Lord Binning, the Canningite, is extremely angry to find persons who are not lords getting the title in France just as if they were. To learn that this delusion extends to Brussels must drive him mad. Next, let me notify to you the destruction or doing of Canning and Co.—not his character, for no man who can make a flashy speech ever lost that, except, perhaps, by conviction for a certain kind of offence—but his being sent abroad, and on the score of his child’s health;* so that Mouldy† and Co. may be gasping, and he can’t possibly come to their aid without either killing or curing his child. He can’t do the one, and he won’t do the other. I am told the Moscovites are ashamed of their member, and the result will be their chusing Husky.‡ All this I tell you because you are a good hater. You know I care not two farthings one way or t’other, and have far more liking—I should rather say far less dislike—towards C. than to many of our own friends—the little Whigs who ruin the party.

“This brings me to add, that the Ministry being dished over and over again has no effect in turning them out, because our friends have lost the confidence of the people—a plant of slow growth and almost impossible to make sprout again after it has been plucked up and frostbitten—for example, by the Grenville winter. . . . Meanwhile, Holland House being, by the blessing of God, shut up, some chance of favorable change is afforded. I forgot another event of much account in truly Whig eyes—a young Cavendish§ is, or is to be soon, added to the H. of C. You may expect news, therefore. Perhaps you’ll say the Govt. will be overthrown. Possibly: but I expect that, at the least, the interesting young person will divide once in the course of the Frost, if it lasts, and that he will range under the illustrious heads of the House of Cavendish. . . . As for the big man of all, Prinnie, he has been ill in the bladder, on which Sam [Whitbread] said—‘God make him worse!’ but this prayer was rejected. Young P.‖ is as ill off as ever

* Canning, who had been out of office since his duel with Castlereagh in 1809, was sent as ambassador to Lisbon in 1814.

† The Right Hon. Nicholas Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer, created Lord Bexley in 1823.

‡ The Right Hon. William Huskisson [1770-1830] was Secretary to the Treasury in the last administration of Pitt and in the Duke of Portland’s, but he resigned office with Canning in 1809. In 1814 he resumed office as First Commissioner of Woods, &c., though his views on free trade were not in harmony with those of the Tory Cabinet. He was not returned for Liverpool till 1823.

§ Hon. Charles Cavendish, created Baron Chesham in 1858: died in 1863.

‖ Princess Charlotte of Wales.

—no money, sale of trinkets to pay pensions, &c., an old lady sleeping in the room, &c., &c. The Party are no longer as averse to the subject as Lauderdale would wish and Ly. Holland. . . . I mentioned above my Paris trip having been most agreeable. I say, after seeing all the rest of Europe from Stockholm to Naples, nothing is to be named in the same year with Paris for delights of every kind and sort. . . . It is the place to go to and live at: be sure of that.”

“Temple, 15 Dec, 1814.

“I delayed writing last Friday in hopes of having better news to give you of Sefton, who had been dangerously ill of an inflammn. of the bladder. . . . To-day came a letter from himself, which is a picture of the man, to be sure, but gives rise, nevertheless, to much alarm. Hat Vaughan had written to make him ask Stanistreet (his ally) about the ‘Fortunate Youth’ hoax, on which the said Hat had a bet. Sefton begins thus—‘As I have just had my will witnessed by 3 physicians, I thought I might not have another opportunity of asking Stanistreet your question;’ and then he goes on very coolly to give the details of the matter. He concludes by saying he had had a relapse, and been in great jeopardy, and that he had lost 140 ounces of blood in five days. This was in addition to 40 the first attack, besides every sort of discipline—calomel, hot baths, antimony, &c., &c. . . . After such evacuation by bleeding, I know the cursed effects upon the system, and want him to have the best advice. . . . My own complaints came, I believe, wholly from the infernal bleeding I had in that country of broken bones and traders and voices—Northumberland; and tho’ I bled about a bucket full, it was nothing to this late performance of the Earl.

“I put all private feeling out of the question (tho’ I don’t know why one should, considering the d——d country we have to deal with), and I say that no loss I know would annoy me more at present than his. If he was invaluable before, now that everything like discipline is at an end he is 1000 times more so. You cannot easily conceive . . . how he rallied, animated, stirred, supported—in short, did all that a man could do who absurdly chose to be silent when he might have done great things in speaking. He was once or twice even on the point of doing this also, and I know must have succeeded. . . . I dined yesterday at Coutts’s. The last time I had that pleasure (Erskine being there) a difficulty arose about thirteen persons at table; to prevent which, E. being there likewise yesterday, twenty guests were provided; among them Lauderdale and the Marchioness of L.* (the Countess of L. being in the Ionian Islands with all his family), Warrender† and his wife. I learnt from W. (and L. seemed to agree), that Prinnie is in a bad way. They have positively ordered him to give up his stays, as the wearing them any longer would be too great a sacrifice to ornament—in other words, would kill him. . . .

“The D. of York dined t’other day at Holland House, and was very gracious. Whether any attempt at getting £200,000 to pay his debts will succeed, is another matter. . . . A breach between Prinnie and him seems unavoidable, sooner or later, tho’ the D.’s discretion will make it more difficult for P. to bring him to a quarrel than most people.

“As for Mrs. P., I never for a moment have doubted that a divorce is as impossible as ever. They may buy her; but even that will take time, for we were prepared for such a purpose 3 years ago, and steps were taken to create delays, which must be effectual. However, I don’t expect to see the Ministers do such an act of folly, not to mention the situation of the Chancellor, and Canning, and the interests of Hertford House.

“As the session approaches, it is natural to feel anxious for your return. It will be a session of detached and unexpected affairs, and full of sport and mischief, after a dull commencement. . . . Don’t believe those who say nobody will come up. Everybody will. Curiosity and idleness will also make everybody attend from 4 to 7 daily,‡ and when have

* The allusion is obscure, as there was no Marchioness of Lauderdale.

† Sir John Warrender, 5th baronet of Lochend, and his wife, Lady Julian, daughter of the 8th Earl of Lauderdale.

‡ In those days the sittings of the House of Commons began at 4 p.m.

they done more? . . . Your coming is indispensable. I could give so many reasons, that I shall give none. You must be over before the 27th Jany.—that is quite certain. . . . I shall only say everything will depend on a little exertion soon after the meeting. When I tell you that Bennet almost gave up attendance, because Mrs. B. would not allow him to remain later than 6 any night, you will conclude that there are two fools in the world; and, strange to tell, one is a brother of O[ssulston]—the other a Russell.* She is really too bad. I used to think her a model, till marriage brought her out: now she exceeds all belief. . . .”

“Southill, 28 Dec, 1814.

“. . . C. Stuart† will do whatever he can to make himself useful to you. . . . He is a plain man, of some prejudices, caring little for politics and of very good practical sense. You will find none of his prejudices (which, after all, are little or nothing) at all of an aristocratic or disagreeable kind. He has no very violent passions or acute feelings about him, and likes to go quietly on and enjoy himself in his way. He has read a great deal and seen much more, and done, for his standing, more business than any diplomatic man I ever heard of. By the way—as for diplomacy, or rather its foppery, he has none of the thing about him; and if you ever think him close or buttoned up, I assure you he had it all his life just as much. He has no nonsense in his composition, and is a strictly honorable man, and one over whom nobody will ever acquire the slightest influence. I am so sick of the daily examples I see of havoc made in the best of men by a want of this last quality, that I begin to respect even the excess of it when I meet it. I thought you might like to be forewarned of your new Minister, and therefore have drawn the above hasty sketch. . . .”

* The Hon. Henry Bennet, 2nd son of the 4th Earl of Tankerville, and an active member of “The Mountain,” married, in 1816, Gertrude Frances, daughter of Lord William Russell.

† Sir Charles Stuart, G.C.B., British Minister at Brussels. He was a grandson of the 3rd Earl of Bute, and was created Baron Stuart de Rothesay in 1828.

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [at Brussels].

“Whitehall, 2 Feby., 1815.

“Our partys at Taylor’s* are very flourishing—the veal tree in full fruit—and I go there every night. All the party (tree as well) send there remembrances to you. Taylor is steady with Prinny for the session, as he has been told that Py. said the other day—‘he loved no man so well.’ Is not this provoking? that so good a man shd. be so duped.”

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“Temple, Jan. 17, 1815.

“. . . Liverpool (the town) is all in an uproar (indeed I might say the same of the man of that name) about the property tax. We shall do them to a certainty. Our friends are in much force on the American peace and renewal of their trade, and the Scotchman (Gladstone) at a woful discount, having become odious to all parties. His letters in the newspapers boldly denying the receiving a communication from Jenky† on the property tax (and which he now explains away, I understand, by a quibble) are quite fatal with a ‘generous and open-hearted publick,’ who never understand special pleading, and are very ready to confound it with lying. Accordingly, I expect to see severe handling at the approaching meeting called by a large requisition, at the head of which are ‘Earl of Sefton and W. Roscoe, Esq.’ S. will be good on the backbone, and the pautriot will have much to urge. Our worthy friend, now returned from America, will not be bad—and the Pastor tells me ‘Carey is now in the state of a loaded blunderbuss, and it is hard to say whether he mow down more friends or foes, but probably many of both.’ Erskine is K.T.,‡ and says he passes

* Michael Angelo Taylor’s, a constant rendezvous of the Whig party. Mr. Taylor was an importunate candidate for a peerage.

† The Premier, Lord Liverpool.

‡ Knight of the Thistle.

the happiest hours of his life at the Pavillion, which is like enough, if his w——e knocks him down before his son as she lately did.”

“Temple, Wedy.

“. . . The only remarkable thing I have to tell you is that yesterday arrived a formal annunciation of our blessed Lady, the Pss. of Wales, that early in May she is to appear and make herself manifest in Kensington Palace. I had warned her of her perils at Xmas, and she writes the letter to Jenky, officially, on 11th Jany. This is pretty well for a morning cordial to our illustrious Regent. Ferguson, M. Taylor and I t’other day made a party and went to the Stakes—the Jockey* in high force as also was Mister Chairles Moris. The said Jy. begins to think the [illegible] blown upon by the great ribbon trade in which P. has been dabbling; for he was pleased to speak of ‘ribbons of all sorts—blue and red,’ a kind of disrespect not customary with him.

“I dined with Erskine t’other day in a large party, and he seems much in fear of that subject being broached. I took occasion to congratulate him twice of happy events that had happened since we met, and made each time a short pause, so that he expected the Thistle was coming out; but I added—the peace with America and Tom’s marriage. He was clearly hustled about his new honour. Romilly made a very good joke about it: he called him ‘The Green Man and Still,’ alluding to his silence in the House of Lords.”†

“March 8, 1815.

“. . . I must repeat my intreaties that if you can at all make it convenient to come even for a fortnight this session after Easter, you should do so. Whitbread cannot tell you how much you are wanted, because he is quite satisfied all is right when he is there himself. . . . All our friends are jibbing on the Scotch job, except the Mountain. To hear Whigs speak for a measure that goes directly to augment

* The 11th Duke of Norfolk.

† The ribbon of the Order of the Thistle, just received by Erskine, is green.

the power of the Crown in the very worst direction, viz. great increase of judicial patronage, is a little spleening. . . . Adam* and Lauderdale talk them over, tho’ they all know that Adam was a principal means of keeping them out of place. This is a subject too irritating, by God, to think of. What think you, too, of Adam keeping his household office about the P., tho’ a puisne judge? Were I in Parlt., I should undoubtedly bring forward a specific and personal question upon it. But why does not Folkestone? I hope to God he will.”

The deliberations of the Congress of Vienna, where Wellington was British Plenipotentiary, were verging upon violent rupture, owing to the anxiety of every Continental Power either to increase its own dominions or to diminish those of its neighbour. The disputants had gravitated into two hostile groups, wherein Russia and Prussia, supporting Murat, King of Naples, in his aggression on the Papal States, were ranged against Great Britain, France, and Austria. Suddenly, at the beginning of March, all these disputes were hushed to silence in the imminence of common peril. Napoleon had escaped from Elba and landed in France. The wondrous Hundred Days had begun.

Hon. H. G. Bennet to Mr. Creevey [at Brussels].

“Upper Brook St., 3rd April, 1815.

“. . . You are at the fountain head of all the continental projects. Here we are certainly for war: the old doctrines of there being no security for peace with Napoleon are again broached, and you hear all repeated, which one had almost forgot, of the nonsense of 1793. Parties are making on these subjects, and they are as you may imagine. Ld. Grenville started furious for

* The Right Hon. William Adam [1751-1839], Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales and Lord Chief Commissioner to the Scottish Jury Court.

war, or at least declaring there was no chance of avoiding it. A correspondence has taken place between him and Grey, who is anxious for peace, which has considerably softened the Bogey, and now he [Grenville] declares that his opinions are not made up, but that he shall await further information. So much is gained by Grey’s firmness, who is behaving very well. Elliot and the Wynnes and that wise statesman Fremantle* are more hot, and the former holds as a doctrine of salvation that the existence of the French power, with Napoleon at the head, is incompatible with the safety of Europe: so you see what are to be the labours necessary to be accomplished in case the war faction triumphs. I have not as yet heard of there being any more lovers of war. Ld. Spencer, the Carringtons, &c., are for peace, and what is more amusing still, Yarmouth, who preaches peace at the corners of all the streets, and is in open war with Papa and Mama† upon that subject. Prinny, of course, is for war: as for the Cabinet, Liverpool and Ld. Sidmouth are for peace; they say the Chancellor‡ is not violent the other way; but Bathurst, Castlereagh, &c., &c., are red hot, and if our allies will concur and the plans do not demand too much money, war we shall have. Sam is all for Boney, and the Slave Trade decree has done something. We consider here that the Jacobins are masters at Paris, and let them and the free press and the representative government come from that source. Leave them to themselves, and quarrel they will; but war will unite every soul, particularly if upon the cursed motives of the high party. . . . However, all the world of all parties speak of Ney with abhorrence, as his offers to the King—from whom he got everything, double the money he demanded, &c.—were all made with a firm determination to betray him. He said, among other things, that he would bring Napoleon in a cage: to which the King replied—‘Je n’aimerais pas un tel oiseau dans ma chambre!’ Chateaubriand has also declared for Napoleon, and made a speech in

* The Right Hon. Sir Wm. Henry Fremantle, M.P. [1766-1850], a Grenvillite. Joined Lord Liverpool’s Government in 1822.

† Lord and Lady Hertford.

‡ Lord Eldon.

his favour in the same style of nonsense and blasphemy for which the Bourbons had named him Minister to Sweden.

“Most brilliant court at the Tuilleries, and the French say ‘L’Empereur est la bonté même.’ They would say the same of the devil; but if I was a Frenchman, I should be all for Napoleon. . . . The Guards have marched this morning to embark at Deptford for Ostend. I consider they will be there in two days. The fellows went off in high spirits, as it is known here that beer, bread, meat and gin are cheap in Flanders. . . .”

From Mr. Creevey’s Journal.

“Brussels, Sat., April 22, 1815.—I met this night at Lady Charlotte Greville’s, amongst various other persons, the Duke of Wellington, and he and I had a conversation to which most of those present became parties. He maintained that a Republick was about to be got up in Paris by Carnot, Lucien Buonaparte, &c., &c., &c. I asked if it was with the consent of the Manager Buonaparte, and what the nature of the piece was to be. He said he had no doubt it would be tragedy by Buonaparte, and that they would be at him by stiletto or otherwise in a very few weeks. I, on the contrary, thought the odds were in favor of the old performer against the new ones, but my Lord would have it B. was to be done up out of hand at Paris: so nous verrons. I thought several times he [Wellington] must be drunk; but drunk or sober, he had not the least appearance of being a clever man. I have seen a good deal of him formerly, and always thought the same of his talents in conversation. Our conversation was mightily amicable and good, considering our former various sparring bouts in the House of Commons about Indian politics.”

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [at Brussels].

“May 31, 1815.

“. . . We, the Mountain, are in hopes the Grenvilles are about to part company. Ld. Buckingham holds very warlike language abroad and is for peace against the Ministers, so we are not to be fettered or controlled; and this even on Althorpe’s motion about Prinny’s [illegible] the £100,000 outfit. The Grenvilles swear either to vote against us or not to attend. I mean one of these fine days to fire a shot at them when they are sheering off, and I cannot tell you how joyful I feel at the chance of it. You may depend upon it the Marquess wishes to be a Duke,* and he is looking sharp after Stafford’s patent, with which Ld. G. Leveson’s earldom is soon to come forth;† but I don’t think that the Government are at all pleased at our division. They put off the debate till that of the Lords was over to try the effect of Bogey’s speech;‡ but it had but little, and so far from it lessening Sam’s minority, you see we rose from 72 to 92. The Treasury Bench thought we might divide 80, but none calculated on more. We hope it may tell with the foreigner: it does much here. Grattan, after all, was no great thing—full of wit and fire and folly—more failures than success in his antithesis, and his piety and religious cant was offensive, as, after all, whatever may be its merit in an individual, it is only used in a speech for the worst of purposes. . . .”

Enclosed in this letter was the following list of “the Mountain”:—

Milton. Wynn, Sir Watkin. Balem. Mallem. Plunket. Fremantle. Pelham. F. Lewis. Grattan. Gower, Lord. Baring. Calvert. Sir T. Baring, Knox. Wrottesley. S. Smith. Carew. Smith. Wynn.

* The 2nd Marquess of Stafford was not created Duke of Sutherland till 1833, six months before his death.

† Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, youngest brother of the 2nd Marquess of Stafford, was created Viscount Granville 12th August, 1815, and Earl Granville in 1833.

‡ Lord Grenville’s.

Hon. H. G. Bennet to Mr. Creevey.

“Whitehall, June 13.

“Why, what a fellow you are! have you not received my two last letters that you complain so? Sam complains too, and he sends you his respects, for you never write to him, and he says you ought to do so, for you have nothing to do but to lounge. He has not been well—his old attack, but he looks better, and is so. I hope soon he will get out of town, and we shall have our release from that damned place the H. of C, where we spend our time, health and fortunes. . . . We all congratulate you at the recovery of your senses, as we thought the Great Lord* had bit you, and that he, [illegible] and the Frog† had got you quite over, and that you really believed Boney was to be eat up alive; but from all we hear from Paris he has a great army, and that things are disturbed in La Vendée, &c., &c. Yet I put my confidence in the Jacobins, and if they act; all the youth of France will come out with them, and then let me see the state your Kings will be in. For my part, if I thought they [the Kings] could succeed, I shd. be miserable; it is only their entire failure that keeps me in tolerable humour.

“Our warlike friends are more peaceable, except the Grenvilles: at least Ld. Buckingham is trying hard for office. His own creature, Freemantle, never comes near us: the Stale‡ stays away, too, from the Lords, and uses the old language of clogging the wheels of government. All this, you will perceive, leads to place, and I am prepared for anything—be it the basest of the crew. . . . Grey is in the most confounded ill humour: Ponsonby goes to the play, and when he comes to the House sits on the 2nd bench, and Opposition muster in general from 20 to 30 persons, amongst whom is your humble servant: no other people make a show. Ridley and Monck never miss. Mrs. Cole§ is doing very well: the young one‖ factious and violent—looking at the coming storm with fear; for come it will, and not long first. It is quite impossible but

* Wellington. † The King of Holland. ‡ Lord Grenville?

§ Mr. Tierney. ‖ Hon. James Abercromby.

that our finances must, if Boney be not overthrown this year, give way, and our dividends cease. . . . The Loan is taken this day, I hear, at 54, so you see to what a state our finances have sunk.”

The agony of apprehension—the scuffle of preparation—which swept over Europe during the terrible Hundred Days, when, regiment by regiment, the French army rallied to the returned Emperor, can never lose their hold upon the reader of history. The dismay among English residents and holiday-makers in Brussels, their precipitate flight, and the scenes of undignified confusion and panic which accompanied it, can never be more vividly or more truthfully depicted than in the pages of Vanity Fair. Still, Thackeray wrote from hearsay. Distant though that day may be from our own, it has lost little of its interest for us of the present. One is grateful to one who, like Mr. Creevey, actually witnessed the mighty drama, and was at the pains to record his experiences. From the moment when, on 5th April, the Duke of Wellington arrived in Brussels from Vienna to take command of the allied forces in Belgium, it was apparent that these must act on the defensive, much as their commander desired to take the initiative. Of the 700,000 troops of which he had written on 24th March to his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley,* as ready to be massed on the French frontier “in about six weeks,” none were yet at hand. The Russians were advancing slowly through Poland; the Austrians had their hands full with Murat in Italy; of the Prussians, only 30,000 were near enough to co-operate with the Duke’s composite array of 24,200, whereof but 4000 were British, mostly recruits. The choice

* Created Lord Cowley in 1828.

of battle-ground, then, lay with Napoleon, not with the Powers. Everything depended upon how soon he could make ready to strike.

He wasted no time. It was not his custom to squander that priceless element of successful war. Entering Paris on 20th March, he had at his disposal in the first week of June a regular army of 312,400, and an auxiliary force of 222,600—in all, 535,000 men. By that time Wellington’s forces also had been considerably augmented; but how different was their quality from the army he had dispersed in the south of France the year before—the army of which he proudly said in after-years it was “fit to go anywhere, and do anything”! The actual composition of his force in Belgium on 13th June was this:—

British 31,253 King’s German Legion 6,387 Hanoverians 15,935 Dutch-Belgians 29,214 Brunswickers 6,808 Nassau Contingent 2,880 Engineers, Staff Corps, etc. 1,240 ______ 93,717

Napoleon left Paris on 12th June to join his army on the Belgian frontier. On the 14th his headquarters were at Beaumont, about sixteen miles south of Charleroi, with his five corps d’armée, numbering 126,000 of all arms, well within reach of his personal command.

Thus much to show the position outside Brussels. Mr. Creevey and his correspondents throw some light upon the aspect of affairs within that capital. Doubtless he would have removed his wife from a scene so little suited for an invalid, and have joined the stream of migrating English before the French crossed the frontier, had not Mrs. Creevey’s state of health made it the less of two evils to remain where she was.

First come a series of hurried, clandestine notes from Major Hamilton, who had married, or was engaged to, the eldest Miss Ord, and was on General Barnes’s staff.

Major Hamilton to Mr. Creevey.

“Brussels, Thursday, 4 p.m. [about 18th March]. “My dear Mr. Creevey,

“If you will not blab, you shall hear all the news I can pick up, bad and good, as it comes. I am sorry to tell you bad news to-day. General Fagal writes from Paris to say that Bonaparte may be in that capital ere many days. His army encreases hourly; and as fast as a regiment is brought up to the neighbourhood of Lyons, it goes over to its old master. Soult is said to have promised not to act against the King, but that his obligations to Bony would not allow him to take part against the latter. Thus saying, he resigned to Louis the office of War Minister, and the man who now holds it said he would only do so so long as the Chamber of Deputies were in favor with the nation. Fagal, take notice, is an alarmist, and I hope our next accounts will not be of so gloomy a nature.

“Yours, “A. H.”

“March 20th, 1 o’clock.

“Bonaparte is at Fontainebleau with 15,000 men every man of whom he can depend upon, because every man is a volunteer, and they have risked all for his sake. The Royal army is at Melun, consisting of about 28,000 men, National Guards, &c., &c., included—not a man of whom can be relied on. This is the critical moment; for if they allow him to enter Paris without a battle, all is over. I feel that I am not acting imprudently in thus stating facts, which naturally Mrs. Creevey must be made acquainted with. . . . Wherever we may be ordered to bend our course, I shall always have it in my power to give you such information as you may see necessary to ask for.”

“March 22nd.

“There is no news this morning. All communication with Paris is at an end, and we now look with anxiety for the arrival of Lord Wellington.”

“March 22nd, 11 p.m.

“. . . The unfortunate Louis 18th was at Abbeville yesterday, and has sent to the General commanding at Lille to know if it would be safe for him to go there. Baron Trippe has gone off to Lille to ascertain the answer. . . . 2000 men still remain with Louis.”

“Friday, 4 p.m.

“I am sorry my news still continues bad, indeed worse to-day than ever. ‘The people of Paris seem to think all is lost, and await the entry of Bonaparte as a circumstance not to be prevented. Marshal Macdonald has acted with the utmost loyalty, but all his influence and exertions have been unavailing. His men have told him to “go back to the King, to remain faithful to him if he pleases, but that they would go over to the Emperor.” The troops have refused on every occasion to fire at Bonaparte’s force, or to make any resistance. He has gone to Dijon. The Government has no good information, for the very persons who are sent to gain intelligence go over to the enemy.’

“Matters are not so well with ourselves here as they might be, inasmuch as the Belgians at Mons evince a bad spirit. Dorneburg, who commands that garrison, is a determined and good officer, and has corps of the German Legion near him should circumstances require aid. A letter from Lille speaks favorably of the good spirit prevailing amongst the inhabitants; but alas! if the soldiers do not hold to their allegiance, what can be expected? Pray do not blab; for although all this may have come to your knowledge through other channels, yet it would not do for me to have the name of a news-giver.

“In haste, much yours, “A. H.”

“10 p.m., Saturday.

“The only good news is the spirit which seems to prevail amongst the people, particularly at Marseilles. . . . Everything looks gloomy; I fear that my dispatch of to-morrow will announce Bony to be not many leagues from Paris. The big-wigs are now together, and I shall have more to tell you at 12 o’c.”

“Sunday, 2 p.m.

“Old Fagal seems to have recovered very much from his fright. He now says Bony is still at Lyons—that the best spirit prevails throughout France, and that affairs seem to wear a brighter aspect. 3000 Dutch troops are on their march to reinforce this army.”

“[No date], 5 o’clock.

“The Prince [of Orange] is just now returned, you shall know what news he brings from Tournay.

“Dorneberg is a good officer, and has much judgment and experience. He commands at Mons.

“Halket commands at Courtray; has a fine British brigade and is a gallant soldier.

“Old Alten has the Cavalry at Ypres, with the 52nd and 69th British, and 4 of the Hanoverian battalions: all good stuff. 7000 Royalists from France, first to bleed, are outside the Belgic frontier; and will give us notice, by their running away; but until we begin to run, Mrs. Creevey need not fancy the French are in Bruxelles; and, for her sake, may they never be is the very sincere wish of

“Yours, “A. H.”

“Saturday.

“Headquarters remain here for the present. The Prince [of Orange] brings no news. All is quiet. Lord March was sent to find out where the King was on the 24th. His Majesty was not at Bruges, and the Earl returned. If Lord Wellington comes in a day or two or three, how Mrs. Creevey will crow over all the world! For, rest satisfied, if Bony does not push to-morrow (which he cannot do) his game for the present is up, and a stand can be made on the ground we occupy, with the troops hourly expected from Ostend, and with the Patrone!”*

“26th, 10 p.m.

“A Russian general arrived this day at Mons who left Paris on the 24th. Bonaparte was to review his troops on this day. The General saw no troops on the road but one regiment, and it was marching on Paris. A General from the Prussian army (Röder) has been sent here by Kliest to remain at our headquarters. A great deal of talk, much communication, aides-de-camp from the Duc de Berri—from the King—from Victor; in short, all parties seem to have lost their heads, and instead of getting troops together, they talk about it. It is hoped that Dunkirk is not yet in Boney’s possession. If not, it will form a good flanking position in case of Boney not succeeding in his first attack on our line.”

Wellington took up the command of the allied forces in Belgium on 5th April. There is nothing from Creevey’s pen until the crisis of the campaign was upon Europe.

From Mr. Creevey’s Journal.

“June 16. Friday morning, ½ past two.—The girls just returned from a ball at the Duke of Richmond’s. A battle has taken place to-day† between Buonaparte and the Prussians: to what extent is not known; the result is known, however, to be in favour of the French. Our troops are all moving from this place at present. Lord Wellington was at the ball to-night as composed as ever.”

* Wellington.

† Writing early in the morning of the 16th, he refers to Napoleon’s passage of the Sambre on the 15th and the capture of Charleroi.

Reminiscences, written in 1822.

A number of incidents contained in Mr. Creevey’s letters and journals of this period were afterwards thrown into a consecutive form by him, together with many not elsewhere recorded.

“Cantley, July 28, 1822.—I became a member of the House of Commons in 1802, and the moment a man became such then, if he attached himself to one of the great parties in the House—Whigs or Tories—he became at once a publick man, and had a position in society which nothing else could give him. I advert particularly to such persons as myself, who came from the ranks, without either opulence or connections to procure for them admission into the company of their betters.

“The account of Buonaparte’s conversation with O’Meara at St. Helena, which is just published, is so infinitely curious and interesting that they present a very favorable occasion to me for committing to paper general facts within my own knowledge, more or less connected with some of the events to which he refers. Most of these facts I have already recorded, either in letters to my friends at the time, or by occasional journals; but they are all as distinctly in my recollection at present as if they had happened yesterday.

“In the autumn of 1814, Mrs. Creevey, her two eldest daughters (the Miss Ords) and her second and younger son, Mr. Charles Ord, and myself went to Brussells, where we took a house for a term. . . . We found Brussells full of our London Guards; our cavalry and other troops were quartered up and down the country. Having spent our winter very merrily with our English officers, and others who had arrived there in great abundance, about the 8th of March, 1815, I think it was, we first heard of Buonaparte’s escape from Elba. At the time the young Prince of Orange was Commander-in-chief of our forces in Brussells; General Sir Edward Barnes was Adjutant General of the army, and Sir Hudson Lowe Quarter-master General. We remained nearly a fortnight in great suspense as to what was to be the result of this enterprise of Buonaparte. Since our arrival in Brussells I had formed a sufficiently intimate acquaintance with General Barnes to be quite sure of learning from him the earliest intimation of any movement of our army. One of the aides-de-camp, too, the late Col. Hamilton, had already formed an attachment to Miss Ord, which in 1815 ended in their marriage. . . . It was on the 24th March, I think, in the morning, that he came to tell us that in all probability Buonaparte had passed the preceding night at Lille, and might be reasonably expected at Brussells in two days’ time, and that we ought to lose no time in leaving the place. Mrs. Creevey at this time was a great invalid, quite lame, and only to be removed with very great pain and difficulty to herself. Upon consulting with some people of the place, therefore, as to the supposed conduct of the French if they arrived, and knowing from Barnes that our troops were to retire without fighting, we resolved to stay.

“During the whole of this day—the 24th—the English were flying off in all directions, whilst others were arriving from Paris; and in the night the Guards all marched off to Ath, Enghien, &c., &c. On one of these days, I forget which, I saw arrive on the same day from Paris the old Prince de Condé and all his suite, who went to the Hotel Bellevue—Marmont, who went to the Hotel d’Angleterre—Victor to the Hotel Wellington, and Berthier to the Duc d’Aremberg’s. On Easter Monday, I think it was, I was sitting at Charlotte Greville’s, when the Duc de Berri came to call upon her, and expressed his great astonishment that any English should remain there, as Buonaparte was certainly at Lille and would no doubt be here on the Wednesday following, and that he himself, in consequence, was going to Antwerp. . . . We soon found there was no foundation for the report of an early invasion of Belgium by Buonaparte, and a good many of our people returned to Brussells, and other new ones came there. In April the Duke of Wellington arrived (I forget what day*)

* It was the 5th.

at Brussells from Vienna; and it was the 22nd, I think, I met him at Lady Charlotte Greville’s in the evening; she having a party of all the principal persons then in Brussells of all countries every evening.

“I had seen a good deal of the Duke of Wellington in 1806, and in a very amicable way. He was then just returned from India, and [was] brought into the House of Commons to defend his brother Ld. Wellesley’s Indian government. I was Secretary of the Board of Controul at the time, so that all Indian papers moved for on either side came thro’ me; and this brought me very much in contact with Sir Arthur Wellesley personally, as well as with Paull, who was attacking his brother.* Afterwards in 1807-8 and -9 I took a very decided part in Parliament against Lord Wellesley, which produced such angry words between Sir Arthur and myself that I was quite prepared for there being no further intercourse between us. To do him justice, however, he not only did not seem to resent or recollect these former bickerings, but from the first moment he saw me at Lady Charlotte’s (where he put out his hand to me) till he quitted France finally in the end of 1818, he behaved with the most marked civility and cordiality to myself and to all who were connected with me.

“The first occasion when I met him at Lady Charlotte’s was so curious a one that I took a note of it when I returned home, and this I now have by me. We had much conversation about Buonaparte, and the Duke would have it that a Republick was the thing which he was sure was to be got up at Paris—that it would never come to fighting with the Allies—that the Republick would be all settled by Carnot, Lucien Buonaparte, &c., &c.—that he was confident it would never come to blows. So he and I had a good deal of

* Among Creevey’s papers are many letters from this Paull, who was the son of a Perth tailor, was educated in an Edinburgh writer’s office, and was a trader for some years in India. Expelled by the Nawab from the Dominion of Oude, he was reinstated by Lord Wellesley’s influence, made a large fortune, and was returned to Parliament, where he exerted himself to obtain his benefactor’s impeachment. Having taken to gambling and lost heavily, he cut his throat in April, 1808.

joking, and I asked him what he thought the old manager Buonaparte would say to this new piece, and whether it was with his consent it was got up, and whether it would in truth turn out a tragedy, comedy or farce. He said he had no doubt it would be a tragedy to Buonaparte, and that they would beat him by stilleto or otherwise in a very few weeks.

“I retired with the impression of his (the Duke) having made a very sorry figure, in giving no indication of superior talents. However, as I said before, he was very natural and good-humoured.

“I continued to meet him both at Lady Charlotte’s and other places repeatedly, and he was always equally communicative—still retaining his original opinion. I remember his coming in one day to Lady Charlotte’s in great glee, because Baron Lories, the Finance Minister, had fled from Paris to join the French King at Ghent.—‘The old fox,’ he said, ‘would never have run for it, if he had not felt that the house was tumbling about his ears.’

“Then he was always expressing his belief that the then approaching fête at Paris in the Champ de M[ars] would be fatal to Buonaparte—that the explosion would take place on that occasion, and that Buonaparte and his reign would both be put an end to on that day. So when we knew that the day had passed off in the most favorable manner to the Emperor, being that night at a ball at the Duke’s house, I asked him what he thought of things now at Paris; upon which he laughed and seemed not in the least degree affected by the event. But when on the same evening I made a remark about the Duke’s indifference to Sir Charles Stuart,* our ambassador, the latter said in his curious, blunt manner:—‘Then he is damned different with you from what he is with me, for I never saw a fellow so cut down in my life than he was this morning when he first heard the news.’

“The Duke during this period was for ever giving balls, to which he was always kind enough to ask my daughters and myself; and very agreeable they were.

* Nephew of the 1st Marquess of Bute, created Lord Stuart de Rothesay in 1828.

On one occasion, having been at a ball in his house on a Saturday night, old Blucher and his staff came over to the town on the next day—Sunday, and the Duke sent out instantly to all who had been there on the preceding evening to come again that night to meet Blucher, and he kept making everybody dance to the last. Amongst others, I remember his bringing up General [illegible], who has since been so conspicuous in France, to dance with Miss Ord, which he did.

“Some short time before the battle of Waterloo—a fortnight, perhaps, or three weeks—the two Miss Ords and myself were walking in the Park at Brussells. When opposite the Ambassador’s house (now the Prince of Orange’s) the Duke of Wellington and Sir Charles Stuart, having been engaged in conversation, parted, and the Duke joined us. It was the day the papers had arrived from England, bringing the debates in Parliament where the question is the war. So he began to me by observing:—‘What a good thing it is for Ministers that Grattan has made a speech in favor of the war.’—To which I replied that all Ministers were always lucky in finding some unexpected support: and then I added the question was a nice one.—‘A question of expediency,’ said the Duke.— ‘Granted,’ I replied, ‘quite; and now then, will you let me ask you, Duke, what you think you will make of it?’ He stopt, and said in the most natural manner:—‘By God! I think Blucher and myself can do the thing.’—‘Do you calculate,’ I asked, ‘upon any desertion in Buonaparte’s army?’—‘Not upon a man,’ he said, ‘from the colonel to the private in a regiment—both inclusive. We may pick up a marshal or two, perhaps; but not worth a damn.’—‘Do you reckon,’ I asked, ‘upon any support from the French King’s troops at Alost?’—‘Oh!’ said he, ‘don’t mention such fellows! No: I think Blucher and I can do the business.’—Then, seeing a private soldier of one of our infantry regiments enter the park, gaping about at the statues and images:—‘There,’ he said, pointing at the soldier, ‘it all depends upon that article whether we do the business or not. Give me enough of it, and I am sure.’

“About a week before the battle, he reviewed three regiments of our infantry, and three Hanoverian ones, in the Allée Verte, and I stood in conversation with him as they passed. They were some of our best regiments, and so he pronounced them to be. As the Hanoverians passed he said:—‘Those are very good troops too, or will be so when I get good officers into them.’

“On Wednesday evening the 14th June, having had daily rumours of the approach of the French, I was at Lady Conyngham’s, where there was a party, and it was confidently stated that the French had reached or crossed the frontier. The Duke presently came in and said it was so.*

“On the 15th there was a ball at the Duke of Richmond’s, to which my daughters, the Miss Ords, and their brother went; but I stayed at home with Mrs. Creevey. About half-past eleven at night, I heard a great knocking at houses in my street—la Rue du Musée—just out of the Place Royale, and I presently found out the troops were in motion, and by 12 o’clock they all marched off the Place Royale up the Rue Namur. . . . I sat up, of course, till my daughters and their brother returned from the Duke of Richmond’s, which they did about two o’clock or half after. I then found that the Prussians had been driven out of Charleroi and other places by the French, and that all our army had been just then set in motion to meet them. The Duke had been at the ball—had received his intelligence there, and had sent off his different orders. There had been plenty of officers at the ball, and some tender scenes had taken place upon the ladies parting with them.

“I saw poor Hamilton† that night; he came home in the carriage with the Miss Ords and their brother.

“On Friday the 16th the Duke and his staff rode out of the Namur gate about nine,‡ and we were

* Napoleon left Paris at daybreak on 12th June. On the 14th his headquarters were at Beaumont, about 16 miles south of Charleroi, but he did not cross the frontier till the morning of the 15th.

† His step-son-in-law.

‡ Other witnesses say 8 a.m.

without any news the best part of the day. I dined at Mr. Greathead’s in the Park. . . . In walking there between 4 and 5, poor Charles Ord and I thought we heard the sound of cannon; and when we got to Greathead’s we found everybody on the rampart listening to it. In the course of the evening the rampart was crowded with people listening, and the sound became perfectly distinct and regular.*

“Just before we sat down to dinner, Greathead saw Col. Canning, one of the Duke’s Aides-de-camps, walking by the window, and he called him up to dine. He had been sent by the Duke on a mission to the French King at Alost, and was then on his return. He was killed two days afterwards at Waterloo.

“In the evening—or rather at night—Colonel Hamilton rode in to Brussells, to do some things for General Barnes, and to see us. We found from him that the firing had been the battle of Quatre-Bras. He was full of praises of our troops, who had fought under every disadvantage of having marched 16 miles from Brussells, and having neither cavalry nor artillery up in time to protect them.† He was full, too, of admiration of the talent of Buonaparte in this daring attempt to get between the English and Prussian armies. . . . Hamilton had seen the Duke of Brunswick killed at the head of his Brunswickers,† and represented the grief of these soldiers as quite affecting. Two of our young Brussells officers and friends had been killed, too, in the action—Lord Hay, aide-de-camp to General Maitland, and a brother of Jack Smyth’s. Upon one occasion during the day, Hamilton stated, Wellington and his whole staff had been very nearly taken prisoners by some French

* The action at Quatre-Bras began about 3 p.m. and lasted till 9 o’clock.

† The Allies began the action with 7000 infantry and 16 guns. Van Merlen’s horse, 1200 strong, joined them before 5 o’clock, but Lord Uxbridge’s division of cavalry halted on the Mons-Brussels road, through a mistake in their orders.

‡ Their black uniform, with silver death’s-head and crossbones, commemorated the death of the Duke’s father at the head of his Brunswicker Hussars at Jena.

cavalry.* . . . Hamilton returned to headquarters about 12 at night.

“On Saturday the 17th I remember feeling free from much alarm. I reasoned with myself that as our troops had kept their ground under all the unequal circumstances of the day before, surely when all the Guards and other troops had arrived from Ath and Enghien, with all the cavalry, artillery, &c., they would be too strong for the French even venturing to attack again. So we went on flattering ourselves during the day, especially as we heard no firing. About four o’clock, however, the Marquis Juarenais[?], who I always found knew more than anybody else, met me in the street and said:—‘Your army is in retreat upon Brussells, and the French in pursuit.’ He quite satisfied me that he knew the fact; and not long after, the baggage of the army was coming down the Rue de Namur, filling up my street, and horses were bivouacked [picketed?] all round the park.

“At night Hamilton came in to us again, and we learnt from him that Buonaparte had beaten Blucher so completely the night before that all communication between the latter and Wellington had been cut off, and that, under such circumstances, Wellington had been obliged to fall back and take up another position.

“It was now clear there was going to be a desperate battle. Hamilton said so, and we who knew the overflowing ardent mind, as well as the daring nature, of his General (Barnes), well knew the danger his life would be exposed to next day. He returned to headquarters, according to custom, at midnight.

“Sunday, June the 18th, was of course a most anxious day with us. I persuaded poor Charles Ord to go that day to England. Between 11 and 12 I

* This happened just after the Duke of Brunswick fell. The Brunswick infantry giving way before a charge of French cavalry, Wellington rode up with the Brunswick Hussars to cover them; but these also fell into disorder under a heavy fire of musketry, and were then driven off by Pirn’s Red Lancers. Wellington galloped off, closely pursued. Arriving at a ditch lined by the Gordon Highlanders, he called out to them to lie still, set his horse at the fence, and cleared it, bayonets and all.

perceived the horses, men, carts and carriages of all description, laden with baggage, which had filled every street all night, had received orders to march, and I never felt more anxiety than to see the route they took; for had they taken the Antwerp or Ostend road, I should have concluded we were not to keep our ground. They all went up the Rue de Namur towards the army.

“About three o’clock I walked about two miles out of the town towards the army, and a more curious, busy scene it was, with every kind of thing upon the road, the Sunday population of Brussells being all out in the suburbs out of the Porte Namur, sitting about tables drinking beer and smoking and making merry, as if races or other sports were going on, instead of the great pitched battle which was then fighting.

“Upon my return home about four, I had scarcely got into my own room to dress for dinner, when Miss Elizabeth Ord came running into the room saying:—‘For God’s sake, Mr. Creevey, come into the drawing-room to my mother immediately. The French are in the town.’—I could not bring myself to believe that to be true, and I said so, with my reasons; but I said—‘Let all the outside blinds be put to, and I will come in an instant.’—So having remained five or ten minutes in the drawing-room, and hearing nothing, I went out; and then I found the alarm had been occasioned by the flight of a German regiment of cavalry, the Cumberland Hussars, who had quitted the field of battle, galloping through the forest of Soignes, entering the Porte Namur, and going full speed down the Rue de Namur and thro’ the Place Royale, crying out the French were at their heels. The confusion and mischief occasioned by these fellows on the road were incredible, but in the town all was quiet again in an instant.

“I then sat down to dinner, in the middle of which I heard a very considerable shouting near me. Jumping up to the window which commanded the lower part of the Rue de Namur, I saw a detachment of our Horse Guards escorting a considerable body of French prisoners, and could distinctly recognise one or two eagles. I went into the Place Royale immediately to see them pass, and then returned to my dinner. Their number was said to be 1500. In half an hour more I heard fresh shouting, and this proved to be another arrival of French prisoners, greater in amount—it was said 5000 in all had arrived.

“About this time, in looking out of my window I saw Mr. Legh, of Lyme, M.P. for Newton,* arrive on horseback at his lodgings, which were next to my house; and finding that he had been looking at the battle, or very near it, I rejoiced with him upon things looking so well, which I conceived to be the case from the recent arrivals of prisoners. My surprise, therefore, was by no means small when he replied that he did not agree with me: that from his own observation he thought everything looked as bad as possible; in short, that he thought so badly of it that he should not send his horses to the stable, but keep them at his door in case of accidents.

“After this I went out to call on the Marquis Juarenais in the Park, to collect from him what news I could; and in passing the corner of the Hotel Bellevue I came in contact with one of our Life Guards—a soldier who had just come in. I asked him how he thought the battle was going when he left the field; upon which, after turning round apparently to see if anybody could hear him, he said:—‘Why, sir, I don’t like the appearance of things at all. The French are getting on in such a manner that I don’t see what’s to stop them.’

“I then got to Juarenais’s, and was shown into a drawing-room, in the middle of which I saw a wounded officer of our Foot Guards (Griffiths, his name was, I knew afterwards) sitting in apparently great pain—a corporal on one side picking his epaulet out of the wound, and Madame de Juarenais holding a smelling-bottle under his nose. I just heard the officer apologise to Madame de Juarenais for the trouble he was giving her, observing at the time that he would not be long with them, as the French would be in that night, and then he fainted away.

“In going out of the drawing-room into the balcony commanding the Park, the first thing I saw

* Grandfather of the present Lord Newton.

was General Barnes’s chaise and four going as fast as it could from his own house in the Park towards the Porte Namur and, of course, the field of battle; upon which I went immediately to Barnes’s to see what intelligence I could pick up there; when I found a foreign officer of his staff—I forget his name—who had just arrived, and had sent off the General’s carriage. His information was that General Barnes was very badly wounded—that Captain [illegible] Erskine of his staff had lost an arm—that Major Hamilton* was wounded but not severely, and that he thought everything was going as badly as possible.

“With this intelligence I returned to Mrs. Creevey and my daughters between 8 and 9, but I did not mention a word of what I had heard, there being no use in my so doing. About ten o’clock, however, or between that and 11, Hamilton entered the room, and then the ladies and myself heard from him that Genl. Barnes had been shot through the body by a musquet ball about 5 o’clock—that his horse having just previously been killed under him, the general was on foot at the time—that Hamilton and the orderly sergeant had put him immediately upon Hamilton’s horse, and that in this manner, one on each side, they had walked these 12 miles to Bruxelles, tho’ Hamilton had been wounded both in the head and in one foot. Observe—the road had been so choaked by carts and carriages being overturned when the German regiment† ran away, that no carriage could pass that way for some time.

“Well—Hamilton had put his general to bed, and was then come to give us the opinion, both of the general and himself, that the battle was lost, and that we had no time to lose in getting away. Hamilton said he would immediately procure horses, carriages or anything else for taking us from Bruxelles. After a very short consultation, however, with Mrs. Creevey, under all the circumstances of her ill health and helplessness, and the confusion of flying from an army in the night, we determined to remain, and Hamilton returned to his general.

“The young ladies lay down upon their beds without undressing. I got into my own, and slept

* Mr. Creevey’s son-in-law. † The Cumberland Hussars.

soundly till 4 o’clock, when, upon waking, I went instantly to the front windows to see what was passing in the Rue Namur. I had the satisfaction of seeing baggage, soldiers, &c., still moving up the street, and towards the field of battle, which I could not but consider as very favorable. Having dressed and loitered about till near six, I then went to the Marquis Juarenais’s, in pursuit of news; and, upon the great court gate being opened to me, the first person I saw was Madame de Juarenais, walking about in deshabillé amidst a great bivouack of horses. She told me immediately that the French were defeated and had fled in great confusion. I expressed so much surprise at this, that she said I should learn it from Monr. Juarenais himself; so she took me up to his bed, where he was fast asleep. When he woke and saw me by his bedside in doubt about the truth of the good news, he almost began to doubt himself; but then he recollected, and it was all quite right. General Sir Charles Alten, who commanded the Hanoverians, had been brought in to Juarenais’s late at night, very badly wounded; but had left particular orders with his staff to bring or send the earliest accounts of the result. Accordingly, one of his officers who had been on the field about 8 o’clock, when the French had given way, and who had gone on with the Duke in the pursuit as far as Nivelles,* had brought all this intelligence to Alten at Juarenais’s about 3 o clock.

“I went in the first place from Juarenais’s to General Barnes’s; where, having entered his bedroom, I found him lying in bed, his wound just dressed, and Hamilton by his side; and when I told him the battle was won (which he did not know before), and how I knew it, he said:—‘There, Hamilton, did not I say it was either so or a drawn battle, as the French ought to have been here before now if they had won. I have just sent old [illegible] (one of his staff) up to headquarters for news.’

“I then returned directly home, and of course we were all not a little delighted at our escape.

“About eleven o’clock, upon going out again, I

* Wellington did not follow as far as Nivelles, but handed over the pursuit to Blücher at La Belle Alliance.

heard a report that the Duke was in Bruxelles; and I went from curiosity to see whether there was any appearance of him or any of his staff at his residence in the Park. As I approached, I saw people collected in the street about the house; and when I got amongst them, the first thing I saw was the Duke upstairs alone at his window. Upon his recognising me, he immediately beckoned to me with his finger to come up.* “I met Lord Arthur Hill in the ante-room below, who, after shaking hands and congratulation, told me I could not go up to the Duke, as he was then occupied in writing his dispatch; but as I had been invited, I of course proceeded. The first thing I did, of course, was to put out my hand and congratulate him [the Duke] upon his victory. He made a variety of observations in his short, natural, blunt way, but with the greatest gravity all the time, and without the least approach to anything like triumph or joy.—‘It has been a damned serious business,’ he said. ‘Blucher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing—the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. Blucher lost 14,000 on Friday night,† and got so damnably licked I could not find him on Saturday morning; so I was obliged to fall back to keep up [regain?] my communications with him.’‡—Then, as he walked about, he praised greatly

* It may seem improbable that the Duke should have made himself so accessible to a mere civilian on such a momentous morning; but there is ample confirmation of Mr. Creevey’s narrative from the Duke’s own lips. In 1836 he described the circumstance to Lady Salisbury, who noted it in her journal (unpublished) as follows:—

“‘I was called,’ said the Duke, ‘about 3 in the morning by Hume to go and see poor Gordon’ (in the same inn at Waterloo), ‘but he was dead before I got there. Then I came back, had a cup of tea and some toast, wrote my dispatch, and then rode into Brussels. At the door of my own hotel I met Creevey: they had no certain accounts at Brussels, and he called out to me:—“What news?” I said:—“Why I think we’ve done for ’em this time.”’”

The dispatch was begun at Waterloo and finished at Brussels, evidence of which remains in the draft of the original now at Apsley House, which is headed first “Waterloo;” that is struck out and “Bruxelles” substituted.

† At Ligny.

‡ Napoleon had detached the column of Marechal Grouchy, 34,000 men with 96 guns, on the 17th to pursue the Prussians to Namur.

those Guards who kept the farm (meaning Hugomont) against the repeated attacks of the French; and then he praised all our troops, uttering repeated expressions of astonishment at our men’s courage. He repeated so often its being so nice a thing—so nearly run a thing, that I asked him if the French had fought better than he had ever seen them do before.—’No,’ he said, ‘they have always fought the same since I first saw them at Vimeira.’* Then he said:—‘By God! I don’t think it would have done if I had not been there.’†

“When I left the Duke, I went instantly home and wrote to England by the same courier who carried his dispatch. I sent the very conversation I have just related to Bennet.† I think, however, I omitted the Duke’s observation that he did not think the battle would have been won had he not been there, and I remember my reason for omitting this sentence. It did not seem fair to the Duke to state it without full explanation. There was nothing like vanity in the observation in the way he made it. I considered it only as meaning that the battle was so hardly and equally fought that nothing but confidence of our army in himself as their general could have brought them thro’. Now that seven years have elapsed since that battle, and tho’ the Duke has become—very foolishly, in my opinion—a politician, and has done many wrong and foolish things since that time, yet I think of his conversation and whole conduct on the 19th—the day after the battle—exactly the same as I did then: namely—that nothing could do a conqueror more honor than his gravity and seriousness at the loss of lives he had sustained, his admission of his great danger, and the justice he did his enemy.

“I may add that, before I left him, I asked whether he thought the French would be able to take the field again; and he said he thought certainly not, giving as his reason that every corps of France, but one, had

* In 1808.

† Captain Gronow, to whom Creevey gave an account of this interview, remarks: “I do not pretend to say what the Duke meant in his conversation with Mr. Creevey, who was truth itself” [Reminiscences, vol. i. 212].

‡ Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., 2nd son of the 4th Earl of Tankerville.

been in the battle, and that the whole army had gone off in such perfect rout and confusion he thought it quite impossible for them to give battle again before the Allies reached Paris.

“On Tuesday the 20th, the day after this conversation with the Duke, Barnes and Hamilton would make me ride over to see the field of battle, which I would willingly have declined, understanding all the French dead were still on the field—unburied, and having no one to instruct me in detail as to what had passed—I mean as to the relative positions of the armies, &c. However, I was mounted, and as I was riding along with Hamilton’s groom behind me about a mile and a half on the Brussells side of the village of Waterloo, who should overtake me but the Duke of Wellington in his curricle, in his plain cloaths and Harvey by his side in his regimentals. So we went on together, and he said as he was to stop at Waterloo to see Frederick Ponsonby and de Lancey, Harvey should go with me and shew me the field of battle, and all about it. When we got to Waterloo village, we found others of his staff there, and it ended in Lord Arthur Hill being my guide over every part of the ground.

“My great surprise was at not being more horrified at the sight of such a mass of dead bodies. On the left of the road going from Waterloo to Mont St. Jean, and just close up to within a yard or two of a small ragged hedge which was our own line, the French lay as if they had been mowed down in a row without any interval.* It was a distressing sight, no doubt, to see every now and then a man alive amongst them, and calling out to Lord Arthur to give them something to drink. It so happened Lord Arthur had some weak brandy and water in his holster, and he dismounted to give some to the wounded soldiers. It was a curious thing to see on each occasion the moderation with which the soldier drank, and his marked good manners. They all ended by saying to Lord Arthur:—‘Mon général, vous êtes bien honnête.’ One case in particular I

* Where Picton’s 5th Division repulsed d’Erlon’s corps in the morning. The ragged hedge has now disappeared.

remember, on the other side of the road near the farm at Hugomont, a remarkably fine-looking man reared himself up from amongst the surrounding dead. His aiguilette streaming down his arm, Lord Arthur asked him if he was an officer, to which he replied no, but a sergeant of the Imperial Guard. Lord Arthur, having given him some drink, said he would look about for some conveyance to carry him off (his thigh being broken), and apologised for its not being sooner done, on account of the numbers of our own men we had to take care of. The Frenchman said in the best manner possible:—‘O mon général, vous êtes bien honnête: après les Allies.’

“I rode home with Hume the physician at head quarters, who said there were 14,000 dead on the eld; and upon my expressing regret at the wounded people being still out, he replied:—‘The two nights they have been out is all in their favor, provided they are now got into hospitals. They will have a better chance of escaping fever this hot weather than our own people who have been carried into hospitals the first.’”

Lord Arthur Hill to Mr. Creevey.

“Mons, 25th June, 1815. “Dear Creevey,

“The King entered Le Cateau yesterday and was very well received. I was sent off from thence here with letters from the Duke to Talleyrand, who is here, with the news that Nap had abdicated in favor of his son. There is a provisional government formed. I don’t suppose we shall have any more fighting. Hd. quarters advanced to-day however, but I don’t know where to. I shan’t be able to reach them to-night—roads horrible. Cambray was taken last night by storm: the Governor still in the Citadel—can’t last. Inhabitants illuminated and received our troops with joy—Genl. Colvill’s brigade. Let me hear of Harris and other wounded.

“Yours, “Arthur Hill.

“My wounded mare is in the Duke’s stable under care of Percy’s servant. Will you visit her?”

CHAPTER XI. 1815-1816.

After the stern realities of war, home politics and social gossip read flat enough. The crowning victory of Waterloo brought no strength to the Opposition. There were troubles enough ahead for the Government, arising out of the fall in prices consequent on the peace and the thousands of idle hands thrown on the labour market following on reduction of the forces; but, meanwhile, the country was aglow with enthusiasm for the Government and the army. It was when their prospects were at the lowest that the Liberals received a cruel blow in the suicide of one of their chief representatives in the Commons, Mr. Samuel Whitbread.

Hon. H. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [at Brussels],

“Whitehall, July, 1815.

“. . . Nothing could be more droll than the discomfiture of our politicians at Brooks’s. The night the news of the battle of Waterloo arrived, Sir Rt. Wilson and Grey demonstrated satisfactorily to a crowded audience that Boney had 200,000 men across Sambre, and that he must then be at Brussels. Wilson read a letter announcing that the English were defiling out of the town by the Antwerp gate; when the shouts in the street drew us to the window, and we saw the chaise and the Eagles. To be sure, we are good people, but sorry prophets! The only consolation I have is in peace, and that we shall have, and have time, too, to look about us, and amend our system at home, and damage royalty, and badger Prinny. I will venture to say he will long again for war abroad, as we will give him enough of it at home in the H. of Commons, so I beg you will be preparing for battle in the ensuing campaign. Peace we are hourly expecting. The [illegible] want to stop the French frontier, [illegible] to pillage Paris, and the ladies of the fashionable world to massacre its inhabitants. I assure you we are very bloody in this town, and people talk of making great examples, as if the French had not the right to have, independent of us, what government they liked best.

“You will be sorry to hear that Sam [Whitbread] looks and is very ill. He has lost all spirits, and cannot speak. I hear he vexes himself to death about Drury Lane. I am told a bill is filed against him by the [illegible] to the tune of £25,000. . . . I hope it is Drury Lane and not bad health that destroys his spirits.”

“Whitehall, July 7. “My dear Creevey,

“It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that you have lost your friend Whitbread; and though I hardly know how to name it, yet I must add that he destroyed himself in a paroxysm of derangement from the aneurism in the brain. He had been for the last month in a low and irritable state. The damned theatre and all its concerns, the vexatious opposition he met with, and the state of worry in which he was left—all conspired together to [illegible] his understanding as to lead to this fatal step. On Wednesday night the 5th I had a note from him written in his own hand, and as usual. He spoke on Tuesday in the H. of Commons more in his usual style than of late. . . . On Wednesday he passed all the evening with Burgess the solicitor, discussing the theatre concerns—walking up and down the room in great agitation, accusing himself of being the ruin of thousands. As you may well imagine, he did not sleep, but got up early on Thursday in a heated and flurried state—sat down to dress after breakfast about 10, and, while Wear was out of the room, cut his throat with a razor. When Wear returned, he found him quite dead. Is it necessary to say what the blow is to us all? To lose him in any way, at the maturest age, would have been a cruel loss, but in this manner—one feels so overpowered and broken down that the thing seems to be but a frightful dream. To me, the loss is greater than that of Fox, for the active, unwearied benevolence—both public and private—of our poor friend surpassed all the exertions of any one we ever knew. He lived but for mankind—not in showy speeches and mental exertions alone, but there was not a poor one or oppressed being in the world that he did not consider Whitbread as his benefactor. . . . I never heard of his equal, and he was by far the most honest public and private man I ever knew. . . .”

“July 11.

“. . . I am not astonished at Grey’s losing his heart, as this day he is to attend Sir W. Ponsonby’s* funeral, and at night he is to go down to Southill to attend our poor friend’s to-morrow. . . .”

“12th.

“. . . I delay sending this to say that Tavistock moved yesterday the writ in the most perfect and [illegible] manner: there was not a dry eye in the House. Wilberforce said he always considered Whitbread as the true [illegible], possessing all the virtues of the character, tho’ with its foibles, and that he was one of the public treasures. Vansittart deeply regretted his loss, and allowed that, when most in opposition to them, he was always manly, honest, [illegible] and true, and that he was an ornament to his country. Thus ended the saddest day I have yet seen in the House of Commons. Tierney sobbed so, he was unable to speak; I never saw a more affecting scene. . . .”

* Major-General the Hon. Sir William Ponsonby [1772-1815] commanded the “Union” brigade of heavy cavalry at Waterloo, and was killed in their famous charge upon d’Erlon’s column.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey [at Brussels].

“Friday, July 14, 1815.

“The message I sent you by C. Grey three weeks ago must have prepared you for this dreadful calamity which has befallen us, though nothing could reconcile you to it. Indeed one feels it more, if possible, as a private than a publick loss. . . . It seems as if the Opposition lay under a curse at this time—not merely politically, but physically. Romilly last winter was bled out of a violent inflammation of the lungs, and I think him damaged by it, next winter will show whether permanently or not, but at 58 such things are not safe, and he continues to work as hard as ever.* Ossulstone has been most dangerously ill. . . . The anxiety and labour Grey has lately had make one fear a severe attack of his spasms—indeed he had one a few nights ago, having been on Monday at Sir W. Ponsonby’s funeral, and having to set off for Whitbread’s at 4 the next morning. The attack was in the night, and he went notwithstanding.

“I hardly can venture to mention myself after these cases, but I have been very ill for 4 or 5 months, hardly able to go through common business, and now forced to give up the circuit. . . . I can only give you a notion how much I am altered by saying that I have not made such an exertion in writing for three months as this letter is, and that I already ache all over with it. . . . To continue my catalogue, Lord Thanet has been alarmingly ill, tho’ now somewhat better; and such dismal accounts of the Hollands are daily arriving that one of my chief reasons for writing to you now is to ask you how the poor boy is. . . . In this state of affairs and of my own health, when there seems nothing to be done, and when, if there were, I am not the man now to do it, you will marvel at my coming into Parlt., which I have been overpersuaded to do, and which will have happened almost as soon as you receive this.† The usual and unchangeable friendship

* He committed suicide in 1818.

† Brougham remained out of Parliament after his defeat at Liverpool in 1812, until returned for Winchelsea, a borough of Lord Darlington’s, in 1816.

of Ld. G[rey] obtained the seat, but I am not at all satisfied that I have done wisely in accepting it, for the reasons just hinted at. All I can say to myself is that I may recover and be again fit for service, in which case I should think myself unjustifiable had I decided the other way. But 20 years hard work have produced their effect, I much fear, and left little or nothing in me. . . .”

Lord Ossulston, M.P.* to Mr. Creevey in Brussels.

“Walton, July 31, 1815.

“. . . Buonaparte still remains at Plymouth, but it is expected that the ship which is to convey him will sail very shortly. I believe he is allowed to take 3 persons (besides servants) with him, excepting those who are named in the list of proscribed. The general feeling, I think, here is that he ought to be placed out of the reach of again interfering in the concerns of the world, tho’ it is difficult not to feel for a man who has played such a part, if he is destined to end his days in such a place as St. Helena. Seeing the other day a list of intimate friends invited to meet the P. Regent at Melbourne House—viz. Jack Manners, Ld. Fife, Ld. Headfort, &c., I could not help thinking what a strange fortune it was by which Buonaparte shd. be at that moment at Torbay, waiting his destiny at the Prince’s hands. . . . Kinnaird is in town. His account of his arrest by Buonaparte is that, hearing of the battle of Waterloo, he had said in society—‘Now the French have nothing to do but to send for the D. of Orleans;’ which being reported to Buonaparte on his return, he sent to Kinnaird to quit Paris in 2 hours, and France in 2 days. Kinnaird upon this asked leave to go to Fouché, who told him not to stir, for that in two hours he would hear something which wd. surprise them—that was Buonaparte’s abdication. . . . Whitbread’s eldest son comes into not less than £20,000 per ann.—so Brougham told me. Whitbread, however, in the last year had outrun his income by £14,000—probably the theatre. . . .”

* Afterwards 5th Earl of Tankerville.

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey.

“London, Nov. 7, 1815.

“. . . What chiefly moves me to write is some conversation that Ossulston* and I have had concerning the state of the Party in one material point. The Jockey† is gone—you may lay that down. It is a question between days and weeks, and he cannot possibly see the meeting of Parlt. Baillie says if things go favorably he may last six weeks, but that he won’t insure him for ten days. In short, it is a done thing.

“Now upon your friend B[ernard] Howard’s succession to this most important publick trust (for so I consider it), it is plain beyond all doubt that old Mother Stafford‡ will be working by every means to touch him—at all events to neutralize him. She will make the young one§ turn Protestant—a most improper thing in his station; for surely his feeling should be—‘I will be in Parlt., but it shall be by force of the Catholic emancipation;’ and, viewing this as a personal matter to himself, he should shape his political conduct mainly with reference to it. But I fear that is past praying for, and all we can hope is that the excellent father should remain as steady in his politics as he is sure to be in his adherence to his sect. . . . Now what strikes both O. and myself is—that at such a critical moment your friendly advice might be of most material use towards keeping the newcomer on his guard against the innumerable traps and wiles by which he will assuredly be beset, and if you intend (which of course you do) to come over this session, perhaps it would be adviseable to come

* Afterwards 5th Earl of Tankerville.

† Eleventh Duke of Norfolk.

‡ Wife of the 2nd Marquess of Stafford, who was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833, she having been Countess of Sutherland in her own right.

§ Eldest son of Bernard Howard; became Earl of Arundel on his father succeeding to the dukedom, and in 1842 became 13th Duke of Norfolk.

a little sooner so as to be here before the Jockey’s death, for the above purpose.”

Creevey, however, continued to live in Brussels for the sake of his wife’s health, resisting many pressing entreaties from his friends to come over and rouse the flagging spirits of the Opposition. He and Mrs. Creevey received many letters from London containing the gossip and speculations of the day.

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey [in Brussels].

“Holland House, 1st Jany., 1816.

“. . . According to the song, ‘London is out of town;’ the country houses are overflowing. The love of tennis is come so strongly upon Lord Holland that he has persuaded me rather reluctantly to go once more to Woburn for 3 or 4 days, in order that he may play a few setts. The plea which makes me yield is that I believe exercise keeps off the gout.

“The most violent people here even rejoice at poor La Vallette’s escape. What an abominable proceeding it has been. That tygress the Duchess of Angouleme in talking of Madame de la Bedoyere observed—‘Elle a été elevée dans des bons principes, mais elle nourrit le fils d’un traitre’—an envious reproach from her sterile Highness, who can never enjoy the poor widow’s maternal felicity. There is a strong feeling getting up in the country at our permitting the capitulation to be broken, altho’ none are sorry Ney suffered.*. . . Lady Waldegrave is dying of water in the chest. Her death will cause the disclosure of the secret whether Lord Waldegrave is married or not. . . . I want a handsome Valenciennes

* Such was not Lord Holland’s sentiment. Among Creevey’s papers is a very long letter from Lord Holland to Lord Kinnaird, declaiming against the Duke of Wellington, “in whom, after the great things he has done, even so decided an opponent of the war as myself must feel some national interest,” for permitting the execution of Ney and Labedoyere.

collerette, either made up, or lace to make it. Remember, my throat is thick, and it is to wear over the collar of a pelisse. . . . Sir Hudson Lowe has married a beautiful, and for him a young, widow. She is the niece of Genl. Delaney—quite a military connexion”

[No date.]

“. . . The new bishop is to be Legge, the Dean of Windsor, familiarly called by the Regent ‘Mother Frump.’ . . . Lord Craven embarks with all his family in his own yatch for the Mediterranean, giving a good chance to his brother Berkeley, especially as he will rely much upon his own skill in the management of the vessell. He sets off at the already incurred expense of forty thousand pounds—a brilliant debut; 70 souls on board, including men, women, children and ship’s company. . . . Lord Warwick’s marriage with Lady Monson is all settled. It is so advantageous to the minor that the Chancery will not enforce the cruel limitations of the malignant will of Lord Monson against her. . . .”

Henry Brougham to Mr. Creevey [in Brussels].

“Temple, Jany. 14, 1816.

“. . . You naturally must be desirous of learning what appearances there are of work for the session. I augur very well. Whether Snoutch* comes over or not, I can’t tell; but in the event of his not coming, I have communicated to Grey the wishes of many of the party including the Mountain,† that Lord G. Cavendish should be our nominal leader, with something like a house opened to harbour the party in. In fact, a house of rendezvous is more wanted than a leader. But if Snoutch comes, indeed whether he does or not, our merry men are on the alert, and we shall see that no half measures prevail. I really wd. fain hope that Tierney and Abercromby at length will see the folly of their temporising plans, and will act always and systematically as they did during part of last session. But nothing must be left to chance, and

* ? Lord Grenville. † The Radicals.

—‘speaking as an humble individual’*—I am quite determined (tho’ ready to meet them half way for peace and union sake) that the game of the country and the people shall be played in good earnest—if not with their help, without it—by God’s blessing.

“The plan of campaign which presents itself to me on a review of the state of affairs and the temper of men’s minds is of this description. As to foreign affairs—to act as a corps of observation and take advantage of all openings, not very much courting debates on those matters which the country never feels at all, and on which recent events tend greatly to discredit the Opposition; but ready always to expose the enemy’s blunders. E.g., the d——d absurd plan of the peace, which sows the seeds of war broadcast—the systematic plans of interference, &c. Above all, the grievous proceedings of our Ferdinand† agt. the very allies we had fought with in his behalf. . . . As to home politics—here we should make our main stand; and the ground is clearly Retrenchment—in all ways, with ramifications into the Royal family, property tax, jobs of all sorts, distresses of the landed interest, &c. In short, it is the richest mine in the world. A text has been put forth in the Edinr. Review, to which I refer you. . . . Last of all, but not least, the proposal of measures and inquiries unconnected with ordinary party topics, whereby much immediate real good is done to the country, and great credit gained by the party, as well as, ultimately, a check secured to the Crown and to abuses generally. For example—prison reform—education of the poor—tithes—above all the Press, with which last I think of leading off immediately, having long matured my plan. . . . It embraces the whole subject—of allowing the truth to be given in evidence—limiting the ex officio powers, both by filing informations and other privileges possessed by the Crown, and abolishing special juries in cases of libel, or rather misdemeanour generally. . . . But the material point is—won’t you come over to our assistance? You are more wanted than my regard

* A sarcastic allusion to Tierney’s style in speaking.

† King Ferdinand VII., who was availing himself of his restoration to the throne of Spain to indulge in harsh and tyrannical despotism.

for your modesty will allow me to say. Really you must come. . . . There are many uncomfortable things, beside the dreadful one of our irreparable loss of poor Sam [Whitbread]—now to be really felt. Nothing, for instance, can be more unpropitious than the plan of carrying on the party by a coterie at Lady Holland’s elbow, which cannot be submitted to for a moment, even, I shd. think, by those who belong to her coterie; at least I know no one but the Coles, Horner* and the Pope† (who are of her household) who can bear it. Do, then, let us hear that you mean to come over. . . .”

The following refers to the speech on the Treaty of Paris, whereby, on 9th February, Brougham marked his return to the House of Commons.

Mr. Western, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [in Brussels].

“9th Feb., 1816.

“. . . I have often marvelled at the want of sense, discretion, judgment and common sense that we see so frequently accompany the most brilliant talents, but damn me if I ever saw such an instance as that I have just witnessed in your friend Brougham. By Heaven! he has uttered a speech which, for power of speaking, surpassed anything you ever heard, and by which he has damn’d himself past redemption. You know what my opinion of him has always been: I have always thought he had not much sound sense nor too much political integrity, but he has outstripped any notion I could form of indiscretion; and as to his politicks, they are, in my humble opinion, of no sterling substance (but that between ourselves). He has been damaging himself daily, but to-night there is not a single fellow that is not saying what a damn’d impudent speech that of Brougham’s—four or five driven away—even Burdett says it was too much. He could not have roared louder if a file of soldiers had come in and pushed the Speaker out of his chair. Where the devil a fellow could get such lungs and

* Francis Horner, M.P. [1778-1817].

† Reference obscure.

such a flow of jaw upon such an occasion as this surpasses my imagination.

“I was sitting in the gallery by myself, and he made my head spin in such a style I thought I shd. tumble over. He quite overcame one’s understanding for a time; but when I recovered, I began to think—this will never do—impossible—I will go down and see what other lads think of it: perhaps my nerves are a little too sensitive. I soon found, however, that everybody was struck in the same way, and even more. Now, when I say that he has damaged himself past redemption, I mean as a man aspiring to be Leader, for to that his ambition aspired, and for that he is done now. By Heaven! you never saw men so chopfallen as Ministers—Castlereagh beyond belief, I see it in every line of his face. They wd. have been beaten to-night, I do believe, again. Brougham has put them up 20 per cent.; that is to say, by inducing people more to support them to keep [the] Opposition out, just as they were supported upon [the] Walcheren business to keep us out. Our fellows all run the savage too keen for the game to succeed in bagging it. There is never more skill necessary than when the fox is in view. They are for running in upon him at once, and they will run a chance of being totally thrown out in the attempt. They fought the Property Tax well, though it was done out of doors completely. Glorious victory that! If you are not set out, come directly; we shall have a famous session. . . . It is a pretty tight fitt for me, but ruin overwhelms the farmers. I feel convinced a national bankruptcy will be the consequence. I declare I believe it firmly. I shall drive at the whole of the Sinking Fund. . . . I have not any hopes of Midsummer rents, and the generality of landowners will be minus the best part of their interest, without a wonderful alteration. . . .”

Mr. J. Whishaw, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Lincoln’s Inn, Feb. 10th, 1816.

“. . . We have had two distinguished foreigners for some time in London—General de Flahaut and Genl. Sebastiani. The former was one of Napoleon’s chief favourites, and is the reputed son of Talleyrand by the present Madame de Souza, formerly Madame de Flahaut. He does not inherit the talents of his parents, but is a handsome, accomplished and very agreeable officer, a flattering specimen of the manners of the Imperial Court, which assuredly could not boast of many such ornaments. Sebastiani is nearly the reverse of all these, with somewhat of an air of pedantry and solemn importance, of which you may recollect some traits in his famous dispatch. It is a little curious to sit at table with a person formerly so much talked of, and who contributed so much to the war of 1803. You may remember that he was one of Pitt’s principal topics on that occasion. . . .”

Mr. Western, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [in Brussels].

“House of Commons, Feb. 17, 1816.

“. . . As to the general proceedings of the Opposition, I can say little. There is no superior mind amongst us; great power of speaking, faculty of perplexing, irritation and complaints, but no supereminent power to strike out a line of policy, and to command the confidence of the country. Brougham has shown his powers rather successfully, and exhibits some prudence in his plans of attack; but I cannot discern that superiority of judgment and of view (if I may so express myself) which is the grand desideratum. Tierney is as expert, narrow and wrong as ever; Ponsonby as inefficient; Horner as sonorous and eloquent, I must say, but I cannot see anything in him, say what they will, though he certainly speaks powerfully. A little honest, excellent party are as warm as ever, and only want a good leader to be admirable. Grenvilles and Foxites splitting—all manner of people going their own way. As to foreign policy I came to a conclusion that the Bourbons cannot keep their place, and that their proceedings are abominable, as I told you in a letter from Paris; and then what may happen no man can calculate. If they had any wisdom or firmness, they were safe, but they must kick the thing over.

“In regard to our internal—Agriculture, &c., is getting into a state of despair absolutely and distraction. . . . I assure you the landed people are getting desperate; the universality of ruin among them, or distress bordering on it, is absolutely unparallel’d, and at such a moment the sinking fund is not to be touched for the world, says Horner—no not a shilling of it: and yet—taxes to be taken off, rents to come down, cheap corn, cheap labour—how can a man talk of such impossibilities? The interests of all debts and sinking fund together amount to £43,000,000 Establishment 29,000,000 __________ 72,000,000

Now, cut the Establishment ever so low, we shall have four times as much to raise as before the war. It is not to be done out of the same rents, &c., &c. It is absolute madness to talk of it. . . . By the bye—there never was a moment for the exertion of yr. talents in the job-oversetting way, and fighting every shilling of expenditure. This is the time, never before equalled. They cannot resist on these points, and the carrying them is valuable beyond measure, prospectively as well as immediately. Whenever you blow one jobb fairly out of the water, it presents a hundred others, and this is the moment!”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [in Brussels].

“Temple, Thursday [May, 1816]. “Dear C.,

“I think it better to trust this to the post than to any of their d——d bags. [Here follow some minute details concerning Creevey’s seat for Thetford, which he seemed to be in some danger of losing, owing to changes of plan on the part of the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Petre, who had the disposal thereof]. . . . All I desire is that you put me personally wholly out of your view. I am worked to death with business, and, for my own comfort, care little whether I remain out this session or not. The labour would be a set off agt. the pleasure of revenging myself agt. certain folks, and even the sweets of that revenge would be dashed with bitterness, for I foresee a rupture with Grey as by no means an unlikely result of doing my duty and taking my swing. We have lately had rather an approach to that point, in consequence of my urgency agt. Adam’s job, Lauderdale’s general jobbery and other tender points, including the Cole faction, and their getting round him (G.). The Whigs (as I hold) are on the eve of great damage from the said jobs, and I conceived a warning to be necessary, with a notice that the Mountain and the folks out of doors were resolved to fire on the party if it flinched. Some very unpleasant things have passed, and the discussion is only interrupted by his child’s death. Now—come when I may into Parlt., it must be wholly opposed to the Coles, who have a lamentable hold over his mind. . . . A Westminster vacancy would be awkward; on the other hand, a Liverpool vacancy would be still more so, were I out of Parlt. The merry men are all up, and I should inevitably be dragged into the scrape. There are overtures from both parties—Gladstone* would support a moderate Whig—with us; the Corporation and Gascoigne would prefer a Mountaineer as most agt. Canning and favorable to their undivided jobbery. That we may put in a man is clear, but I really cannot give time enough to the place. This matter concerns you as well as myself, but then if you remain out of the way for two sessions, it would not be easy to bring you in. Moreover, if you take Liverpool and quit your present hold you can’t so well resume it in case of accident. . . . I have written a hash of a letter, without giving an opinion, having really none to give, and wishing to leave you to yourself. You alone can decide. . . . I have served Prinny with a formal notice from his wife that in May she returns to Kensington Palace. . . .”

* John Gladstone of Liverpool, created a baronet in 1846, a leading Tory in that town, and father of the late Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.

“1816.

“If Mrs. C. can possibly let you come for a few weeks, for God’s sake do come! It is morally certain you can come in for L’pool. . . . If you don’t come in there, you are out altogether, with some other good men—as Mackintosh, Ossulston, &c., and, for anything I know to the contrary, myself. For who can answer for a county like Westmorland, where there has been no contest for 50 years? and where I have all the parsons, justices, attorneys, and nearly all the resident gentry (few enough, thank God! and vile enough) leagued agt. me, besides the whole force of the Government. The spirit of the freeholders, to be sure, is wonderful, and in the end we must beat the villains. Govt. complain of L[onsdale] for getting them into it, and he complains of them for not dissolving. My satisfaction is that he is now bleeding at every pore—all the houses open—all the agents running up bills—all the manors shot over by anybody who pleases.”

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey.

“Holland House, 21st May, 1816.

“. . . Lord Kinnaird carried over the singular libel published by Lady C. Lamb against her family and friends.* It is a plaidoyer against her husband addressed to the religious and methodistical part of the community, accusing him of having overset her religious and moral (!) principles by teaching her doctrines of impiety, &c. The outlines of few of her characters are portraits, but the amplissage and traits are exact. Lady Morganet is a twofold being—Dss. of Devonshire and her mother: Lady Augusta Lady Jersey and Lady Collier: Sophia Lady Granville, who had 6 years ago a passion for working fine embroidery, and she marks

* Lady Caroline Ponsonby [1785-1828], only daughter of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough, married in 1805 the Hon. W. Lamb, afterwards Viscount Melbourne and Prime Minister, but her temper was so bad that they separated in 1813. Glenarvon, the romance referred to in the text, was published anonymously in 1816, and reissued in 1865 under the title of The Fatal Passion.

most atrociously her marriage with Lord Granville. Lady Mandeville is Ly. Oxford: Buchanan is Sir Godfrey Webster: Glenarvon and Vivian are of course Lord Byron. Lady Frances Webster is sketched and some others slightly. Lady Melbourne is represented as bigotted and vulgar. The words about Mr. Lamb are encomiastick, but the facts are against him, as she insidiously censures his not fighting a duel which her fictitious husband does. The bonne-bouche I have reserved for the last—myself. Where every ridicule, folly and infirmity (my not being able from malady to move about much) is portrayed. The charge against more essential qualities is, I trust and believe, a fiction; at least an uninterrupted friendship and intimacy of 25 years with herself and family might induce me to suppose it. The work is a strange farrago, and only curious from containing some of Lord Byron’s genuine letters—the last, in which he rejects her love and implores an end to their connexion, directed and sealed by Lady Oxford, is a most astonishing performance to publish. There is not much originality, as the jokes against me for my love of aisances and comforts she has heard laughed at by myself and coterie at my own fireside by years. The invasion of Ireland is only our own joke that when we were going out of Bruxelles with such a cavalcade the inhabitants might suppose we were a part of the Irish Army rallied. The dead poet is Mr. Ward’s joke at Rogers having cheated the coroner. I am sorry to see the Melbourne family so miserable about it. Lady Cowper is really frightened and depressed far beyond what is necessary. . . . The work has a prodigious sale, as all libellous matters have. Even General Pillet’s [?] satire upon the English was bought for two guineas the other day by Mr. Grenville.

“I know Lord Kinnaird also took over the Antiquary and the new play, otherwise I would send them to you; but if Moore’s poem is good you shall have it.

“We have been returned to our delicious old mansion above a week. Foliage and birds are the only demonstration of a change of season from December, as the cold, piercing easterly winds are still dreadful. . . .”

“Holland House, Tuesday.

“I take the opportunity of Lady Lansdowne’s departure to send you a small parcel of rubbish for your friend Gina, and, what is not rubbish, some verses by Mr. Rogers to add to his poems. . . . The town has been much occupied by a very strange affair which led to a duel between Ld. Buckingham and Sir Thos. Hardy. It is a mysterious business, but I sincerely hope quite over for ever. It was the charge of Ld. B. being the author of some very scandalous, offensive anonymous letters to, and about, Ly. Hardy. You would naturally suppose that the character of a gentleman, which Ld. B. has never forfeited would have been a sufficient guard to have repelled such a charge; but the Lady was angry. There are various conjectures about the writer of these letters; but, except just the angry parties, the world generally do justice to Lord B., from the impossibility of a man of character and in his station of life being capable of such an abominable proceeding. It is not the mode of revenge which a man takes, however he may have been jilted, or believed himself as so. But all these stories you will have heard from the Tierneys, who meant to spend some days at Bruxelles. . . . We are going to make a northern excursion . . . we shall make Lord Grey a visit of a week at Howick, and if Lord Lauderdale should not be philandering in these parts, stop at Dunbar. . . .”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Temple [no date, 1816?]

“The opinion is prevalent that the fête after all won’t hold; at any rate that P.* won’t venture. His loyal subjects are sure to attack him, and the burning of the temporary room, with the whole fashionable world, may be the consequence. Indeed a small expense, laid out in one squib, would bring about this catastrophe, so they will probably take fright. . . . I dined on Saturday at Dick Wilson’s, who was pleased to give the Pss. of W.’s health immediately after the King’s (the D. of Sussex being there), and he

* The Prince Regent.

then, with his accustomed patriotism, gave ‘The Rights of the People.’ . . . Young Frog* was t’other day made remarkably drunk by a savage animal of the name of Wirtemburg (son of the pickled sister, your friend), and in this predicament shewn up to young P.† among others. The savage took the opportunity of making love on his own score, and has been forbid C[arlton] House in consequence.”

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Walton, July 21.

“. . . The last session has been very damaging to the country. . . . The Opposition has made no way and the Government are certainly stronger than ever, for all the tinsel and lace have rallied round them. At the same time, these attacks on the constitution have made the liberty boys feel more kindly towards us. But we must allow that, tho’ the Government are hated, we are not loved. . . . As you may imagine, our friend Brougham has done everything this year with no help, for there literally is no one but Folkestone who comes into the line and fights. Our leaders are away—poor Ponsonby from idleness and from fatigue, and Tierney from ill health. I fear he will never show again as he used to do. Who is to lead us now? God knows! Some talk of Ld. George Cavendish,

* The Prince of Orange. † Princess Charlotte of Wales.

which I resist, because I think his politicks are abominable and his manners insolent and neglectful; but also because the Cavendish system, with the Duke [of Devonshire] at the head, is not the thing for the present day. They are timid, idle and haughty: the Duke dines at Carlton House and sits between the Chancellor and Lord Caithness, and I have no doubt will have, one of these days, the Ribband. Then the Archduchess (as they call him) is a great admirer and follower of Prinnie’s, and presumes to abuse the Mountain, and as I am in duty bound to protect myself, he singles me out as the most objectionable person in the H. of Commons, and says my politics are revolutionary. This last offence determines me to submit to no Cavendish leader. Milton is named, and Tavistock,* who would be the best of all, but I fear he loves hunting too much, and has not enough money, for we must have a leader with a house and cash. So amid all the difficulties, I propose a Republic—no leader at all! . . .”

From Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [in Brussels].

“Aug. 15, 1816. Geneva (uninhabitable). “Dear C.,

“. . . I have been here for some time and in the neighbourhood. It is a country to be in for two hours, or two hours and a half, if the weather is fine, and no longer. Ennui comes on the third hour, and suicide attacks you before night. There is no resource whatever for passing the time, except looking at lakes and hills, which is over immediately. I should except Mme. Stael, whose house is a great comfort.

“You may wish to know the truth as to Mother P. They resolved, under Mrs. Leach’s auspices, to proceed. I rather think the Chancellor and ministers were jealous of Mrs. L.; at any rate they were indisposed to the plan, but on it went, and a formal notification was made to little P.’s husband† and herself. I believe they were to have begun in Hanover, to

* Afterwards 7th Duke of Bedford.

† In May of this year Princess Charlotte of Wales had married the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

have something to show to Bull and his wife and daughter. But steps were also taken in England. Being advised of this from the best authority, I deemed it proper, according to the tacticks we have always adopted, not to wait to be attacked, but to fire a shot of some calibre, and you will by this time have seen more of it, tho’ you may not have guessed whence it came. . . . As for Mrs. P.* herself, she won’t do any more; but the daughter is a strong force and will carry the old lady through. Mrs. P. is, I believe, among the Ottomans, but I have no sort of communication with her. . . . Tell Kinnaird that Lord Byron is living here, entirely cut by the English.”

“Rome, 14th Nov., 1816.

“. . . I agree in your view of the high importance of this session. Lord [illegible], who is here, holds that it will be one of expedients and shifts, and that the grand breakdown won’t happen yet. I don’t much differ from him; but still, it will be the session, for their shifts and struggles and agonies will be the very time for work. The illustrious Regent meantime has been suffering in the flesh as well as the spirit, and I rejoice to find that his last defeat (which was a total one) has greatly annoyed him. I suppose you are aware of the secret history of it, and of Mother P. having miraculously been found fit for service once more. However, this time I must say she was rather a name than anything else, and little P. in reality bore the brunt of the day. I rejoice to say that Lord Grey views the divorce question in its true light, as do the party generally, i.e. in its connection with little P. and upon more general grounds. Both Carlton House and Hertford House now say the matter is finally at rest. . . . There are too many of the party abroad this session. Lord Lansdowne is here and remains all the winter in Italy, unless some very imperious call should take him home. The Jerseys and Cowpers come in a few days with the same plans. . . . Lady Jersey’s absence is very bad for the party. She alone had the right notion of the thing, and her great influence in society was always honestly and heartily exerted with her usual excellence

* The Princess of Wales.

of disposition. Ill as we can spare speakers, we can still less afford such a loss as this. . . . All this brings me to my text. You must come over; it won’t do to be absent any longer, therefore make up your mind to take the field. Meet me at Paris or Calais, if I can’t come to Brussels, and I can take you easily if you don’t fear the squeeze of three in a carriage. . . . When you get to London, if you please you may have my chambers for as long as you stay, with the laundress and man. I take lodgings in Spring Gardens during the session, and only am in chambers now and then for half an hour to look at the statutes. . . .”

Mr. Allen* to Mr. Creevey.

“Maidenhead, Sat., Nov. 20th. “Dear Sir,

“Lord and Lady Holland are in very great affliction, and you who knew the dear little girl they have lost and how much they were attached to her, will not wonder at their sorrow. . . . It is a satisfaction to hear that Lord Derby’s fears are subsiding, and from what I observed before I left town I think several others who were in the same predicament are recovering from their alarm. This mud bespattering of the extra Radicals at their last meeting has made people ashamed of their fears, and if the Whigs most inclined to popular courses adhere steadily to their determination of having no communication with the Radicals of any description, I trust the session may pass over without any schism among Opposition, and that ministers will have revived this alarm to very little purpose. But all depends on the discretion of the two or three first days of the session. One violent speech, received with approbation by the more eager members of the party, would cause the same break-up as in 1792, and give Jenky† and the Duke of Wellington the same despotic authority that Mr. Pitt exercised from that period to the end of his administration. . . .”

* John Allen, M.D. [1771-1843], political writer, a regular inmate of Holland House; of whom Byron said that he was “the best-informed and one of the ablest men” that he knew.

† Lord Liverpool.

CHAPTER XII. 1817-1818.

In 1817 the Creeveys continued in Brussels. Apparently the hopeless disorganisation of the Opposition in Parliament deterred Mr. Creevey from coming home; at least, there are no indications of his having availed himself of any of the numerous and pressing invitations he received. His friends, however, still kept him well supplied with gossip, and Brussels at that time was the centre of much political activity, so Creevey had no want of occupation for his thoughts, his tongue, and his pen.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“London, March 25, 1817.

“. . . We have holiday this week in virtue of Mr. Speaker’s right cheek having swelled out with erysipelas to an extraordinary size. His appearance is worth coming over to see. Sefton and I went to his levee t’other night, and the Earl was much amused with our small friend’s grimaces. . . . Lord Rolle coming in he [the Speaker] spoke of the climate in Devonshire—‘I take it skates are quite unknown in your lordship’s part of the world,’ and so forth. I then made the Earl go to the Chancellor’s, and rejoice to tell you his observation was how much more the manners of a gentleman the Chancr. had, which is quite true. I ought to apologise to you for taking so much liberty with your little friend, with whom I foresee your flirtation is speedily about to close, for there is a plan of a peerage and a pension of £4000 for three lives. Now I hardly think your loves, how warm and constant soever, can stand this shock.”*

“London, April 1, 1817.

“. . . I am glad you and Kinnaird approved of my broadside on the 13th March.† . . . I knew that Govt. would be taken by surprise, and had told Sefton so, for Ward and others had said to me some days before that they took it for granted I was to give them, as they were pleased to say, ‘a most valuable speech,’ on the plan of my last year’s on Agricultural distress—a sort of pair or pendant to that. I answered I meant no such matter, and should divide at all events, and regarded it as a hostile occasion. They did not believe it—had no guess of attacks on foreign policy, and looked innocent and astonished as I went on. I was very much tickled, and really enjoyed it, for I began quietly to the greatest degree, and only flung in a stray shot every 20 minutes or ½ hour by way of keeping them on the alert and preserving attention; and when, at the end of the first hour and a half, I opened my first battery, I do assure you it had a comical effect. . . . Still, it was not quite personal to Castlereagh, and when it was over, I changed my plan, in order to get breath, and play with them a little longer, and give my other fire more effect—that is, I went back to general, candid and speculative observations, and at large into the taxation part of the subject, and having prepared them by a few more random shots for a factious conclusion, I then opened my last battery upon C., to see whom under the fire was absolutely droll. He at first yawned, as he generally does when galled—then changed postures—then left his seat and came into the centre of the bench—then spoke much to Canning and Van, and at last was so d——d fidgetty that I expected to see him get up. It ended by his not saying one word in his

* Mr. Speaker Abbot, who had tilled the chair since 1802, was created Lord Colchester, 3rd June, 1817.

† He had spoken vehemently against the Property Tax and in favour of retrenchment in various departments.

own defence, but appealing to posterity. . . . We really want you more than words can describe. You positively must come, if but to show. . . .”

Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey.

“Holland House, 24th June, 1817.

“. . . The heat of the weather is delightful, but writing letters is not the way of enjoying it. The country is, or was, as flat about its liberties as it had been animated and, according to my judgment, absurd about sinecures and Parliamentary reform five months ago. However, I think the spies and informers admirably exposed by Ld. Grey. The conversion of Ld. Fitzwilliam and the stoutness of Milton,* have somewhat roused them from their indifference, and very much shaken any disposition there was to approve these revivals of Pitt’s worst measures. However, the best chance of change in the Government is, after all, that of their weakness and disunion, rather than our popularity, strength or concert. Peel’s election has galled the Cannings to the quick.”†

[No date.] “Dear Creevey,

“I have put off answering your very entertaining letter and interesting communication to the last moment, and unfortunately to a moment when I am full of business—trying to get up a Middlesex meeting and to bring the great guns, called Dukes, to bear upon the question of Habeas Corpus. That cursed business of Reform of Parliament is always in one’s way. With one great man nothing is good unless that be the principal object, and with another nothing must be done if a word of Reform is even glanced at in requisition, petition or discussion. . . .

* The 3rd Earl Fitzwilliam sat in the House of Commons as Viscount Milton from 1807 to 1833. He was strongly opposed at first to parliamentary reform; but became one of its most ardent advocates, though his family held a number of pocket boroughs.

† Peel was elected member for Oxford in this year, a seat which Canning had greatly coveted for himself.

They say the Prince has left off his stays, and that Royalty, divested of its usual supports, makes a bad figure. . . . I wish I had politics, tittle-tattle or book-news to send you. Of the latter, Llandaff’s memoirs are empty, but cursed provoking to the Court and the Church. Franklin’s life will be curious, both for its information and style. Rob Roy is said to be good, but falls off at the end. . . .”

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey.

“Holland House [no date, 1817].

“. . . I have seen few people and heard no news. . . . Lt. Clifford (the Dss. of D.’s son*) is to marry Lord John Townshend’s 2nd daughter: Ld. Clivton [sic] Miss Poyntz. The report at Windsor is that Princess Charlotte is in a bad state of health—a fixed pain in her side, for which she wears a perpetual blister; and she is grown very large and is generally unwell. The Duke of York was so tipsy at [illegible] that he fell down and was blooded immediately, and whilst the Queen was delivering her warlike manifesto, the little Pss. was making game and turning her back upon her. . . . Poor Courtenay has had a paralytick stroke, and Nollekens the sculptor is very ill from the same dreadful visitation. Ld. Lauderdale’s eldest daughter was 8 days in labour of a dead child, and was not out of danger when he wrote.”

Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey.

“Bruges, 4th July, 1817. “Dear Creevey,

“We shall make an excursion to Antwerp from Brussels instead of taking it on our way, and consequently shall arrive the day after to-morrow by the Ghent road. We are all well and much delighted

* The 4th Duke of Devonshire married in 1748 Charlotte, Baroness Clifford. She died in 1754, and the barony passed to her son the 5th Duke, and from him to the 6th Duke, at whose death in 1858 it fell into abeyance between his sisters the Countesses of Carlisle and Granville. I cannot identify the person named in the text Lt. [? Ld.] Clifford.

with the country. How can such a fertile country want bread? and why, when it (bread) has fallen at Ypres and even Courtray, is it at the same price here? Allen, though he bears Adam Smith and M. Marcot in his head, cannot solve this. . . .”

Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Oakley, July 20, 1817.

“. . . I rejoice at the prospect of your return home, as not only I want you, but we all require your counsel and aid. . . . Your friends the Grenvilles are not only nibbling, but biting at us once more, but I trust we shall have nothing to do with them. Have you heard of our plan for a leader? Some persons last year thought of one of straw, such as Althorpe or Ld. G. Cavendish, but that wd. not do, and we, the Mountaineers, resented the scheme. At present we all concur in the necessity of some one, and, taking all circumstances into consideration, Tierney is the man selected in this choice. Romilly and Brougham cordially concur, and I do so likewise: not that Mrs. Cole has not many grievous faults, but there is no one else who has not more. Romilly cannot, from his business; and Brougham cannot from his unpopularity and want of discretion. I think that the good old lady can be kept in order, and tho’ she be timid and idle, yet she is very popular in the House, easy and conciliatory; in no way perfect—in many ways better than any other person. The proposition takes immensely, and at present between 60 and 70 persons have signified their adherence. Let me know your opinion. . . .”

Lady Holland to Mrs. Creevey.

“Holland House, Friday, September, 1817.

“. . . We staid a short time at Edinburgh and made a long visit of a fortnight at Howick, where I had the delight of seeing Lord Grey all the time in the most perfect health and spirits, his countenance exhibiting gaiety and smiles which never are seen on this side of Highgate Hill. . . . Lady Louisa is very handsome, the others are very tolerably well-looking, but not equal to her, but graceful in dancing and riding, and excellent musicians. Some of the boys are uncommonly promising, especially the 2nd son Charles, and little Tom. The House is made one of the most comfortable mansions I know, and the grounds are as pretty as they can be in the ugliest district in the Island. I never expected to be so long in a country house, and yet leave it with regret, which was the case in this instance. We made a visit to Lambton, which is a magnificent house, everything in a suitable style of splendor. He is an excellent host: his three little babies are his great resource, tho’ I hope he is recovering his spirits; and as he has no son, the sooner he decides upon taking another wife, the happier it will be for all parties. He is full of good qualities, and his talents are very remarkable.

“London is very deserted: only a few stragglers, and those are not likely to encrease; as September is invariably the most empty month. Lawyers and sportsmen are always absent, and they are a numerous part of the community.

“We have been near losing our Regent, and as the physicians mistook his disorder, they have probably curtailed his length of life, for the disease was treated at first as inflammatory, and they took 60 ounces of blood. When Baillie saw him he declared it to be spasm, and gave laudanum and cordials. The consequences are likely to produce dropsy. His disinclination to all business is, if possible, encreased, and there have been serious thoughts of a council of Regency to assist in the dispatch of affairs. Pss. Charlotte is going on in her grossesse, but there are some strange awkward symptoms.* They are living at Claremont. Ld. Castlereagh is supposed to have entire influence over the Prince Leopold.

“What think you of the pamphlet on the divorce? It is most artfully done. The appeal to the shabby ones in the H. of Commons will have its weight, and

* Princess Charlotte died in childbirth the following year.

perhaps the threat of recrimination may startle the party at Ragley. This skilfull work is supposed to come from the borders of the Lake of Geneva*

“In the beau monde I hear of Ly. C. Cholmondeley’s marriage with Mr. Seymour, a son of Lord Hugh’s; his brother and Miss Palk; Lord Sunderland and Ly. E. Conyngham. The Duke of Marlborough gives him £5000.

“You heard of Lady L [illegible] from a ceremonial depriving herself of the pleasure of seeing Napoleon. The Govt. are displeased that the determination of Napoleon’s adherents to continue with him should be known, and more strictness is adopted in the correspondence with the Island [of St. Helena]. As you will see from many idle paragraphs that the impression to be given in this country is that all belonging to him hate and abhor him, and wish to be quit of him whereas the fact is notoriously the contrary. It is rather mortifying to see this country become the jailors and spies for the Bourbon Govt.; for to that condition Ld. Castlereagh has brought it.”

The following notes of a conversation with H.R.H. the Duke of Kent remain in Mr. Creevey’s handwriting, apparently as they were written down immediately after the event. Previous to this year, there is no indication that Creevey ever entertained the notion of collecting or publishing anything from his papers; but after his wife’s death, which occurred in 1818, time hung more heavily on his hands, and he conceived the idea, which he discussed frequently with his step-daughter, Miss Ord, of compiling a history of his own times. This never took shape, further than that his letters to Miss Ord were carefully preserved by his desire, along with much other correspondence. Upon this occasion, H.R.H. the Duke of Kent happened to be in Brussels, shortly after the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales. He

I.e. from Lord Byron’s pen.

desired Creevey, whom he had known familiarly in former times at the Pavilion and Carlton House, to call upon him; when, after discussing some trifling matter relating to the appointment to a chaplaincy, he broached a subject which evidently was weighing upon his mind. It must be confessed that his Royal Highness was not very discreet in choosing Mr. Creevey as the repository of his confidence in such a delicate matter. Creevey seems to have had no scruple in communicating the tenour of the conversation to some of his friends. He certainly told the Duke of Wellington,* and on 30th December Lord Sefton wrote from Croxteth, acknowledging Creevey’s letter with its “most amusing contents. Nothing could be more apropos than its arrival, as it was put into my hand while a surgeon was sounding my bladder with one hand and a finger of the other, to ascertain whether I had a stone or not. I never saw a fellow more astonished than he was at seeing me laugh as soon as the operation was over. Nothing could be more first-rate than the Royal Edward’s ingenuousness. One does not know which to admire most—the delicacy of his attachment to Mme. St. Laurent, the refinement of his sentiments towards the D. of Clarence, or his own perfect disinterestedness in pecuniary matters.”

Notes of a Conversation with H.R.H. the Duke of Kent at Brussels, Dec. 11, 1817.

“. . . The Duke begun, to my great surprise, a conversation upon the death of the Princess Charlotte, and upon an observation from me upon the derangement of the succession to the throne by this event, and

* See vol. i. p. 284.

of the necessity of the unmarried Princes becoming married, if the crown was to be kept in their family; and having in addition asked him, I believe, what he thought the Regent would do on the subject of a divorce, and whether he thought the Duke of Clarence would marry, the Duke of Kent, to the best of my recollection, and I would almost say word for word, spoke to me as follows.

“‘My opinion is the Regent will not attempt a divorce. I know persons in the Cabinet who will never consent to such a measure. Then, was he to attempt it, his conduct would be exposed to such recrimination as to make him unpopular, beyond all measure, throughout the country. No: he never will attempt it. Besides, the crime of adultery on her part must be proved in an English court of justice, and if found guilty she must be executed for high treason. No: the Regent will never try for a divorce.

“‘As for the Duke of York, at his time of life and that of the Duchess, all issue, of course, is out of the question. The Duke of Clarence, I have no doubt, will marry if he can; but the terms he asks from the Ministers are such as they can never comply with. Besides a settlement such as is proper for a Prince who marries expressly for a succession to the Throne, the Duke of Clarence demands the payment of all his debts, which are very great, and a handsome provision for each of his ten natural children. These are terms that no Ministers can accede to. Should the Duke of Clarence not marry, the next prince in succession is myself; and altho I trust I shall be at all times ready to obey any call my country may make upon me, God only knows the sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall think it my duty to become a married man. It is now seven-and-twenty years that Madame St. Laurent and I have lived together: we are of the same age, and have been in all climates, and in all difficulties together; and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will occasion me to part with her. I put it to your own feeling—in the event of any separation between you and Mrs. Creevey. . . . As for Madame St. Laurent herself, I protest I don’t know what is to become of her if a marriage is to be forced upon me; her feelings are already so agitated upon the subject. You saw, no doubt, that unfortunate paragraph in the Morning Chronicle, which appeared within a day or two after the Princess Charlotte’s death; and in which my marrying was alluded to. Upon receiving the paper containing that article at the same time with my private letters, I did as is my constant practice, I threw the newspaper across the table to Madame Saint Laurent, and began to open and read my letters. I had not done so but a very short time, when my attention was called to an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive movement in Madame St. Laurent’s throat. For a short time I entertained serious apprehensions for her safety; and when, upon her recovery, I enquired into the occasion of this attack, she pointed to the article in the Morning Chronicle relating to my marriage.

“‘From that day to this I am compelled to be in the practice of daily dissimulation with Madame St. Laurent, to keep this subject from her thoughts. I am fortunately acquainted with the gentlemen in Bruxelles who conduct the Liberal and Oracle newspapers; they have promised me to keep all articles upon the subject of my marriage out of their papers, and I hope my friends in England will be equally prudent. My brother the Duke of Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly the right to marry if he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on any account. If he wishes to be King—to be married and have children, poor man—God help him! let him do so. For myself—I am a man of no ambition, and wish only to remain as I am. . . . Easter, you know, falls very early this year—the 22nd of March. If the Duke of Clarence does not take any step before that time, I must find some pretext to reconcile Madame St. Laurent to my going to England for a short time. St. George’s day is the day now fixed for keeping the birthday, and my paying my respects to the Regent on that day will be a sufficient excuse for my appearing in England. When once there, it will be easy for me to consult with my friends as to the proper steps to be taken. Should the Duke of Clarence do nothing before that time as to marrying, it will become my duty, no doubt, to take some measures upon the subject myself.

“‘You have heard the names of the Princess of Baden and the Princess of Saxe-Cobourg mentioned. The latter connection would perhaps be the better of the two, from the circumstance of Prince Leopold being so popular with the nation; but before anything is proceeded with in this matter, I shall hope and expect to see justice done by the Nation and the Ministers to Madame St. Laurent. She is of very good family and has never been an actress, and I am the first and only person who ever lived with her. Her disinterestedness, too, has been equal to her fidelity. When she first came to me it was upon £100 a year. That sum was afterwards raised to £400, and finally to £1000; but when my debts made it necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my income, Madame St. Laurent insisted upon again returning to her income of £400 a year. If Mad. St. L. is to return to live amongst her friends, it must be in such a state of independence as to command their respect. I shall not require very much, but a certain number of servants and a carriage are essentials. Whatever the Ministers agree to give for such purposes must be put out of all doubt as to its continuance. I shall name Mr. Brougham, yourself and two other people on behalf of Madame St. Laurent for this object.

“‘As to my own settlement, as I shall marry (if I marry at all) for the succession, I shall expect the Duke of York’s marriage to be considered the precedent. That was a marriage for the succession, and £25,000 for income was settled, in addition to all his other income, purely on that account. I shall be contented with the same arrangement, without making any demands grounded upon the difference of the value of money in 1792 and at present. As for the payment of my debts, I don’t call them great. The nation, on the contrary, is greatly my debtor.’

“Here a clock striking in the room where we were seemed to remind the Duke he was exceeding his time, and he came to a conclusion almost instantly, and I retired.”

Lord Folkestone, M.P., to T. Creevey [in Brussels].

“Lower Grosvenor St., Feb. 23 [1818].

“. . . We go on in the House in a very languishing way: very little attendance, and still less attention. The House is regularly empty till 9 or 10 o’clock on the most interesting questions; and then the new comers are all clamorous for a division to get away again. We all like our new Speaker* most extremely: he is gentlemanlike and obliging. The would-be Speaker (alias Squeaker)† has, as I suppose you have heard, moved down to my old anti-Peace-of-Amiens bench. There are Wynn, Fremantle, Phillimore‡ enlisted under Bankes. I rejoice sincerely I did not vote for said Squeaker; but some of those who did are, I hear, very much ashamed of themselves for it. Romilly is in high force this year: Brougham, I know not why, has been quite silent. . . . Prinny has let loose his belly, which now reaches his knees: otherwise he is said to be well. Clarence has been near dying: has been refused by the Princess of Denmark, and is going, it is thought, to marry Miss Wykeham. But his malady is of that nature that they say matrimony is likely to destroy him, so that your friend the Duke of Kent will be King at last. I hope you have noted that the Issues of the Bank have again increased, and that the price of gold and other articles is rising, and the Bank restriction to continue. The old career, it seems, is to be run over again, and the few Landed Proprietors who have come unhurt out of the first business will be swallowed up in the second. A pretty prospect this for a Lord like me with a young and increasing family. I should like much to introduce to you my son, who is a very jolly fellow. Lady F. tells me that she is known to you, though not in the character of my wife.”

* Charles Manners Sutton [1780-1845], Speaker of the House of Commons from 1817 to 1835, when he was created Viscount Canterbury.

† C. W. W. Wynn.

‡ Joseph Phillimore [1775-1855], M.P. for St. Mawes 1817-26.

Mr. Creevey was a warm and intimate friend of Lord Kinnaird, who, like himself, had been a vehement opponent of the war with France. Lord Kinnaird was so indiscreet as to persist openly in his antinational demonstrations long after the war was over. Being in Brussels in 1818, a certain French refugee named Marinet, then under sentence of death, offered to reveal to Kinnaird a plot for the assassination of the Duke of Wellington in Paris, on condition that Kinnaird would intercede for him with M. de Cazes. Kinnaird informed Sir George Murray, the Duke’s Adjutant-General, by letter, who naturally asked the name of the informer. This Kinnaird refused to give, having passed his word that he should not do so; neither could he be induced to reveal it after the attempt upon the Duke’s life had been made by Cantillon on 10th February. Upon this the Belgian Government ordered his arrest. Kinnaird left Brussels secretly, taking Marinet with him. Both were arrested on arriving in Paris, but Kinnaird was released at the request of the Duke, who took him into his own house, to prevent him being “lodged in the Conciergerie,” as the Duke explained to Lord Bathurst, “which I certainly should not have liked.”* On 15th April, Kinnaird left Paris, for Brussels, as he informed the Duke, but really on his way to England, leaving behind him a letter addressed to the French Chambre des Pairs, accusing the Government, and, by implication, the Duke of Wellington, of breach of faith in the arrest of Marinet. Kinnaird’s indiscretion brought him into very unfavourable notice at the time; he was even suspected of some degree of complicity in the crime, whereof the Duke

* Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches, xii. 382.

freely acquitted him, though Lady Holland always afterwards spoke of him as “Oliver” Kinnaird. There is nothing of interest in Kinnaird’s letters at the time to Creevey, but one to his wife may serve to show him in the light of a wrong-headed busybody, without any useful field for his activity.

Lord Kinnaird to Lady Kinnaird.

“Paris, April, 1818.

“What shall I tell you of the proceedings here? My patience is exhausted. I have in vain claimed the interference of the Duke [of Wellington] and the justice of the Govt. in favor of a man unjustly imprisoned. I have suffered all sorts of calumnies to be spread agt. me for a long time. I will no longer submit to it, and have now given definite notice that I will leave Paris this week. . . . I would not trust our own courier, or Dukes, or Ambassadors. You have no notion of the mischievous attacks some ministerial papers have been making on me. You may believe I despise them, but I think I must say something in reply. . . .”

In the summer of 1818 took place a general election, and Creevey received notice to quit Thetford, which he had represented since 1802. The reason for the new Duke of Norfolk making this change is not apparent; possibly he was dissatisfied with Creevey’s absence from Parliament for more than three years; possibly, as Brougham had anticipated, the Duke’s mother-in-law, Lady Stafford, may have induced him to choose one of her own friends. Anyhow, Creevey bitterly resented this treatment at the hands of his old friend Bernard Howard, and wrote him a very long letter of remonstrance. The correspondence is only worth referring to as illustrating a condition of affairs which ceased to exist in this country with the passing of the Reform Act of 1832. Creevey reminds the Duke that they have been acquainted for sixteen years.

“The question I put to you, Duke, is this—Why have you not noticed me in your arrangements for the new Parliament, or why have you not given me your reasons for not doing so? Shall I begin with my claims upon you on publick grounds? I can only do this by comparing myself with the persons returned by you. I will take, for instance, the returns of Mr. Phillips and his son. . . . I have learnt, and am taught to believe, that Mr. Phillips’s claims upon you are founded upon a large loan of money that he advanced to you two or three years ago. . . . I am certain that mature reflection will show you the fatal effects that such a precedent, if generally followed, would produce, as well own body—the Aristocracy—as upon the Constitution itself of your country. . . . Need I point out to you, Duke, the certain and speedy result of such operations on the part of the Aristocracy? Would they not then, at least, be subject to the reproach, hitherto so unjustly and maliciously urged against them, of trafficking in seats in Parliament? . . . How long do you think the Constitution and liberties of the country would survive the loss of publick character in the Aristocracy?”

To all this, and a great deal more, the Duke replied very briefly, expressing regret that “dear Creevey” was not “in any situation that he desired, and in which the exertion of his talents might be useful to the country,” but refusing to acknowledge “the right he had thought proper to exercise of reproaching him (the Duke) with imaginary injustice.” He is willing to attribute Mr. Creevey’s “extraordinary and unmerited asperity to some temporary irritation proceeding from misconceptions.”

Having, then, lost the seat which he had held for sixteen years, during four Parliaments; having, also, lost his excellent wife, and, with her, the greater part of his income, he moved with his step-daughters, the Miss Ords, from Brussels to Cambray, where the Duke of Wellington had the headquarters of the army of occupation. While there he kept, or attempted to keep, a journal, which is not without some passages of interest.

Extracts from Mr. Creevey’s Journal.

“Cambray, 16th July, 1818.—I came from Brussells to Cambray with the Miss Ords on 14th July, and got there the 15th. To-day I rode to see a cricket match between the officers near the town, and presently the Duke of Wellington rode there likewise, accompanied by Mrs. Harvey and Miss Cator. As soon as he saw me, he rode up and shook hands with me, and asked me if I was returned in the new Parliament, to which I answered that the weather was too hot to be in Parliament, and that I should wait till it was cooler. He asked me to dine with him that day, but I was engaged to the officers who were playing the match, and he then asked me for the next day.

“17th.—I dined with the Duke. . . . Mrs. Harvey and Miss Cator were the only ladies. We were about sixteen or eighteen, I suppose; no strangers but myself. One of the first things said at dinner by the Duke was:—‘Did you see Kinnaird at Brussells, Creevey?’ to which I said:—‘Yes, I saw him on Monday, just on the point of starting for Milan, where he means to spend the next winter.’ Upon which the Duke said:—‘By God! the Austrian Government won’t let him stay there.’—‘Oh impossible,’ I said, ‘upon what pretence can they disturb him?’—and then he paused, and afterwards added:—‘Kinnaird is not at all busy wherever he goes:’ to which I made no answer. This was the year in which Lord Kinnaird took up Marinet from Brussells to Paris, to give evidence about the person who had fired at the Duke in Paris—an affair in which Kinnaird, to my mind, acted quite right, and Wellington abominably to him in return. . . . In the evening I had a long walk and talk with the Duke in the garden, and he was very agreeable. . . . We talked over English politics, and upon my saying that never Government cut so contemptible a figure as ours did the last session—particularly in the repeated defeats they sustained on the proposals to augment the establishments of the Dukes of Clarence, Kent and Cumberland upon their marriages, he said:—‘By God! there is a great deal to be said about that. They (the Princes) are the damnedest millstone about the necks of any Government that can be imagined. They have insulted—personally insulted—two thirds of the gentlemen of England; and how can it be wondered at that they take their revenge upon them when they get them in the House of Commons? It is their only opportunity, and I think, by God! they are quite right to use it.’

“18th.—Invited to dine at Lord Hill’s, where the Duke and a great party were to be; but I would not go, because I found [General] Barnes had written to Lord Hill desiring him to ask me.

“23rd.—Dined at Sir Andrew Hamond’s, with Alava,* Hervey, Lord Wm. Russell and the Lord knows who besides. Young Lord William was very good about politics, and civil enough to say he was sorry I was out of Parliament.

No date.—“Dined at Sir Lowry Cole’s† and liked Lady Frances very much—very good-looking, excellent manner and agreeable. That cursed fellow Colonel Stanhope‡ was there amongst others, who I remember was an Opposition man 3 years ago, but who now is in Parliament and a Government lick-spittle. He

* Note by Mr. Creevey.—“The Representative of Spain at the Court of the Bourbons, and at Wellington’s headquarters also—a most upright and incomparable man.”

† Second son of the 1st Earl of Enniskillen: commanded the 4th Division in the Peninsular War, and married a daughter of the 1st Earl of Malmesbury.

‡ Probably the Hon. James Hamilton Stanhope, son of the 3rd Earl Stanhope, and father of the present Mr. Banks Stanhope of Revesby Abbey. Creevey’s uncomplimentary reference is to nothing worse than Stanhope’s change of politics.

made up to me cursedly, but I would not touch him.

No date.—“Dined at Lord Hill’s with my young ladies and Hamilton and a monstrous party, all in a tent at his house four miles from Cambray. I should just as soon have supposed Miss Hill—Lord Hill’s sister—who was there, to have been second-in-command of our army, as Lord Hill, his appearance is so unmilitary.* He and his sister seem excellent people, and Barnes tells me that there cannot be a better second-in-command of an army than Lord Hill. I found Master Stanhope there again, and he wanted me to dine with him, but I would do no such thing. He has no talents: he is all pretension and impudence. Col. Percy† is by far the best hand at conversation of the Duke’s young men.

No date.—“Dined at the Duke of Wellington’s. The ladies were Lady Charlotte Greville and Lady Frances Cole. The Duke began by asking:—‘Well, Creevey, how many votes have the Opposition gained this election? Who is Wilson that is come in for the City, and what side is he of?’ I thought Lady Frances looked rather astounded at such familiarity, and upon such a subject. At dinner he began again:—‘Who is to be your leader in the House of Commons?’ I said they talked of Tierney, but I was quite sure Romilly ought to be the man.—‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Tierney is a sharp fellow, and I am sure will give the Government a good deal of trouble. As for Romilly, I know little of him, but the House of Commons never likes lawyers.’ So I said that was true generally, and justly so, but that poor Horner† had been an exception, and so was Romilly: that they were no ordinary, artificial skirmishing lawyers, speaking from briefs, but that they conveyed to the House, in addition to their talents, the

* Sir Rowland Hill, created Viscount Hill in 1814 for his splendid services in the Peninsular War, was a great favourite with his soldiers, among whom he was known as “Daddy Hill.”

† Fifth son of the 5th Duke of Northumberland; aide-de-camp, first to Sir John Moore, and then to the Duke of Wellington. Carried the Duke’s despatches to London after Waterloo.

‡ Horner died in 1817.

impression of their being really sincere, honest men. I availed myself of this occasion to turn to my next neighbour Lord W. Russell, and to give him a good lecture upon the great merits of Romilly and the great folly of our party in making Tierney leader, whose life had been in such direct opposition to all Whig principles. I found the young lord quite what a Russell ought to be.

“In the evening I had a walk with the Duke again in the garden, and upon my asking some question about the Regent, as the Duke had just come from England, he said:—‘By God! you never saw such a figure in your life as he is. Then he speaks and swears so like old Falstaff, that damn me if I was not ashamed to walk into a room with him.’

“Our conversation was interrupted by Mrs. Harvey and Miss Cator coming up to the Duke with a Yankee general in their hands—a relation of theirs, just arrived from America—General Harper, whom they presented to the Duke. It is not amiss to see these sisters, Mrs. Harvey and Miss Cator, not content with passing themselves off for tip-top Yankees, but playing much greater people than Lady C. Greville and Lady F. Cole—to me too, who remember their grandfather, old Cator, a captain of an Indiaman in Liverpool; their father an adventurer to America, and know their two aunts now at Liverpool—Mrs. Woodville and another, who move in about the third-rate society of that town.

No date.—“Dined at Sir George Murray’s* with Alava, General Harper and a very large party. I sat next to Harper, who quite came up to my notion of a regular Yankee. I touched him upon the late seizure of the Floridas by the United States, but he was as plausible, cunning and jesuitical as the very devil. He was singularly smug and spruce in his attire, and looked just as old Cator would have looked the first Sunday after a Guinea voyage—in new cloaths from top to bottom. From the Floridas he went to fashionable life, and asked me if he could not live very genteelly in London for £6000 per annum.

* Wellington’s trusted and excellent Quartermaster-General during the Peninsular War.

“Sir George was all politeness and good manners, but he is feeble, tho’ they say excellent in his department. He has not a particle of the talent of Barnes, nor do I see any one who has, except the Duke. He [Murray] and his staff—Sir Charles Brooke and Eckersley—are for all the world like three old maids.

“The young ladies and I were at a ball at the Duke’s, and he was very civil to us all, as he always is, and called out to us in going to supper to sup at his table.

“Monday [no other date]. . . . Hope of the Staff Corps is to go on Thursday with dispatches to the Duke, and wishes me to go with him as he travels in a cabriolet, which I most cordially consent to do.

“Thursday.—Hope and I left Cambray about 5 in the evening—went thro’ St. Quintin, La Fere, &c. I was much interested by Laon and its vicinity, as well on account of its singular position, as having been the theatre of so much fighting between Blucher and Buonaparte in 1814. The vineyards, likewise, on the right hand side of the road and on the slope of the hills before and after Sillery were very pretty. We got to Chalons between four and five, having travelled all night of course, and before the Duke; so we got the postmaster to let us shave and clean ourselves in his house, and that being done, we sallied forth to a restaurateur to dine, leaving a special messenger on the spot to summon Hope the moment the Duke’s courier arrived. Hope was sent for before we had finished, and was at the post house with his dispatches just as the Duke drove up. I followed in a few minutes. Hope had told him I was with him, and when I came he shook hands out of the window. On his expressing some surprise at seeing me there, I told him I was trying how I liked travelling at the expense of Government. The Duke then said:—‘Come on and dine with me at Vitry, Creevey,’ and off he drove.

“We got to Vitry about ten. The Duke had driven much faster than us, so as to have time to answer his letters, and to have the return dispatches ready for Hope. The inn we found him in was the most miserable concern I have ever beheld—so small and so wretched that after we had entered the gate I could not believe that we were right, till the Duke, who had heard the carriage enter, came out of a little wretched parlour in the gateway, without his hat, and on seeing me said:—‘Come in here, Creevey: dinner is quite ready.’ Dinner accordingly was brought in by a couple of dirty maids, and it consisted of four dishes—2 partridges at the top, a fowl at the bottom, fricassee of chicken on one side and something equally substantial on the other. The company was the Duke, Count Brozam [?], aide-de-camp to the Emperor of Russia, Hervey, Sir Ulysses de Burgh, Hope and myself. Cathcart and Cradock were not come up, but were expected every moment.

“The Duke had left Paris at 5 in the morning, and had come 130 miles, and a cold fowl was all that had been eaten by his party in the coach during the day. Altho’ the fare was so scanty, the champagne the commonest of stuff, and the house so bad, it seemed to make no impression on the Duke. He seemed quite as pleased and as well satisfied as if he had been in a palace. He and I had a very agreeable conversation for an hour or an hour and a half, principally about improvements going on in France, which had been begun by Buonaparte—land, &c., &c.—and then we all went to bed.

“In the morning we all breakfasted together at five o’clock punctually. Our fare was tea in a great coffee-pot about two feet high. We had cups to drink out of, it is true; but no saucers. The Duke, however, seemed quite as satisfied with everything as the night before; and when I observed, by way of a joke, that I thought the tea not so very bad, considering it was made, I supposed, at Vitry:—‘No,’ said he, with that curious simplicity of his, ‘it is not: I brought it with me from Paris.’

“He gave Cathcart and Cradock a rub for not being up the night before, and then we all got into our carriages—the Duke and suite for Colmar, and Hope and I for Cambray. . . .

“Sunday.—Hope and I got back to Cambray at about two o’clock in the afternoon. . . . Lady Aldborough came to Cambray. . . . I am as much convinced as ever that she is the readiest, quickest person in conversation I have ever seen, but she is a little too much upon the full stretch. Was she quieter, she would be more agreeable. The truth is, however, she knows too well the imprudences of her past life, and she is fighting for her place in society by the perpetual exercise of her talents.

“Septr. 8.—On the evening of this day between 5 and 6 I saw the Duke’s coach and six going full speed on the Valenciennes road, and I found after he was running away from the Duke of Kent, who had sent to say he was coming; so the D. of W. dispatched Cathcart to stop him, and went off himself. . . .

“Wednesday, 9th.—Barnes and I came over to Valenciennes in his chaise, and got there about half an hour before dinner. I met the Duke in the street, and he asked me laughingly if I had been to call on my friend the Duke of Kent, and said I should meet him at dinner. I thought from this I ought to call, so Barnes, Sir W. W. Wynn (whom I had picked up in the street) and myself went and wrote our names at the Duke of Kent’s. This made us latish for dinner, and when we got there everybody almost was arrived—about sixty in number, I should say. As I was so late, I kept in the background, but the Duke of Kent saw me immediately, and forced his way to me. After shaking hands with me in the most cordial manner, and saying all kinds of civil and apparently most friendly things to me about my own situation (Mrs. Creevey being recently dead and myself being out of Parliament), and the regret of my friends in England at my absence, he began about himself.—‘You may probably be surprised, Mr. Creevey, at seeing me here, considering the illness of my poor mother; but the Queen is a person of the greatest possible firmness of mind, and tho’ she knows perfectly well that her situation is a hopeless one, she would not listen to any offers of mine to remain with her, and indeed nothing but her pressing me to come abroad could have made me do so.’

“The Dutchess of Kent had an old, ugly German female companion with her, and the Duke of Wellington was going about amongst his staff before dinner, saying—‘Who the devil is to take out the maid of honor?’ and at last said—‘Damme, Fremantle, find out the Mayor and let him do it.’ So the Mayor of Valenciennes was brought up for the purpose, and a capital figure he was. We had an excellent dinner in a kind of occasional building, and as I got next Lord Arthur Hill* it was a very agreeable one. . . .

“Thursday, 10th.—Barnes took me out in his chaise about six or seven miles on the road towards Bouchain, where we found the troops on their ground, and then we got on horseback. The Saxon contingent I thought most beautiful, and the Danes I thought the dirtiest dogs I ever in my life beheld.

“The Duke of Kent’s appearance was atrocious. He was dressed in the jacket and cap of his regiment (the Royals), and but for his blue ribbon and star, he might have passed for an orderly sergeant. The Duke of Wellington’s appearance was, as it always is on such occasions, quite perfect. I have never seen any one to be compared to him. . . . After the review, we went back to Valenciennes, and dined again with the Duke of Wellington. . . . The party to-day was much less—about 40. Lord Darnley, I think, was the only additional stranger. Sir Lowry Cole handed out Mrs. Hamilton, Sir George Murray Miss Ord, and General Barnes Miss E. Ord,† and I got next to old Watkin, and talked over the Westminster election with him. In the evening the Duke gave a ball, which was as crowded as the very devil.

“Friday, 11.—This morning Barnes and I set off to see the Russian troops reviewed. . . . The Count Woronzow, Commander-in-chief of the Russians, had sent forty pair of horses with drivers, &c., &c., to bring over such English persons as were to be present. . . . A little short of Bovary we found a relay of 40 other pair of horses standing in the road, and these took us to the ground. . . . Here again Cossack saddle horses were provided by Count Woronzow for all the strangers. . . . We had been all invited beforehand to dine with Count Woronzow, and just as the review was finishing, he rode up to every English carriage to say he was to have a ball in the evening. . . . After

* Afterwards Lord Sandys,

† Creevey’s step-daughter.

dinner, the ball opened, when my delight was to see the Mizurko danced by Madame Suwarrow and her brother the Prince Nariskin, Commander-in-chief of the Cossacks. The Dutchess of Kent waltzed a little, and the Duke of Kent put his hand upon her cheek to feel if she was not too hot. I believe it was this display of tenderness on his part that made the Duke of Wellington turn suddenly to me and say:—‘Well, Creevey, what has passed between you and the Corporal since you have met this time?’ So I told him of our conversation on the Wednesday at his dinner, not omitting, of course, the pathetic part about the Queen; upon which he laid hold of my button and said:—‘God damme! d’ye know what his sisters call him? By God! they call him Joseph Surface!’ and then sent out one of his hearty laughs, that made every one turn about to the right and left to see what was the matter. . . .

“The Duke of Wellington’s constant joking with me about the Duke of Kent was owing to the curious conversation I had with the latter at Brussells in the autumn of 1817, the particulars of which had always amused the Duke of Wellington very much.* . . .

“Saturday.—We were all invited to breakfast at the Count’s [Woronzow] this morning, but we were to go first at 9 o’clock to see the Count’s school, which we did, and saw 400 or 500 private soldiers at their lessons—reading, writing and arithmetic, upon Lancaster’s plan. Nothing could be nicer than the room, or more perfect than the establishment. This education takes eight months, and the whole army goes through it in turn. Besides this, there was another school where shoe-making, tayloring and other things are taught. As the Duke of Kent was to the last degree tiresome in examining all the details of this establishment, and asked questions without end, I expressed some impatience to get to my breakfast, upon which the Duke of Wellington, who heard me, was much amused, and said:—‘I recommend you, whenever you start with any of the Royal family in a morning, and particularly with the Corporal, always to breakfast first.’ I found he and his staff had all

* See vol. i. pp. 268-271.

done so, and his fun was to keep saying all the time we were kept there—‘Voila le monsieur qui n’a pas dejeuné!’ pointing to me.

“I got, however, to my breakfast at last, and found the Dutchess of Kent and other ladies there likewise. . . . I must say the Count Woronzow is one of the most captivating persons I have ever seen. He appears about 35 years of age: there is a polish and a simplicity at the same time in his manner that surpasses anything I have ever seen. He seems all work—all kindness—all good breeding—without a particle of pride, ostentation or affectation. I consider him as one of the greatest curiosities I have ever seen.

“September [no date].—I dined at the Duke of Wellington’s, and was much pleased to find the Duc de Richelieu there, whom I had never seen before. He was just arrived, on his way to the Congress at Aix-la-chapelle. The Duke of W. introduced me to him, and I never saw a Frenchman I took such a fancy to before. His excellent manners, his simplicity and his appearance, are most striking and agreeable. We had a small party and no ladies. From Sir George Murray being between the Duc de Richelieu and myself at dinner, and my deaf ear towards him into the bargain, I lost much of his conversation. The Duke of Wellington, however, after Richelieu was gone, told me in conversation what had passed between them, which was not amiss. The D. of R. asked the D. of W. if he had heard what had passed at the Hague the other day at the christening of the Prince of Orange’s second son, to which Wellington replied no. The D. of R. then told him that on that occasion, there being a dinner and fête, the Prince of Orange had made a flaming patriotic oration, in which he had expressed his devotion to his Belgic, as well as his Dutch, compatriots, and concluded by declaring he would sacrifice his life in repelling any power who dared to invade their country. Upon which the Duke of Wellington said to Richelieu:—‘Who the devil does he mean? I suppose you—the French.’—‘No,’ answered Richelieu, ‘it is said he meant you—the English.’ There had been some talk of an army of observation being formed of our troops, to be kept in the Netherlands, so maybe it was an allusion to this.

“I said to the Duke what a pity it was that the Prince of Orange, after distinguishing himself as he had done at Waterloo, should make such a goose of himself: to which Wellington said with his comical simplicity:—‘So it is, but I can’t help it. I have done all I could for him.’

“Barnes has told me more than once during my stay at Cambray a fact about the Prince of Orange which, incredible as I at first thought it, must be true: viz.—that the Prince was mad enough to listen to some proposals made to him by certain French exiles as to making him think of France and dethroning old Louis Dix-huit. Kinnaird had often told me there was something of this kind going on, which I quite scouted; and then he told me afterwards, when he was interrogated by the police on the subject of Wellington’s affair, that many questions were put to him on the subject of this plot in favor of the Prince of Orange, and as to what Kinnaird knew about it; but Barnes told me that Fagel, the Minister from the Pays Bas at Paris, told him (Barnes) that all this was perfectly true; and not only so, but that in consequence of it the Prince of Orange had been obliged to answer certain prepared interrogations which were put to him by the allied Sovereigns on this subject. So it must be true, and Wellington of course knew it to be so during this conversation with me.

“We had after this a very long conversation, and quite alone. I apologised for a question I was about to ask him, and begged him if I was doing wrong to tell me so immediately. I said Mrs. Hamilton expected to be confined in eight or ten weeks, and he would do me a signal favor if he would tell me if the army was really to leave France, as in that case she would never run the risque of being confined at Cambray, and left after the army was gone. He answered without the slightest hesitation:—‘Oh, you must remove her certainly. I shall begin to move the army next month, and I hope by the 20th of November to have got everybody away* I shall keep a single battalion for myself, and shall be the last to leave this place . . . so

* The Duke’s farewell to the army of occupation was issued as ordre-du-jour on 30th October.

remove Mrs. Hamilton to Bruxelles or to Mons, but certainly out of France.’

“We then went to politics, and publick men and publick speaking. He said much in favor of Lord Grey’s and Lord Lansdowne’s speaking. Of the former he said that, as leader of the House of Commons he thought his manner and speaking quite perfect; and of Lord Lansdowne* he said that, had he remained in the House of Commons he must have been minister of the country long before this time. ‘But,’ said he, ‘they are lost by being in the House of Lords. Nobody cares a damn for the House of Lords; the House of Commons is everything in England, and the House of Lords nothing.’

“I then favored him with my notions of some on the other side. I said there was no fact I was more convinced of than that Castlereagh would have expired politically in the year 1809—that all the world by common consent had had enough of him, and were tired out—had it not been for the piece of perfidy by Canning to him at that time, and that this, and this alone, had raised him from the dead, and given him his present great position. I then followed up Canning on the score of his infinite meanness in taking his Lisbon job and filling his present inferior situation under Castlereagh, whose present situation he (Canning) held in 1809, and then, forsooth! was too great a man to act with Castlereagh as his inferior.

“All this Wellington listened to, it is true; but he would not touch it,† except by saying he heard Canning and Whitbread have a sparring bout in the House of Commons, and he thought Whitbread had much the best of it. The conversation ended by further remarks about publick speaking.—‘There’s the Duc de Richelieu, for instance,’ he said, ‘altho’ he speaks as Minister, and has everything prepared in writing, you never heard anything so bad in your life as his speaking.’

“It is a very curious thing to have seen so much

* Formerly Lord Henry Petty.

† The old soldier was far too wary to give himself away, knowing, as he must have done, from having heard all about the Duke of Kent’s confession, how freely Creevey repeated confidential conversations.

of the of this said Duke as I have done at different times, considering the impostors that most men in power are—the insufferable pretensions one meets with in every Jack-in-office—the uniform frankness and simplicity of Wellington in all the conversations I have heard him engaged in, coupled with the unparalleled situation he holds in the world for an English subject, make him to me the most interesting object I have ever seen in my life.”

The following memorandum, suggested by the publication in 1822 of O’Meara’s Voice from St. Helena, refers to the autumn of 1818, immediately before the withdrawal of the Army of Occupation and the Duke of Wellington’s return to England:—

Memorandum.

“Having met the Duke of Wellington accidentally in the Park at Brussels, and walked with him at his request to the French Minister’s house, Monr. Mallet du Pan, and having talked a good deal about France now that the Allies had just evacuated it, I said:—

“‘Well now, Duke, let me ask you, don’t you think Lowe a very unnecessarily harsh gaoler of Buonaparte at St. Helena? It is surely very disreputable to us to put any restraint upon him not absolutely necessary for his detention.’*

“‘By God!’ he replied in his usual manner, ‘I don’t know. Buonaparte is so damned intractable a fellow there is no knowing how to deal with him. To be sure, as to the means employed to keep him there, never was anything so damned absurd. I know the island of St. Helena well. I looked at every part of it on my return from the East Indies’—and then he described three or four places as the only ones by which a prisoner could escape, and that they were

* “The irritation displayed by the captive of St. Helena in his bickerings with his gaoler affect most men more than the thought of the nameless thousands whom his insatiable egotism had hurried to the grave.” [Lecky’s European Morals, i. 139, ed. 1869.]

capable of being made quite inaccessible by a mere handful of men. I then said, from what I had seen of Lowe at Brussels in 1814 and 1815, he seemed to me the last man in the world for the general officer, from his fidgetty nature and disposition; upon which the Duke said:—

“‘As for Lowe, he is a damned fool. When I came to Brussels from Vienna in 1815, I found him Quarter-Master-General of the army here, and I presently found the damned fellow would instruct me in the equipment of the army, always producing the Prussians to me as models; so I was obliged to tell him I had commanded a much larger army in the field than any Prussian general, and that I was not to learn from their service how to equip an army. I thought this would have stopped him, but shortly afterwards the damned fellow was at me again about the equipment, &c., of the Prussians; so I was obliged to write home and complain of him, and the Government were kind enough to take him away from me.’

“During the same autumn of 1818, being one night at Lady Charlotte Greville’s, then living at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, the Duke of Wellington coming in asked me if I had any news from England, to which I replied ‘none but newspaper news,’ viz. that the Duke of Wellington was or was going to be Master of the Ordnance: to which he said ‘Ho!’ or ‘Ha!’ but quite gravely, and without any contradiction, so I was sure it was true. From that hour he was an altered man—quite official in everything he said, tho’ still much more natural and accessible than any other official I ever saw, except Fox.

“A day or two after this conversation I met Alava, and, knowing his devotion to the Duke, I asked him what he thought of his new situation. He said he never was more sorry for any event in his life—that the Duke of Wellington ought never to have had anything to do with politicks—that he ought to have remained, not only as the soldier of England, but of Europe, to be ready to appear again at its command whenever his talents and services might be wanted. I have seen a good deal of Alava at different times, and a more upright human being, to all appearance, I never beheld.’

The Opposition, which had lost one of its candidates for leadership in 1815, in the person of Samuel Whitbread, now lost another in Sir Samuel Romilly, and in the same dreadful manner—suicide. In replying to Mr. Bennet’s letter announcing this event, Creevey took occasion to reply also to an earlier one, informing him of Tierney’s election as Opposition leader in the House of Commons, which was little to Creevey’s liking, for he and the rest of “the Mountain” had always derided “Old Mrs. Cole” as too timid for the part.

Mr. Creevey to Hon. H. G. Bennet, M.P.

“Brussels, Dec. 30th, 1818.

“. . . I must advert to the great calamity we have all sustained in the death of poor Romilly. His loss is perfectly irreparable. By his courageous and consistent public conduct, united with his known private worth, he was rapidly acquiring an authority over men’s minds that, had his life been spared a few years, would, I think, have equalled, if not surpassed, even that of Mr. Fox. He indeed was a leader, that all true Whigs would have been proud to follow, however his modesty might induce him to decline being called so.

“And now I am brought to the question you propose me—viz.: what I think of your having chosen Tierney for the leader of the Whigs in the House of Commons. In the first place, I think you deceive yourselves by supposing the leader of the Whigs of England to be an article that can be created by election, or merely by giving it that name. A man must make himself such leader by his talents, by his courage, and above all by the excellence and consistency of his publick principles. It was by such means that Fox was our leader without election and that Romilly was becoming so, and believe me, there is no other process by which a leader can be made.

“With respect to the object of your choice—as a piece of humour I consider it quite inimitable, and I am sure no one can laugh more heartily than Tierney himself in his sleeve as Leader of the Whigs; indeed his commentary upon the proceeding is very intelligibly, as well as funnily, displayed by his administering a kind of Luddite test to you, which having once signed, you are bound to your captain for better and for worse. . . .”

Follows a very long survey of Tierney’s public career from 1793 onwards, and an expression of opinion that his opposition to Fox, his defence of the East India Company, &c., &c., had for ever disqualified him for the post to which he had been elected.

CHAPTER XIII. 1819-1820.

There is almost a blank in Mr. Creevey’s correspondence during 1819, in which year he continued to live in Brussels. This is the more to be regretted because the fragments which remain are lively and full of gossip.

Lord Holland to Mr. Creevey.

“St. James Square, 19th Jan., 1819.

“. . . I suspect that which you heard of the payment of cash at the bank will not be fulfilled this year, tho’ an impression has been made on the country by the executions for forgery, and on the great body of retail traders by the forgeries themselves.* . . . Tierney moves on the subject on the 1st of next Feby., and so changed is the opinion on the subject since you were among us, that it is selected, and wisely selected, as the most popular question for Opposition to begin with. The Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage men are at a discount: Ministers worse than ever, and the Whigs, tho’ better than I have remembered them for some years, far from being in a condition to lead with any degree of certainty publick

* Between the suspension of cash payments by the Bank in February, 1797, and February, 1818, three hundred and thirteen persons were sentenced to death for forgery; whereas during the fourteen years, 1783-96, preceding such suspension the convictions had only been three in number. During the six years, 1812-18, no less than 131,361 notes, varying in value from £1 to £20, were detected as forgeries on presentation for payment.

opinion and confidence, though I think they are, of the three parties, that to which the publick just now look most sanguinely for assistance in accomplishing their object. What these objects are, it is difficult to conjecture or define, and perhaps the very indistinctness of them will lead the publick to be disappointed with parties and men. But that there is great expectation that much can, ought and will be done in Parliament is clear beyond doubt, and moreover that expectation, if uncertain and even impracticable in its direction, is grounded on causes that lie too deep to be easily removed. . . . There is a wonderful change in the feelings, opinions, condition, property and relative state of the classes in society. The House of Commons hangs yet more loosely upon parties, and certainly on the Ministerial party, than the last; and the Ministers, exclusive of many grounds of dissension among themselves (which are suspected, but may not be true),* are evidently aware and afraid of the dispositions of the new Parliament. The Lords and Grooms of the Windsor establishment have received notice to quit, and no notice of pensions. Some say that they will muster an opposition to retrenchment in the Lords, which may lead to a dispute between the two Houses. Had they any spirit or talent as well as ill-humour, our Ultra’s might worry the Ministers on this subject not a little; for what is more profligate than to resist all retrenchment at Windsor during the Queen’s life, and on her death to abandon the establishment—so necessary, as they contended, to his [the King’s] happiness? . . . Brougham is very accommodating, but not in such spirits as he was. He feels (indeed who does not?) the loss of Romilly doubly as the session approaches. . . . That mad fellow Verbyst promised to send over the Bipontine edition of Plato and L’Enfant’s Council of Pisa. He received 144 franks for the first—so for the last. He wrote to say that if he could not get the books, he would

* Here speaks the old politician, wary from experience. When was there ever a Ministry about which rumours of internal dissension were not circulated and eagerly believed? In Lord Liverpool’s Cabinet the great question of Roman Catholic Emancipation continued to be treated as an open one, and Ministers voted as they pleased.

return the money: he has done neither. I should prefer the books. Pray see him and make him do one or other. . . .”

Lord Kinnaird [?] to Mr. Creevey.

“London, no date [1819].

“. . . Lord Lascelles’ son has married Harriet Wilson’s sister: Lord Langford’s—an old wretch of the name of Aylmer, and there are some people who express a dread that young Whitbread will marry a woman who lives with him. Lord Byron’s poem,* which I brought to England, is returned to Venice. Murray the Bookseller is afraid of printing it. Rogers’s Poem, entitled ‘Human Life,’ is favorably talked of. Poor man, he treats himself upon these occasions as a woman does: he has shut himself up, and seems to think it necessary not to go out till his month is up.”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“5, Hill St., no date [1819]. “My dear C.,

“You talk like an idiot—a Liverpolian—a concentric—a pautriot (quid plura?) in all you say about the Jerseys. I appeal to Bennet who was present when Lady Jersey said how delighted she would be to see you at Middleton. But suppose I had said you would go with me, and had written to her the day before—that would have been quite sufficient. Rely upon me—I am the last and shyest man in the world to do these things at such places as Holland House, Chatsworth, Croxteth, &c., but I am on a footing of friendship with the Jerseys as intimate as if I were a brother, and I know them thoroughly, and you may trust me. But a cross accident has for the present delayed it all. The D. of York goes there the 16th, instead of the 6th (as he had said), so our party (Sefton,

* Don Juan.

Thanet, Ossy,* &c.) is put off. Then Sefton is engaged to [illegible] on the 20th, and to Sir H. Featherstone 25th (pray mention this visit to him when you write); therefore we talk of Middleton the end of Jany. or beginning of Feby.”

At the end of 1819 or beginning of 1820 Mr. Creevey returned to England, after an absence, apparently continuous, of six years. In the interval he had lost his seat for Thetford, and, by the death of his wife, his income had fallen from a very comfortable figure to extremely narrow dimensions. On 29th January the long reign of George III. came to a close. The reign, indeed, had ended ten years before, when the Regency was proclaimed, and the old king had passed the rest of his days in hopeless, but harmless, insanity, and bereft of sight. When it became apparent that his end was at hand, the party of the Princess of Wales perceived necessity for her immediate return to England, inasmuch as the life of the Regent seemed not much better than that of his father. The Princess had been wandering over Europe and the East, giving rise to flagrant scandal by her irregular mode of life. When her husband became King, his Government offered her £50,000 a year to renounce her title of Queen and live abroad; but, acting under the advice of Brougham, she declined this, returned to London, and the consequence was the trial for divorce which occupied so much of Creevey’s time and correspondence during the year. Meanwhile he paid a visit under Brougham’s auspices to Lady Jersey at Middleton. From this time forward, his second step-daughter, Miss Elizabeth Ord—“Bessy” and “Barry” of a thousand letters—became his constant correspondent.

* Lord Ossulston.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Middleton [Lord Jersey’s], Jan. 21, 1820.

“. . . We got to Cashiobury [Lord Essex’s] at ½ past five on Wednesday, too late to see the outside of the house, and were shown into a most comfortable library—a beautiful room 50 feet in length, full of books and every comfort. . . . We passed a most agreeable evening. I did not see the flower garden, which is the great lion of the place. Brougham and I had a most agreeable drive here, not the less so to me from the extraordinary friendliness of him. . . . We arrived here yesterday at five. We found only Lord Foley and Berkeley Craven, and they are gone this morning, so we compose only a quartette. The house is immensely large, apparently, for I have not seen it all, and cannot get out for the immense fall of snow during the night. . . .”

“23rd January.

“. . . Shall I tell you what Lady Jersey is like? She is like one of her numerous gold and silver musical dickey birds, that are in all the shew rooms of this house. She begins to sing at eleven o’clock, and, with the interval of the hour she retires to her cage to rest, she sings till 12 at night without a moment’s interruption. She changes her feathers for dinner, and her plumage both morng. and eveng. is the happiest and most beautiful I ever saw. Of the merits of her songs I say nothing till we meet. In the meantime I will say that I presume we are getting on, for this morning her ladyship condescended to give me two fingers to shake, and last night asked me twice to give her my verses on the Duke of Northumberland, as she had mislaid and could not find the copy Gertrude Bennet had given her. . . .”

“Liverpool, Jan. 30.

“. . . What think you of the accounts of the King? He is, I apprehend, rapidly approaching to his death—and then for the Queen and Bruffam! I did not tell you the other day, he has now in his possession the proper instrument signed by herself, appointing him her Attorney-General. The moment she is Queen—that is, the moment the breath is out of the King’s body—this gives Bruffam instant rank in his profession, such as silk gown, precedence, &c., &c., in defiance of King, Chancellor and all the world, besides its importance in the public eye.”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Hill St., 5th Feb. “Dear C.,

“Your advice has been followed by anticipation (to speak Irish); at this moment my courier is within a couple of days’ journey of the Queen. He was despatched on Sunday, for I had early notice from the D. of Sussex* coming to my bedside at 2 in the morning. The courier (Sicard) was with me by 7, and after some delay for a passport from the P. Minister, he was off. He took my appointment and Denman’s as Atty. and Solr. General, as I did not like to use the blank one I have with me. He also took a letter from me, giving her no choice, but commanding her instantly to set out by land, and be at Brussells or Paris or Calais immediately. Then she will demand a yatch.

“Now—the young King† has been as near death as any man but poor Kent ever was before—150 oz. of blood let have saved his precious life. I never prayed so heartily for a Prince before. If he had gone, all the troubles of these villains‡ went with him, and they had Fred. I.§ their own man for his life—i.e. a shady Tory-professional King, who would have done a job or two for Lauderdale, smiled on Lady [Jersey], been civil at Holland House, and shot Tom Coke’s‖ legs and birds, without ever deviating right hand or left, or giving them,⁋ politically, the least

* About the King’s danger.

† Young, not in years, but in reign. It was just a week since the accession.

‡ Ministers.

§ The Duke of York.

‖ Of Holkham, created Earl of Leicester in 1837.

⁋ Ministers.

annoyance. This King they will have too, for the present man can’t long survive. He (Fred. I.) won’t live long either;* that Prince of Blackguards ‘Brother William’ is as bad a life,† so we come in the course of nature to be assassinated by King Ernest I. or Regent Ernest.‡

“Meanwhile, the change of name which Mrs. P.§ has undergone has had a wondrous effect on publick feeling. She is extremely popular. . . . The cry at the Proclamation was God save the Queen! but Perry durst not put it in his paper, tho’ with the respectability which belongs to Mackintosh’s gent of the Daily Press. He told me all this in private.

“The rage of the new monarch against Leach and Eldon and Co. exceeds all bounds. He finds he has now a Queen in possession to [illegible], she having 70 places (some of them very fat ones) to give away. I think of making her replace or offer to replace all the old Queen’s pensioned household, to save salaries, and stop the mouths of a few courtiers, who will soon find out that she has every virtue.

“Yours, “H. B.”

The demise of the Monarch rendered necessary, according to the constitutional law of those days, a dissolution of Parliament, and this was accordingly effected by Royal Proclamation on 29th February. Mr. Creevey was returned for the borough of Appleby, by favour of his friend the Earl of Thanet. Mr. Wilbraham, writing to Lord Colchester, the former Speaker, observed: “I see no material change in your old dominions, the House of Commons, which is constituted of much the same materials as the last, with the addition of Creevey, who has become a great orator in his old age.”

* He died in 1827.

† The Duke of Clarence [William IV.].

‡ The Duke of Cumberland.

§ The Princess of Wales, who had become Queen Caroline.

The profit which “the Mountain” had been waiting so long and impatiently to derive from the return of Queen Caroline turned to ashes in their hands. Popular sympathy, indeed, was vehemently—dangerously—in her favour, and the name of George IV. had only to be mentioned to create a hostile manifestation. So far so good, from the Mountain’s point of view; but, on the other hand, the question thus revived only made more manifest the schism in the Opposition. Lord Grey and the Old Whigs shrank from espousing the cause of the Queen, which, however just it might be, was in truth exceedingly humiliating and even unsavoury. Holland House held aloof from the movement, and there appears in consequence a marked change in the references by Creevey and his friends to that great Whig rendezvous and its inmates.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Liverpool, 24th July.

“. . . As for the wretched dirt and meanness of Holland House, it makes me perfectly sick. I have had the same story from Brougham some months back, who was then himself a competitor with Mackintosh for an epitaph upon poor Fox’s tombstone. He repeated to me the thing got up by Mackintosh, which was fifty thousand times inferior to the lowest ballad in favor of the Queen. But Holland House has quite made up its mind that the two great and brilliant features of Fox’s publick life (his resistance to the war upon America and the glorious fight which he made single-handed against helping the Bourbons to trample on the French nation) shall never have the sanction of either my lady or Mackintosh to appear in his history, and all this, least it might interfere with any arrangement. This is the true history of this despicable twaddling. . . .”

The Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“. . . Have you heard of the competition about the inscription for Fox’s monument? Nothing can be more ridiculous than the intrigues about it at Holland House. Mackintosh’s was preferred there to Grey’s, tho’ by all accounts it was great trash and Grey’s very good. Lady H. found fault with the latter, and it was agreed that Mrs. Fox’s opinion should be asked. She answered in Ly. H.’s words, and showed plainly she had been prepared with a reply. The end is, the monument is to be without any inscription but C. J. Fox. Can you conceive, in times like these, such stuff being made of importance?”

In regard to the proceedings of and against Queen Caroline, which formed the chief topic of public interest and gossip after the elections were decided, there is a vast amount of correspondence among Mr. Creevey’s papers. He seems to have mistrusted Brougham throughout, who, of course, can be easily perceived, at this distance of time, to have behaved with the utmost cynicism, and to have treated the Queen and her cause as so much capital, to be turned to profit for his party, and, above all, for himself. Creevey seems to have been swayed alternately by indignation at Brougham’s insincerity and admiration for his sagacity and rhetoric.

The facts of the case are matters of well-known history. It is only expedient to recapitulate the chief stages in the melancholy story, and to extract from Creevey’s daily letters during the trial those passages which bring the tragic scene most vividly before the reader.

The reports of the Princess of Wales’s proceedings in the south of Europe, notably of the familiar terms to which she habitually admitted a male servant named Bergami, had become so persistent and specific that they could no longer be disregarded. So, at least, thought the Prince Regent and his Ministers. Accordingly in 1818 a commission was appointed and sent into Germany and Italy to collect such evidence as might afford ground for a divorce. The matter was of the greater gravity inasmuch as infidelity on the part of the Queen Consort or wife of the Heir Apparent constituted high treason and was punishable by death.

In June, 1819, Brougham made a proposal to Lord Liverpool on behalf, but without the knowledge, of the Princess of Wales, binding her to reside permanently abroad and never to assume the rank and title of Queen of England, on condition that her allowance of £35,000 a year should be secured to her for life, instead of terminating with the demise of the Crown. Lord Liverpool replied that there would be no unwillingness to treat on these terms, if her Royal Highness gave her approval to them. Needless to say that such a proposal, coming from the Princess’s principal legal adviser at such a time, or, indeed, at any time, was considered tantamount to an acknowledgment of her guilt, or, at least, want of confidence in her defence.

In September of that year Brougham desired the Princess to meet him at Lyons, but although she went there and waited for him several weeks, he never took the trouble to keep the appointment, and no consultation took place between them upon the negotiation with Lord Liverpool.

On the accession of George IV. Caroline became de facto Queen of England. The King pressed vehemently that she should be brought to trial; his Ministers shrank from the obloquy which would fall upon the Crown whatever might be the result of such a trial. The King exercised his prerogative in forbidding the Queen’s name to be printed in the Liturgy, and that she should be named in the public prayers of the Established Churches.

On 15th April Lord Liverpool communicated to Brougham an offer identical with Brougham’s of the previous year, except that the allowance to be paid was increased from £35,000 to £50,000 a year. One of the least defensible points in Brougham’s conduct in regard to this case was that he neither communicated this proposal to Queen Caroline, nor, on the other hand, informed the Cabinet that it had not been made known to her Majesty.

In March Queen Caroline published a manifesto in the newspapers, setting forth some of her grievances; in May she began to travel north, and invited Brougham to meet her, which he did, accompanied by Lord Hutchinson, at Saint Omer, on 3rd June. Brougham made known to the Queen that Hutchinson was charged with certain proposals on her behalf from the Government, namely, the terms which Brougham ought to have made known to her long before. These terms having been submitted to her Majesty, she emphatically refused them, acting under Brougham’s advice.

Leaving Brougham at Saint Omer, the Queen, accompanied by Alderman Wood and his son, Lady Anne Hamilton, and a person named Austin, sailed from Calais, and landed at Dover on 6th June. She was received by a royal salute from the garrison, and travelled to London in a kind of triumphal procession, arriving there the following day. The mob were vehemently in her favour; all houses were illuminated—some from sympathy, many out of fear that the windows would be smashed in, and the most crying scandal of the nineteenth century was well under way. Lord Liverpool brought a message to the House of Lords from the King, announcing that his Majesty “thinks it necessary, in consequence of the arrival of the Queen, to communicate to the House of Lords certain papers respecting the conduct of her Majesty since her departure from this Kingdom, which he recommends to the immediate and serious attention of the House.” A similar message was communicated to the House of Commons by Lord Castlereagh. Negotiations with the Queen were opened in order to induce her to leave the country quietly, Lords Fitzwilliam and Sefton being appointed to act for her Majesty, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh for the King’s Government. This stamped the proceedings emphatically as a party contest, and this character was further emphasised later by the substitution of Messrs. Brougham and Denman, Attorney-General and Solicitor-General to the Queen, for the two Whig Lords.

After five days’ conference, the negotiations broke down upon the question of restoring to the Liturgy the name of “our most gracious Queen Caroline.” Upon that point King George was inflexible. When Brougham insisted upon it, “You might as easily move Carlton House,” said Castlereagh. The ferment out-of-doors was mounting and spreading. Meetings were got up all over the country to protest against the persecution of the Queen. There was no regular police force in London at this time;* the Guards were relied upon for maintaining public order, but the Guards had shown strong partiality for the Queen against the Government, and one battalion was in actual mutiny. On 19th June a debate arose in the House of Commons upon the King’s refusal to restore his Consort’s name to the Liturgy, in the course of which Denman used words which found an echo in millions of hearts throughout the realm. It had been urged from the Treasury Bench that even though the Queen was not mentioned by name in the Liturgy, she might be held as included in the general prayer for the royal family. “If her Majesty,” retorted Denman, “is included in any general prayer, it is in the prayer for all who are desolate and oppressed.”

On 5th July Lord Liverpool introduced in the Lords a Bill “to deprive her Majesty Queen Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of the title, prerogative rights, privileges and exemptions of Queen Consort of this realm, and to dissolve the marriage between his Majesty and the said Caroline Amelia Elizabeth.”

The second reading was taken in the Lords on 17th August, and showed a singular combination of judicial and parliamentary procedure, evidence being taken for prosecution and defence, and the verdict given in the division on the second reading, which did not take place till November, when it was carried by 123 votes to 95.

In Mr. Creevey’s daily letters to Miss Ord, from which a number of extracts follow, will be found some curious personal impressions of the painful scene.

* The origin of the present police force may be traced in a memorandom by the Duke of Wellington upon the situation at this time [Civil Despatches, i. 128].

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Knowsley, 7th August, 1820.

“. . . I came here on Saturday. I like Lady Mary* better every time I see her. You know what a d——d ramshackle of a library they have here, so I was complaining at breakfast this morning that they had no State Trials in the house; upon which Lady Mary said she was sure she could find some, and accordingly flew from her breakfast and came back in triumph at having found them for me. Upon the subject of the Queen, my lord and my lady are both substantially right, i.e., in thinking there is not a pin to chuse between them, and that the latter has been always ill-used, and that nobody but the King could get redress in such a case against his wife. Little Derby goes further than the Countess, when she is not by; but she thinks it proper to deprecate all violence, and says, tho’ Bennet and I are excellent men, and she likes us both extremely, still, that we are like Dives, and that Lazarus ought to come occasionally and cool our tongues. Is not this the image of her?”

“Liverpool, 12th August.

“I left Knowsley yesterday. Lord Derby has received a letter from Lord Roslyn, telling him there had been a devil of a blow up between the King and Duke of York. The latter wanted to absent himself from the approaching trial of the Queen; I presume from feelings of delicacy in his situation as having lost his wife.† The King, however, was furious, and has commanded the Duke to be present on Thursday. . . . I cannot resist the curiosity of seeing a Queen tried. From the House of Lords or from Brooks’s you shall have a daily account of what passes.”

“London, 16th August.

“. . . I am just come from Lord Sefton. I learn from him that Lord Spencer has had an interview with Lord Liverpool, the object of it being friendly

* Lady Mary Stanley, married the 2nd Earl of Wilton in 1821.

† The Duchess of York died on 6th August, 1820.

on the part of Lord Spencer, at the same time to implore Liverpool to pause, and to retract indeed, before this terrible work was entered upon. Liverpool was friendly in return, and quite unreserved. . . . Lord Spencer was decidedly of opinion that the very openness of the Queen’s conduct carried with it her acquittal from the supposed crime. This is most curious from such a solemn chap as old Spencer. . . .”

“House of Lords, August 16th.

“. . . This is very convenient. There is not only the usual admission for the House of Commons upon the [steps of] the Throne,* but pen, ink and paper for our accommodation in the long gallery. There is a fine chair for the Queen within the bar, to be near her counsel and the two galleries. This makes all the difference. Two hundred and fifty peers are to attend, 60 being excused from age, infirmities, being abroad or professing the Catholic faith.

“Wilberforce told Bennet that the act of his life which he most reproached himself with was not having moved to restore the Queen to the Liturgy, and he was sure this was the only course. Grey says the Queen ought to be sent to the Tower for her letter to the King.

“Here is Castlereagh, smiling as usual, though I think awkwardly. . . . Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt has just been here and tho’ in his official dress as Black Rod, was most communicative. He says the Government is stark, staring mad; that they want to prevent his receiving the Queen to-morrow at the door as Queen, but that he will. . . .”

“17th August.

“. . . Near the House of Lords there is a fence of railing put across the street from the Exchequer coffee-house to the enclosed garden ground joining to St. Margaret’s churchyard, through which members of both Houses were alone permitted to pass. A minute after I passed, I heard an uproar, with hissing

* In the present House of Lords admission to the steps of the throne is restricted to Privy Councillors and sons of Peers; accommodation being provided elsewhere for the Commons.

and shouting. On turning round I saw it was Wellington on horseback. His horse made a little start, and he looked round with some surprise. He caught my eye as he passed, and nodded, but was evidently annoyed.

“I got easily into the Lords and to a place within two yards of the chair placed for the Queen, on the right hand of the throne, close to its steps. They proceeded to call over the House and to receive excuses from absent peers. As the operation was going on, people came in who said the Queen was on her way and as far as Charing Cross. Two minutes after, the shouts of the populace announced her near approach, and some minutes after, two folding doors within a few feet of me were suddenly thrown open, and in entered her Majesty. To describe to you her appearance and manner is far beyond my powers. I had been taught to believe she was as much improved in looks as in dignity of manners; it is therefore with much pain I am obliged to observe that the nearest resemblance I can recollect to this much-injured Princess is a toy which you used to call Fanny Royds.* There is another toy of a rabbit or a cat, whose tail you squeeze under its body, and then out it jumps in half a minute off the ground into the air. The first of these toys you must suppose to represent the person of the Queen; the latter the manner by which she popped all at once into the House, made a duck at the throne, another to the Peers, and a concluding jump into the chair which was placed for her. Her dress was black figured gauze, with a good deal of trimming, lace, &c.: her sleeves white, and perfectly episcopal; a handsome white veil, so thick as to make it very difficult to me, who was as near to her as any one, to see her face; such a back for variety and inequality of ground as you never beheld; with a few straggling ringlets on her neck, which I flatter myself from their appearance were not her Majesty’s own property.

“She squatted into her chair with such a grace that the gown is at this moment hanging over every part

* A Dutch toy with a round bottom, weighted with lead, so that it always jumps erect in whatever position it is laid.

of it—both back and elbows. . . . When the Queen entered, the Lords (Bishops and all) rose, and then they fell to calling over the House again and receiving excuses. When the Duke of Sussex’s name was called, the Chancellor read his letter, begging to be excused on the ground of consanguinity; upon which the Duke of York rose, and in a very marked and angry tone said:—‘I have much stronger ground for asking leave of absence than the Duke of Sussex, and yet I should be ashamed not to be present to do my duty!’ This indiscreet observation (to say no worse of it) was by no means well received or well thought of, and when the question was put ‘that the Duke of Sussex be excused upon his letter,’ the House granted it with scarce a dissentient voice. Pretty well, this, for the Duke of York’s observation!

“Well—this finished, and the order read ‘that the House do proceed with the Bill,’ the Duke of Leinster rose and said in a purely Irish tone that, without making any elaborate speech, and for the purpose of bringing this business to a conclusion, he should move that this order be now rescinded. Without a word from any one on this subject the House divided, we members of the Commons House remaining. There were 41 for Leinster and 206 (including 17 Bishops) against him; but, what was more remarkable, there were 20 at least of our Peers who voted against the Duke of Leinster—as Grey, Lansdowne, Derby, Fitzwilliam, Spencer, Erskine, Grafton, de Clifford, Darlington, Yarborough, &c. Lord Kenyon and Lord Stanhope were the only persons who struck me in the Opposition as new. The Duke of Gloucester would not vote, notwithstanding cousin York’s observations. Holland, the Duke of Bedford, old Fortescue, Thanet, &c., were of course in the minority. . . . This division being over, Carnarvon objected in a capital speech to any further proceeding, and was more cheered than is usual with the Lords; but no doubt it was from our 40 friends. Then came Grey and I think he made as weak a speech as ever I heard: so thought Brougham and Denman who were by me. He wanted the opinion of the Judges upon the statute of Edward III. as to a Queen’s treason, and after speeches from Eldon, Liverpool and Lansdowne, Grey’s motion is acceded to, and the Judges are now out preparing their opinion, and all is at a stand.

“I forgot to say Lady Ann Hamilton* waits behind the Queen, and that, for effect and delicacy’s sake, she leans on brother Archy’s† arm, tho’ she is full six feet high, and bears a striking resemblance to one of Lord Derby’s great red deer. Keppel Craven and Sir William Gell likewise stand behind the Queen in full dress. . . . Lord John Russell† is writing on my right hand, and Sir Hussey Vivian§ on my left. I have just read over my account of the Queen to the latter, and he deposes to its perfect truth.

“I have just given this lad, Lord John, such a fire for his buttering of Wilberforce‖ that he had more blood in his little white face than I ever saw before; but all the Russells are excellent, and in my opinion there is nothing in the aristocracy to be compared with this family.”

“Four o’clock.

“Well, the Judges returned, as one knew they would, saying there was no statute-law or law of the land touching the Queen’s case. Then counsel were called in; upon which the Duke of Hamilton, in a most excellent manner, ask’d Mr. Attorney General for whom he appeared, or by whose instructions. A more gravelling question could not well be put, as appeared by Mr. Attorney’s manner. He shifted and snuffled about, and Liverpool helped, and Lord Belhaven ended the conversation by declaring his utter ignorance of the prosecution—whether it was by the Crown, the Ministers, or the House of Lords. . . . There are great crowds of people about the House, and all the way up Parliament Street. The Guards, both horse and foot, are there too in great numbers, but I saw nothing except good humour on all sides.

* Second daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton.

† Lord Archibald Hamilton, M.P., second son of the 9th Duke of Hamilton.

‡ Afterwards Prime Minister; created Earl Russell in 1861.

§ Commanded the Light Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo; created a baronet in 1828, and Lord Vivian in 1841.

‖ Lord John had written to Wilberforce upon the Queen’s trial, complimenting him incidentally upon his talents.

The Civil Power has regained the Pass of Killiecranky * again, but it is fought for every time a carriage passes. . . .”

“Brooks’s, 5 o’clock.

“Brougham in his speech has fired a body blow into the Duke of York on Mrs. Clark’s affair, which has given great offence.”

“York St., 18th Aug.

“. . . Brougham’s speech (the last hour of which I did not hear) is allowed on all hands to have been excellent. We had a full Brooks’s last night, and much jaw; Grey affable, quite sure the bill will be knocked up sooner or later, and offering to take [? lay] ten to one it will disappear, even in the Lords, before Saturday fortnight. He knows the cursed folly he committed yesterday in forsaking the Duke of Leinster. . . . Western is first rate in his decision that it won’t do, and that Grey never can shew his face as a public man again. . . .”

“House of Lords, 12 o’clock.

“. . . Denman is speaking as well as possible, tho’ I am all against his introducing jokes, which he has been doing somewhat too much. I was much astonished at their lordships being so much and so universally tickled as they were by some of his stories. Denman, holding the bill in his hand, said:—‘Levity of manner is one of its charges. Why this charge, applies to all Royal people: they are all good-tempered and playful.’ Then he gave a conversation which took place between his present Majesty and Sam Spring, the waiter at the Cocoa Tree, where Sam cracked his jokes and was very familiar with the Prince; upon which the latter said:—‘This is all very well between you and me, Sam, but beware of being equally familiar with Norfolk and Abercorn.’ All the Lords recognised the story and snorted out hugely—Bishops and all.

“I thought the Lords rose to receive the Queen with a better grace to-day than yesterday. Everything respecting her coming to the House is now as perfect as possible. She has a most superb and beautiful

* The barrier described on p. 306.

coach with six horses—the coachman driving in a cap, like the old king’s coachman; and a good coach of her own behind for Craven and Gell. . . .”

“Brooks’s, 5 o’clock.

“. . . Nothing can be more triumphant for the Queen than this day altogether. . . . The truth is the Law Officers of the Crown are damnably overweighted by Brougham and Denman. . . .”

“House of Lords, 19th August.

“. . . The Queen is not here to-day; and she does not mean to come, I believe, till Tuesday. I am rather sorry for this, because there was so very great, and so well-dressed, a population in the street to see her to-day. Where the devil they all come from, I can’t possibly imagine, but I think the country about London must furnish a great part. It is prodigiously encreased since the first day. . . . Now Mr. Attorney General has at last begun by opening his case against the Queen, and I have heard just one hour of him, and then left it. Now her danger begins, and I am quite unable to conjecture the degree of damage she will sustain from the publication of this opening. I say degree, because of course it is quite impossible that a very great effect should not be produced upon the better orders of people by the production of this cursed, disgusting narrative, however overstated it may eventually prove to be, and however short (if all strictly true) it may fall of the actual crime charged by the Bill.”

“Brooks’s, 22nd Aug., ½ past 4.

“. . . Upon the whole, I hope things are looking better for us to-day. The people in the streets were numerous, but not so much so as formerly, nor was their quality so good. Yesterday’s evidence had certainly shook her friends—always excepting Lady Gwydyr* and her family at their house at Whitehall. I stood on Lord Melbourne’s steps to see the Queen pass, and the Dowr. Gwydyr (alias Eresby) with all

* The Dowager Lady Gwydyr was Lady Willoughby d’Eresby and joint Great Chamberlain in her own right.

her family black as sloes, with weepers, windows open, &c., all bowed at once again and again, with an awe and devotion as if they had been good Catholicks and the Queen the Virgin Mary. . . .”

“House of Lords, 25th Aug., 1 o’clock.

“Our matters, so far in the day, stand much better than they did at the close of yesterday. The two captains, Pechell and Briggs, have been called, and so far from proving anything against the Queen, they have distinctly sworn there was not the slightest impropriety in the conduct of the Queen during the period she was on board their ships. The fact of Bergami having come the first time as servant, and afterwards sitting at table on board one of these ships, was of course proved; but everybody knew it before, and it does not signify a damn. . . .

“The discovery of this day, viz. that Capts. Briggs and Pechell were to be the only English witnesses produced against the Queen, was most agreeable and unexpected to me, because of a conversation which had passed between the Duke of Wellington and myself on the subject. The night after I made my speech in the House of Commons in support of Genl. Ferguson’s motion for the production of the Milan commission, I saw the Duke at the Argyle Rooms, who, with his usual frankness, came up to me and said:—‘Well, Creevey; so you gave us a blast last night. Have you seen Leach since?’ Then we talked about the approaching trial with the most perfect freedom, and upon my saying their foreign evidence would find very few believers in this country, he said:—‘Ho! but we have a great many English witnesses—officers;’ and this, I confess, was the thing that always frightened me the most. . . . I sat between Grey and Sir Robert Wilson* at Sefton’s

* General Sir Robert Thomas Wilson [1777-1849], commonly known as “Jaffa Wilson,” owing to the charges made against Napoleon of cruelty to his prisoners at Jaffa in Wilson’s History of the British Expedition to Egypt. Having warmly espoused the cause of Queen Caroline, he was present at the riot in Hyde Park on the occasion of Her Majesty’s funeral. Although he was endeavouring to prevent a

yesterday, and two greater fools I never saw in all my life. The former, in consequence of the day’s evidence being unfavourable to the Queen, was a rigid lover of justice: he did not care a damn about the cause: he was come up to do his duty, and should act accordingly. Wilson, on the other hand, was perfectly certain the Bill would never pass the House of Lords, and that, if it did, it must take at least two years in the Commons. Tierney was more guarded in his opinion. He said he had got something in his head somehow or other that the Bill would never come to us in the House of Commons. So much for the chiefs in the Whig camp.* Thanet and I agreed afterwards as to their insanity. I dine with him and Cowper at Brooks’s to-day, and tomorrow at the house of the latter to meet the Derbys, &c. Western is gone to Fornham [the Duke of Norfolk’s] to-day. The Duke asked me to come with him.”

“Brooks’s, 2 o’clock, 26th August.

“I am just returned from the Lords, and their lordships have hampered themselves as with one of their own absurdities, that they have adjourned till Monday to consider how they are to get out of it. . . . I am at this moment the centre of at least a dozen lords. You may suppose it is a scrape when Wickedshifts Grey is at this moment grinning from ear to ear, and telling me he sees no way out of it but by the Lords adjourning the second reading of the bill for six months. Old Fitzwilliam tells me he thinks little of the chambermaid’s evidence; and, as to that, both Grey and King, think much less of it than I do. Certain it is that Mr. Attorney’s perfect incompetence to manage a case like this, added to the villainy of the Court, gives considerable—indeed a very great—advantage to the case of this, eternal fool, to call her [the Queen] by no worse a name. . . .”

collision between the Horse Guards and the mob, and despite a long record of gallant service in the field, Wilson was dismissed the army in 1821, but was reinstated on the accession of William IV.

* Nevertheless the chiefs were right—Grey in his resolution to give his verdict according to the evidence, Tierney in predicting that the Bill would never reach the Commons.

“House of Lords, 3 o’clock, 28th August.

“. . . I met Lady Charlotte Greville in the street yesterday, and walked a little with her, when I found her fury against Brougham to be perfectly unbounded. I told her her state of mind was everything I could wish, and so I left her. There is a report about, said to rest on good authority, that the King sent for the Duke of York yesterday, and that he wants to go to Hanover,* leaving the Duke Regent.

“House of Lords, 29th August, 5 o’clock.

“Here’s a capital scene such as I never saw before. Always keep in mind the point in discussion—viz. whether Brougham should have a little cross-examination now, and an unlimited one hereafter. This was conceded to him early on Saturday—refused yesterday, and to-day Harrowby begins by moving that, under the peculiar circumstances, Brougham shall have an unlimited cross-examination both now and hereafter. This motion was opposed by Lord Eldon, and a division has just taken place, when Harrowby’s motion was carried by 121 to 106. The three law lords—Eldon, Redesdale, and Manners—the two Royal Dukes—York and Clarence—and all the King’s friends were in the minority, and Sidmouth was the only other member of the Cabinet besides Eldon who voted against Harrowby’s motion. Our people of course voted with Harrowby. Was there ever such a state of things?. . .”

“House of Lords, 2 o’clock, 1st Sept., 1820.

The chienne Demont† turns out everything one could wish on her cross-examination. Her letters have been produced written to her sister living still in the Queen’s service. . . . They contain every kind of panegyric upon the Queen, and she often writes of a journal or diary she has kept of everything that has occurred during the whole of her service and travels

* George IV. was hereditary sovereign of Hanover as well as of Great Britain and Ireland.

† Former femme-de-chambre to the Princess of Wales (Queen Caroline), an important witness for the prosecution.

with the Queen; the object of such journal being, as she says, to do the Queen justice, and to show how she was received, applauded, cherished, wherever she went. At length she writes—‘Judge of my astonishment at an event that happened to me the other day. A person called upon me at Lausanne, and said he wished to speak to me alone. I brought him up into my chamber: he gave me a letter: I broke the seal. It was a request that I would come immediately to England under the pretext of being a governess: that I should have the first protection: that it would make my fortune. True it is, there was no signature to the letter, but as a proof of its validity I had an immediate credit given me on a banker.’ The Attorney-General here objected to this evidence. . . .”

“½ past 3.

“The House put a question to the Judges whether these letters could be read in evidence, and they decided they could not unless Demont admitted them to be her handwriting. They have just been put into her hands, and she has admitted them all to be hers. . . .”

“5 o’clock.

“Adjourned . . . a most infernally damaging day for the prosecution. . . .”

“House of Lords, 2 o’clock, 2nd Sept.

“The chienne Demont is still under her cross-examination, and is, if possible, fifty times nearer the devil to-day than she was yesterday. . . . I have told you, I believe, that the Bishops won’t support the Divorce part of the Bill, and that in consequence it is to be withdrawn; so that the title of the Bill ought to be—‘A Bill to declare the Queen a w——, and to settle her upon the King for life, because from his own conduct he is not entitled to a divorce.’”

“House of Lords, Sept. 4, 3 o’clock.

“Here’s a fellow examining who says he came on Saturday night with eleven others, so it can’t close so soon as I had thought. We are still in the dark as to the Lugano devil being included in this arrival. He is the fellow Brougham has always been the most afraid of: however, he has just told me there are such proofs of the high price his evidence is to cost, that he thinks he shall do for him. . . .”

“Brooks’s, 5 o’clock.

“Eleven witnesses examined to-day: much dirt and some damage certainly.”

“House of Lords, Sept. 6.

“. . . Do you know this bill will never pass! My belief is it will be abandoned on the adjournment. The entire middle order of people are against it, and are daily becoming more critical on the King and the Lords for carrying on this prosecution.”

“½ past two.

“By far the most infamous act that even this jury of the Lords ever committed has just been done by them. The Judges, after three hours’ consultation, decided that a particular question, proposed by Brougham, could not be put. Lord Buckingham has just put the same question thinking it would damage the Queen. No one objected. The answer was given, and compleatly the reverse of what Lord B. expected. Then Brougham rose and with great gravity said:—‘My lords, I humbly request your lordships to accept my thanks for having permitted a member of your own House to put a question which, only two hours ago, after great deliberation and consultation with the Judges, you refused to me.’ Not a word or a sound was heard in answer to this knock-down blow from Bruffam. He told me afterwards that it was by his own address and personal application to Lord Buckingham that the latter was induced to put the question. . . .”

“½ past 4.

“The evidence is closed—that is, all that is in England. Mr. Attorney has been making his application for an adjournment of a few days to give time for the Lugano witnesses to arrive. Brougham’s objection to this has been the feeblest effort he has yet made, and Mr. Attorney is now replying. I suppose it will be granted, and this will fill up the measure of their lordships’ iniquity.

“P.S.—Erskine has made the most beautiful speech possible: Grey an excellent one: Eldon and Liverpool are shook, and I think the application will be refused.”

“Brooks’s, Sept. 6, 12 o’clock at night.

“I have been dining to-day at Lord Sefton’s with the Duke of Bedford, Lords Grey, Thanet, Cowper and Foley, Brougham, &c. Grey was a decided lunatic at dinner, and so Brougham and I settled him in a walk we had together. Brougham is quite aware of the prodigious part he has to play upon this approaching speech of his, and I have been trying all I can to make him connect himself with public opinion as far as he can consistently with propriety and the dignity of his situation.

“House of Lords, 12 o’clock, 7th Sept.

“The first thing done to-day was Mr. Attorney coming forward and stating that within the preceding half hour he had received letters from abroad, stating that the journey of the Lugano witnesses was unavoidably delayed, and that under such circumstances he should not persist in asking for time. So, after this infernal lie, he said his case was closed. . . . Mr. Solicitor is now summing up.

“Here’s a breeze! The Solicitor having finished, Lauderdale moved that the Queen’s counsel be asked if they were ready to go on, upon which Lord Lonsdale begged to state that, before such question was put, it would be a great satisfaction to him and others to learn that the divorce part of the Bill was to be given up; upon which Lord Liverpool said if it was the wish of the religious part of the House and of the community that this clause should be withdrawn, his Majesty had no personal wish in having it made part of the bill. . . . Well! Grey made a speech for the divorce part remaining! and Donoughmore is now asserting with great fury that Liverpool has given the King’s consent without his leave.”

“8th Sept.

“. . . It is said Ministers are quite determined not to let Brougham open his case now. For the first time, he bullied the Lords a little too much yesterday; so much so, that he has turned Carnarvon quite violently against him; which is a very great pity, because he is so eminently useful.

“I had a most agreeable day yesterday at Cowper’s, the company being the Derbys, Jerseys, Lansdownes, Grey, Thanet and Erskine. It was my good fortune to sit next the latter, and he was as lively and as much the soul of the company at 72 as he could have been at 32. . . . You know the Queen went down the river yesterday. I saw her pass the H. of Commons on the deck of her state barge; the river and the shores of it were then beginning to fill. Erskine, who was afterwards at Blackfriars Bridge, said he was sure there were 200,000 people collected to see her. . . . There was not a single vessel in the river that did not hoist their colours and man their yards for her, and it is with the greatest difficulty that the watermen on the Thames, who are all her partisans, are kept from destroying the hulk which lies off the H. of Commons to protect the witnesses in Cotton Garden. . . . I dine to-day at Sefton’s: only Brougham and myself. . . .”

“House of Lords, 8th Sept., 1 o’clock.

“. . . Liverpool is now speaking against Grey, and when the debate is to end I know not, but Brougham has just called me out to consult with me. The Queen, backed by Wood, is all for going on de suite, and, as Brougham thinks, the decided plan is to fling her counsel overboard. In this situation of peril for the idiot, Brougham thinks of asking only till Monday fortnight to be ready to go on with his defence. . . .”

“Brooks’s, Sept. 9th.

“The House of Lords is adjourned to Tuesday three weeks, the 3rd of October. You can form no conception of the rage of the Lords at Brougham fixing this time: it interferes with everything—pheasant shooting, Newmarket, &c., &c. . . . Grey is just set out for Howick, the most furious of the set. . . . Brougham’s chaise is now at the door to carry him home to Brougham Castle. He has performed miracles, and the reasons he has just been giving me for fixing the time he has done, shew his understanding (if one doubted it) to be of the very first order. The Queen is delighted at their going on so soon: she clapped her hands with delight when he communicated it to her last night. . . .’

Mr. Western, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Buxton, 10th Sept.

“. . . The abandonment of the divorce clause forms the ultimate climax of baseness, cowardice, folly, &c. It is a Bill of Pains and Penalties upon the King, to expose him to the most dire disgrace that ever was inflicted upon mortal man—to enact that, whereas his wife is the most abandoned of women, he is a fit associate for her! Oh, there never was the like!!! . . .”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brougham, 14 Sept., 1820. “Dear C.,

“. . . Either you or Bennet should by all means ask a question respecting the two late outrages in Scotland committed by Sir Alexr. Gordon and his son Mr. James Gordon. These two worthies being at Crossmichael church one Sunday, and observing the parson, Mr. Jeffrey, pray for the Queen, they caused a vestry (kirk session) to be held instanter; and, there being no further notice, they two and the parson were the only members present; whereupon, by a majority of 2 to 1, they recorded a censure on him and an order against ever again praying for the Queen by name! The Presbytery, being the ordinary ecclesl. jurisdn., immediately took it up, revised the whole proceeding, and have ordered the parties to appear before them—I suppose to be censured. Again: the son, James Gordon, being Col. of a Yeomanry corps lately on duty, the chaplain, Mr. Gillespie (whom I have known for many years, and who is a man of admirable character and perfect loyalty), preached a very loyal discourse, but prayed for the Q. The Col. put him under arrest! The ecclesl. authorities have taken this matter up, and I suppose (indeed it is quite clear) must take Gillespie’s part strongly. But why do I specify these two matters? Because Jas. Gordon is a judge in Scotland, and an ecclesiastical one: viz. one of the Commissaries who are the 3 Judges of the supreme Consistorial Court at Edinr. . . . You are aware that the Scotch Church acknowledge no head but J. Christ—utterly denies the King’s or Parlt.’s right to interfere in any respect, and rejects with the utmost indignation all attempts (which, since the aboln. of Episcopacy, indeed, have never been made) to dictate, or even hint at, any form of prayers, each parson being left wholly to himself, except as far as the Church Courts (viz.; Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly) may regulate their doctrine and discipline. Now a question ought to be asked on this Gordon’s conduct. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, 13 Sept.

“. . . Do you know they say the King is intent upon turning out Lord Hertford to make room for Conyingham as Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Cholmondeley to make way for Lord Roden. Was there ever such insanity at such a time? It is said the Ministers have exacted a promise from him not to make the first change, at least pending the trial. In writing the last sentence, I heard a noise of hurraing and shouting in the street; so I ran out to see. It was, I may say, the Navy of England marching to Brandenburgh House with an address to the Queen. I have seen nothing like this before—nothing approaching to it. There were thousands of seamen, all well dressed, all sober—the best-looking, the finest men you could imagine. Every man had a new white silk or satin cockade in his hat. They had a hundred colours, at least, or pieces of silk, with sentiments upon them, such as ‘Protection to the Innocent,’ &c. M’Donald asked one of them how many there were, to which he answered very civilly—‘I don’t know, exactly, sir, but we are many thousands, and should have been many more, but we would not let any man above forty come, because we have so far to walk.’ Remember what I say—this procession decides the fate of the Queen. When the seamen take a part, the soldiers can’t fail to be shaken.”

“House of Lords, October 3rd, 1 o’clock.

“. . . Brougham has been at it nearly two hours and a half, and may continue an hour or two more, for aught I know; but it is infinitely too hot to stay in the crowd, so I have just escaped. . . . I think I may say he was as good as I expected. . . .”

“4 o’clock.

“He has been at it again two hours, and will evidently be so till five—criticism in detail upon the evidence for the prosecution—damned dull and damned hot, so I have been walking about amongst my friends on Westminster Bridge.”

“House of Lords, Oct. 4, ½ past 1.

“Brougham has just finished his opening. . . . I never heard him anything like the perfection he has displayed in all ways. . . . In short, if he can prove what he has stated in his speech, I for one believe she is innocent, and the whole case a conspiracy. . . . He concluded with a most magnificent address to the Lords—an exhortation to them to save themselves—the Church—the Crown—the Country, by their decision in favour of the Queen. This last appeal was made with great passion, but without a particle of rant. . . . I consider myself infinitely overpaid by these two hours and a half of Brougham, for all the time and money it has cost me to be here, and almost for my absence from all of you. . . .”

“Oct. 5th.

“. . . I had a very agreeable day at Powell’s with the Duke of Norfolk, who called for me here, and we walked there together. We went to Brooks’s at night, where, as you may suppose, the monde talked of nothing but Brougham and his fame, and the comers-in from White’s said the same feeling was equally strong there. . . . [The speech] not only astonished but has shaken the aristocracy, though Lord Granville did tell me at parting this morning not to be too confident of that, for that the H. of Lords was by far the stupidest and most obstinate collection of men that could be selected from all England. This, I think, from a peer himself, and old virtuoso Stafford’s brother, was damned fair. . . . General St. Leger was called, and was only useful as a very ornamental witness. . . . Then came Lord Guilford, who is the most ramshackle fellow you ever saw. He is a kind of non mi ricordo likewise.* He seems, however, to have been a pretty frequent guest at her Majesty’s table . . . has dined more than once with Bergami at the Queen’s table and that he never saw the slightest impropriety. . . . But the witness of all witnesses has just closed her examination in chief—Lady Charlotte Lindsay. In your life you never heard such testimony as hers in favour of the Queen—the talent, the perspicuity, the honesty of it. . . .”

“House of Lords, Oct. 6th.

“Wonders will never cease. Upon my soul! this Queen must be innocent after all. Lady Charlotte went on in her cross-examination, and could never be touched; tho’ she was treated most infamously—so much so as to make her burst out crying. There was a ticklish point about a letter from her brother, advising her to give up her place under the Queen, which [letter] she said she could not find. The fact

* Referring to the evidence of some of the Italian witnesses for the prosecution, who in cross-examination so often answered, Non mi ricordo—“I don’t remember”—that it passed into a saying.

is, her husband, Lindsay, who is in the greatest distress, has absolutely sold her correspondence on this subject to the Treasury. She told this to Brougham himself under the most solemn injunction of secrecy, and he has this instant told it to me. When, therefore, Brougham mentioned loudly the name of Maule as a person to be called as a witness, the Chancellor decided the letter should not be produced—this Maule being the Solicitor to the Treasury, who bought the correspondence of Lindsay. Was there ever villainy equal to this? Eldon and Liverpool had some sharp words on this occasion in the House. Thank God, the villains get out of temper with each other! . . . Gell, cross-examined and examined by the Lords, left everything still more triumphant for the Queen; so much so that Pelham and a few other bishops are gone home to cut their throats. Lord Enniskillen has just said in my hearing that the Ministers ought to be damned for coming out with such a case. . . .

“House of Lords, 9th Oct., 10 o’clock.

“. . . The town is literally drunk with joy at this unparalleled triumph of the Queen. There is no doubt now in any man’s mind, except Lauderdale’s, that the whole thing has been a conspiracy for money. The Ministers were down at Windsor yesterday, taking with them the ould customer Lonsdale, and a new one in the Duke of Rutland. . . .”

“4 o’clock.

“Captn. Flynn of the polacre is just call’d. He is mad, and in trying to do too much has, for the present, done harm; but it will be all set right to-morrow.”

“House of Lords, 2 o’clock, October 10th.

“This cursed Flynn is still going on. He has perjured himself three or four times over, and his evidence and himself are both gone to the devil. He is evidently a crack-brained sailor. . . . he has fainted away once, and been obliged to be carried out.”

“Brooks’s, 5 o’clock.

“. . . Lady Jersey stopt me in the street to reproach me for never coming to her, so I went last night and found all the political grandees there. Brougham, of course, was one, and he and I came away together. . . .”

“Oct. 12th, one o’clock.

“By Jove, my dear, we are coming to critical times, such as no man can tell the consequences of. It is quite understood that the Lords—at the suit of the Ministers—are resolved to pass this Bill, upon the sole point of the Queen being admitted to have slept under the tent on board the polacre, while Bergami slept there likewise. . . . I predict, with the most perfect confidence, that commotion and bloodshed must follow this enormous act of injustice, should it finally be committed; but (tho’ I stand alone in this opinion) I will not and do not believe the Bill will pass the Lords. I have this instant seen Brougham; . . . he says he means to call the Duchess of Beaufort, Ladies Harrowby, Bathurst, their husbands, &c., to prove their intimacy with the Queen till the Regency. He means, too, that the Queen shall bring down a statement of all her sufferings, and of everything relating to the Royal family, from her arrival in England. It is now copying, and she is to come down and deliver it to the Chancellor to be read before the Bill passes. Brougham says everything that has happened yet is absolutely nothing in effect compared with what this statement will do.*

“House of Lords, one o’clock, 13th October.

“. . . A question arose as to a point of evidence, and whether a particular question might be put; upon which Carnarvon fired such a shot into the whole concern, and called the bill such names as you never heard before. He made, in short, a most capital speech, and the thing exactly wanted at this period

* Subsequent note by Mr. Creevey.—“Why all or any of these threats were never put into execution remains for Mr. Brougham to explain.”

of the case; but alas! my lords Grey and Lansdowne and Holland were perfectly mute: they dared not criticise so roughly the measures of a man whom they hope so soon to call their Master. . . .”

“3 o’clock.

“Here’s a breeze of the first order! The last witness having ended, Rastelli was called back; when behold! it turned out he had been sent out of the country, instead of staying to be indicted for perjury. . . . Liverpool admits it was scandalous to send him away, but that it was unknown to the Government. Holland and Lansdowne have made furious speeches upon the occasion, and Eldon is now speaking. . . . I dine at Holland House to-day. . . . We shall nave a breeze on Tuesday in the Commons. The base devils who voted against me the last time are wanting me to make the same motion on Tuesday, and they will support me. . . .”

Duke of Norfolk to Mr. Creevey.

“Fornham, 13 Octr., 1820. “Dear Creevey,

“Are you really become the champion of the H. of Lds., and suppose there is any atrocity they are not ready to vote for? For my own part, if they do pass this horrible Bill, I shall no longer consider it a disgrace or a hardship to be excluded* from a seat in their House; but, on the contrary, rejoice that I have not been implicated in so foul a crime. Is it possible that the slight evidence they have for the tent scene alone can establish their whole case? I am anxious beyond measure to hear the result. Ly. Petre desires to be kindly remembered, and we hope you will come down. If by any miracle the Bill should not pass, what a jolification we will have!

“Yours sincerely, “Norfolk.”

* As a Roman Catholic.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“York St., 16th Oct.

“. . . I dined yesterday at Ridley’s with Grey, Lansdowne, Rosslyn, Sefton, Brougham and various others. Grey is looking horribly ill. I dine at Lord Derby’s to-day.”

“House of Lords, 2 o’clock.

“We are now evidently going to have a splashing debate. The same witness that we had on Saturday has deposed to another person besides Rastelli, of the name of Raganti, having attempted to bribe him to come and give evidence against the Queen. He not only offered him money to come, but told him the particular thing to swear to. Mr. Attorney and Solicitor have objected to this as evidence. Brougham has taken the opportunity of firing the most capital broadside into the whole concern as a conspiracy. . . . A damned flat debate going forward instead of a splashing one. Grey has moved that the examination shall proceed, and Liverpool opposed it, but has let out most clearly to my mind that all the Italian evidence is to be flung overboard. So much for the Milan commission! . . . I find that Hutchinson and Donoughmore were with the King at Windsor to-day, so Liverpool’s speech is accounted for. It is the first breakdown.”

“House of Lords, 17th Oct., 1 o’clock.

“. . . I went in from the Derbys last night to ‘Sally’ Jersey’s, and it was really very agreeable—only ‘Sally,’ Madame Lieven, Lady Eliz. Stuart and Madame Flahault, with four or five men besides myself.

“The House of Commons meets at ½ past three to-day, and I must contrive somehow or other to have a brush there. . . .”

“House of Lords, 18th Oct., 1 o’clock.

“Alas poor Cole!* I had always a misgiving she would get her death from me, and last night I fear the presentiment was nearly verified. It was a great deal too contemptible to hear the leader of the Whigs, with this damnable Bill of Pains and Penalties before his eyes, meet a question of adjournment with the ridiculous amendment of a shorter adjournment, and without uttering a syllable upon the Bill itself or the circumstances of the time. I was compelled, therefore, to take the field, as no one else seemed inclined to shew. I had not pronounced two sentences before one and all of his troops deserted him. The roar that resounded from every part of the benches behind him (which were very full) was as extraordinary to me as it must have been agreeable to him. . . . As to the speech itself, being right and absolutely necessary to be spoken were its principal merits. I lost my head in the middle of it, and thought I should have been obliged to sit down, tho’ I never was so cheered during any speech I have made in Parliament. Sefton overheard a conversation between Cole and Duncannon at night, in which the latter said—‘Had you come to town a day earlier, an arrangement might have been made, and all

* Note by Mr. Creevey.—“The reason I call Tierney by the name of ‘Cole’ is this. It used to be his constant practice in making his speeches in Parliament to bear particular testimony to his own character—to his being a ‘plain man,’ ‘ an honest man,’ or something of that kind. Having heard him at this work several times, it occurred to me that he had formed himself upon that distinguished model Mrs. Cole, an old lady in one of Foote’s farces, who presided over a female establishment in Covent Garden. Mrs. Cole was always indulging herself with flattering references to her own character.—‘For fourteen years,’ said she, ‘have I lived in the Garden, and no one has said black was the white of my eye. For fourteen years, did I say? Aye, for sixteen years come Lammas Day have I paid scot and lot in the parish of St. Bride’s, and no one has said, “Mrs. Cole, why did you so?” excepting twice I was taken before Mr. Justice Duval, and three times to the Round House.’ Brougham was for many years quite enamoured of the resemblance of the portrait. He christened Abercromby Young Cole, and the whole shabby party ‘the Coles;’ but he has become much more prudent and respectful of late.”

this scene avoided.’—‘No,’ said Cole, ‘I am confident nothing would have stopt Creevey’s mouth.’ Poor thing! she has not been here to-day, so I suppose she has returned to the sea . . . Lord Donoughmore had a curious conversation with Sefton yesterday, in which the former said the Ministers ought to be impeached for having brought the Bill forward—so compleatly had they deceived him as to their case. He mentioned his visit to Windsor last Sunday, and the difficulty he and his brother had in making the King see that the Bill would never go down. One of the royal arguments was:—‘Why, Lord Sefton has betted Lord Thanet 10 to 1 that the Bill will pass the Lords, and as Lord Sefton is known to be so strongly against the Bill, surely this is quite convincing.’ . . . It was perfectly true that this bet had been made by Sefton with Thanet, which of course greatly enhances the merit of the royal argument. . . .”

“House of Lords, Oct. 19.

“. . . Most important! McDonald has just returned to me. He has seen and talked with the Archbishop of York, and it is not only true that Lord Stafford has become the strenuous opposer of the Bill, but he has waited upon Lord Harrowby to state his conviction that the Bill must be given up. You know McDonald is nephew both to the Archbishop and Lord Stafford. . . .”

“House of Lords, Oct. 20, 1 o’clock.

“. . . Having said that Brougham had made up his mind not to examine Oldi and Mariette, let me say why; so that, if you keep my account of this trial, posterity may know what the Queen’s counsel really thought of his client—a very rare thing to know and in this case, quite authentic. Denman, Lushington, Tindal and Wilde are all decidedly for calling both Oldi and Mariette; Brougham has no doubt of the fidelity of these witnesses, and of their perfect belief in the Queen’s innocence; but he is equally sure that the villainy of these judges—the Lords—would inflict a persecution of two days’ examination upon each of these witnesses, and, from the experience of their monstrous injustice in raising such diabolical inferences from admissions so natural and innocent as those of so capital a witness as Howman was, or from the rambling imbecility of Flynn, he dare not trust these foreign women to the same ordeal. All this I had from Brougham last night. He told me, too, as he has done before, that, altho’ he was in possession of many circumstances unfavorable in appearance to the Queen, which were not known to me, he did nevertheless believe her to be compleatly innocent—in direct opposition to his former sentiments; and that, furthermore, should this Bill ever come to the House of Commons, he will then, being no longer in the character of her counsel, take an opportunity of declaring, upon his honor as a gentleman, his sincere belief in her innocence.*

“I had a very agreeable day at the Derbys yesterday, as indeed it always is there—the Fortescues, Darnleys, Kings and Bennet. To-day I dine at Sefton’s with Brougham. . . . Holland House is the only place I have heard of as being in a state of rage at my attack on Cole.† . . . A division has just taken place, when Liverpool and our people beat the Chancellor‡ and his by 122 to 79; but Grey, with his usual candour, has carried an amendment to Petty’s§ motion, that in my belief, and with such a villain as Powell to deal with, will make the motion perfectly nugatory. Grey’s conduct throughout this business has been most injurious to the Queen, her counsel and her cause.”

“House of Lords, Oct. 21st, 1 o’clock.

“Before I begin with the trial, let me tell you a story. On my arrival here at 10 this morning, I perceived a black man of an extraordinary appearance in Tom Tyrwhitt’s‖ box at the other end of the House, and another black by his side, both in bushy black wigs. Upon enquiry, I found it was no less a person

* He did so on February 5, 1821.

† Mr. Tierney.

‡ Lord Eldon.

§ Lord Lansdowne.

‖ Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, Black Rod.

than the King of New Zealand and his Grand Chamberlain; and it was presently reported that they were white, and not black men, and that the black shade was merely the effect and impression of tattooing. Western and I went round, and got near enough to touch his Majesty; when I found his royal face to be one of the very finest specimens of carving I have ever beheld. The Chamberlain’s face was fair: the sunflowers on it were highly respectable; but the King’s nose, which surpassed the average size, was one blaze of stars and planets. The groundwork of their faces, of which a mighty small portion remained without ornament, was evidently fair, but had been painted a deep orange colour. . . . I just learn it was the Minister of the King, and not his Chamberlain; and also that they are both just entered at some college in Cambridge, where I flatter myself these dingy academicians will do honor both to themselves and my favorite University. . . .

“Sefton called yesterday on his uncle Lord Harrington, who is confined with the gout. In the course of the visit, to Sefton’s surprise and, as you may suppose, delight, Lord Harrington said—‘I shall be well enough to go and give my vote against this infamous Bill.’ Upon Sefton leading him on, the other said—‘After the evidence of Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Mr. Craven and Sir Wm. Gell, no man with the pretensions to being a gentleman ought to have gone a step further with the Bill.’—Well done, old Gold Stick!”

“House of Lords, Oct. 23rd, 2 o’clock.

“Premièrement, let me bring up the rear of my narrative respecting the King of New Zealand. It is confidently reported that en derrière both his Majesty and his Minister are much more profusely decorated with ornamental carving than on their faces—but you’ll not quote me!

“Sefton told me last night of a conversation he had had with Thanet. It seems Lady Holland had complained to the latter in the strongest terms of my conduct to Tierney on Tuesday, and had stated that Cole was hurt by it to the last degree.—‘What did Thanet do or say?’ says I.—‘Why,’ says Sefton, ‘he snorted out into a loud laugh—said you was quite right, and that the Whigs were little better than old apple-women.’—This was a great relief to me; tho’ I was quite sure from Thanet’s manner all was right; but I shd. certainly have felt myself bound to surrender my seat had we differed about it. . . . Yesterday I dined at Brooks’s with Ossulston: to-day I dine at the Derbys, with Brougham, Denman, the Seftons, and a huge party, I believe. . . . Grey, according to custom, has done all the harm he could. He is more provoking in all he does than these villains of Ministers themselves. However, thank God the case for the Queen is closed, and all looks well.”

“House of Lords, Oct. 24th, 2 o’clock.

“. . . Denman begun to sum up, and is now engaged in so doing. Their mighty case, you see therefore, is now finished, and a miracle no doubt it must appear to after times that all these charges of an adulterous intercourse which have been got up with so much secrecy—that begun six years ago and continued three years—that have had absolute power and money without end to support them, have been one by one demonstrably disproved by witnesses unimpeachable. . . . This admitted fact of the Queen sleeping on deck under the awning, and Bergami doing so likewise, under all the explanatory circumstances of the case, is the sole foundation of the Bill. . . . And now then—will the Lords pass the Bill? I say No—I say it is impossible: and yet something the villains of Ministers must do to save their own credit. . . . The Duke of Portland told Lord Foley he was one of 60 peers who usually supported the Government, and who would vote against the Bill. This Foley told me himself. I fear this is too high an estimate, but the Duke of Portland himself is a most fair and honorable person.”

“Brooks’s, 5 o’clock.

“Denman’s last two hours have been brilliant. His parallel case of Nero and his wife Octavia was perfect in all its parts. . . . I am just going to dinner at Sefton’s, and then to go and see Cymbeline with him and Brougham.”

“Brooks’s, Wednesday morning, ½ past 12.

“. . . Lady Fitzwilliam goes to pay her respects to the Queen to-morrow. Lord Fitzwilliam has been here to-night, quite pleased to tell of his wife’s intention. . . . Lady Jersey goes likewise. . . . Sir Willoughby Gordon has just told me he was quite sure he saw 40,000 people, with banners, pass through Piccadilly to-day on their way to the Queen. A division from another body passed us by on the water to the same destination, and saluted us with cannon as they passed.”

“York St., 26th Oct.

“. . . I dined at Lambton’s yesterday en famille. Grey (who stays there) dined at Billy Gloucester’s, and came in before dinner in his prettiest manner to say to me how sorry he was he dined out. Apropos to Grey, he has somewhat made up to me for his past conduct by a reply he made to Liverpool. The day before yesterday, at the rising of the House, the latter came across to Grey, and, with the usual muggery they are always applying to him, asked him what adjournment he thought would be long enough for the consideration of the evidence, between the finishing by the counsel and the 2nd reading; upon which Grey, in his rudest manner, said he did not see the necessity for any adjournment at all, as there was not a tittle of evidence to support the Bill! Our people, who all heard this, were delighted with it. . . . Grey expressed the same sentiment to myself yesterday in the strongest manner. . . . What must the private tutor, Lauderdale, say to this? I wonder when Lauderdale and idiots like himself will begin to think of the situation into which this infamous Bill has thrown this town. Every Wednesday, the scene which caused such alarm at Manchester is repeated under the very nose of Parliament and all the constituted authorities, and in a tenfold degree more alarming. A certain number of regiments of the efficient population of the town march on each of these days in a regular lock step, four or five abreast—banners flying—music playing. . . . I should like any one to tell me what is to come next if this organised army loses its temper. . . .”

“House of Lords, 28th Oct., 2 o’clock.

“. . . Grey, Rosslyn, the Lansdownes, &c., dined at the Duke of Gloucester’s on Wednesday, when the Duchess after dinner talked to Lady Lansdowne about this trial, and said:—‘It was a very foolish, and indeed a very wrong thing to have got into, but the King had been greatly deceived upon the subject.’ My authority for this is Lord John Russell, who told me that Lady Lansdowne told him. This is just as it should be: the gay deceiver has a good prospect. I wonder who he is. Is it Leach or Eldon?

“I’ll now tell you another story, perhaps not unconnected with this. Yesterday and to-day I have walked to Kensington Gardens before I came here; and to-day I met Lady Conyngham and Lady Elizabeth* walking with a footman behind them. You know the palpable, unqualified cut they have treated me with these last two years, but to-day it was quite another thing. No, no! an old acquaintance was not to pass her in that way: had there been any bystanders, they might have thought she was asking alms of me. She was evidently dying for me to turn about with her to talk politicks, and I was an idiot not to do it. I might have learnt from her how the dear King had been deceived. . . . Mr. Attorney has just finished, and the Solicitor has taken the field. He has announced that he shall finish to-day, and then the House will adjourn till Thursday. The object of this adjournment is a last effort to bring this noble jury to their collars; but it is too late—the charm for once is broken. . . .”

“3 o’clock.

“. . . Mr. Solicitor is to have two hours more on Monday morning. A more vulgar, bombastical, blackguard chap I never in my life heard. . . .”

“Brooks’s, 5 o’clock, Monday, 30th October.

“. . . Thursday is the day fixed for battle. Calcraft is the greatest croaker; his list has been a majority of 40 for the Bill. He has reduced it to 35, and with

* Her daughter, who married the 10th Earl of Huntly, and died without issue in 1839.

this majority he thinks the Government will carry the Bill, and go with it to the Commons. . . . Holland has just come to me and had a long conversation with me. He has taken great pains with his list too. . . . He gives a majority of 30 for the Bill as the maximum, and 15 as the minimum; but he is quite certain of the Bill not passing the Lords. . . . Lord Hutchinson offers to bet that 200 Peers will not vote. I never saw such a beautiful sight in my life as the Brass Founders’ procession to the Queen to-day. I had no notion there had been so many beautiful brass ornaments in all the world. Their men in armour, both horse and foot, were capital; nor was their humour amiss. The procession closed with a very handsome crown borne in state as a present to the Queen, preceded by a flag with the words—‘The Queen’s Guard are Men of Metal.’ I am quite sure there must have been 100,000 people in Piccadilly, all in the most perfect order. I am very much pleased that Hutchinson has taken to me again. It is quite his own doing, and I am to meet him at dinner at Rogers’s* on Wednesday.”

Mr. Western, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brighton, October 29th.

“. . . Pray read Cobbet’s attack upon Denman’s speech. He is a foul-mouthed, malignant dog; but there is so much point in his criticism, that one cannot help admitting there is generally some truth in his remarks, and I certainly agree in his remarks on the tact of this speech. There is a great deal of bombast nonsense of quotations from the devil knows where, finishing the whole—‘Go and sin no more.’ And the Lords to say this! . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, Nov. 1.

“. . . Here is Holland, asking me in the most humble tone if I really think the Bill will pass the Lords. Grey, it seems, thinks so, and it is the fashion to say so to-day. My opinion is unshaken that it can’t.”

* Samuel Rogers, the poet and banker.

“House of Lords, 2 o’clock, 2nd November.

“Eldon begun this morning, and it was expected he would have made a great masterly judicial summing up; instead of which, he spoke for an hour and a quarter only, and a more feeble argument for his own vote I never heard in all my life. He begun by intimating very clearly that the preamble of the Bill was to be altered, and the divorce part given up: then, without reserve or shame, he abandoned Miocci and Demont, and, in truth, all the filth of his own green bag, and all the labours of the Milan commission. Howman’s evidence and the admitted fact of Bergami’s sleeping on the deck under the same awning as the Queen, was his sheet anchor. . . . He said he was perfectly convinced of her guilt, and he further said that no one who had not the same opinion ought to vote for the second reading. Erskine followed, and had spoken for about three quarters of an hour, when he fainted away, and was carried out of the House; since when, that villain Lauderdale has been speaking.

“Yesterday and today have altered most materially the state of public opinion as to the fate of this diabolical Bill. The cursed rats are said to have returned most rapidly to their old quarters, and the ministerial majority is rising in the market to 40, 45 and 50. It is added, too, that the Bill is certainly to pass, and to be with us on the 23rd. I will not give my assent to any one of these reports till I have ocular proof of their being true; at the same time, with such rogues and madmen as one has to speculate upon, it is being almost mad oneself to expect anything being done that is right . . . .”

“Brooks’s, evening.

“Primrose,* who is a government man, and one of the 16 Scotch Peers, made a very good speech after Lauderdale—against the Bill. . . . I have just been over Norfolk House with the duke, and a capital magnificent shop it is. I dined yesterday at Rogers’s, with Hutchinson, Brougham, Denman, &c.: to-morrow with Foley. Seymour Bathurst has just told Lambton

* The 4th Earl of Rosebery, grandfather of the present earl.

that the Bill will not go beyond the 2nd reading. God send this may be true!

“House of Lords, 3rd Nov., ½ past 3.

“I have not heard all Lord Grey’s speech, being obliged to go into the City, which I am truly sorry for, as what I did hear was quite of the highest order —beautiful—magnificent—all honor and right feeling, with the most powerful argument into the bargain. There is nothing approaching this damned fellow in the kingdom, when he mounts his best horse. . . . Lord Liverpool is now answering Lord Grey, and is as bad as one would wish him to be.”

“House of Lords, 4th November, 2 o’clock.

“. . . I must say, since my affair with Tierney on Wednesday week his behaviour has been perfect: not so that of Young Cole,* who is now at the same table with me, and would not for the world turn his beautiful eyes towards me.”

“House of Lords, 6th Nov., 2 o’clock.

“. . . Lord Lansdowne finished his speech in the very first rate style . . . since then the speakers against the Bill have been the Duke of Somerset, Lords Enniskillen, Howard of Effingham, de Clifford, Grantham, Stafford and Calthorpe. The speakers for the Bill have been the Dukes of Athol and Northumberland, and Lord Grenville is now speaking on the same side; but, thank God, he comes too late. . . . Old Stafford uttered an opinion that is worth ten votes at least in the H. of Commons. He made no doubt of the Bill being lost in the H. of Commons, and that then there was an end of the Constitution. It never can come to the H. of Commons, by God! That little chap de Clifford is an agreeable surprise. He is such a cursed Queen-hater that we always calculated upon his being for the Bill. We had a most agreeable dinner yesterday at Brooks’s—Fitzwilliam, Grey, Cowper, Norfolk, Jersey, Thanet, Albemarle—and, in short, 17 of us. Grey was all

* The Hon. James Abercromby, M.P.

good humour and gentleness, and I had great pleasure in petting him—abusing him at the same time for all his palaver with Liverpool and Eldon, particularly the latter. . . . If you could see little Barny* with me you would say it was almost too much. Every day at the rising of the House he comes regularly to ask me to let him walk up with me, and so we do. At other times he is equally in pursuit of me. He wants me very much to let him take me a little tour with him to shew me Arundel, &c., &c. He wants me, too, to dine with him at Dowr. ‘July’s’ to-day, but I shall do no such thing. I dine at Ferguson’s.

“Brooks’s, 5 o’clock.

“All is over—that is with the 2nd reading—123 for the Bill and 95 against it—leaving a majority for the Bill of 28 only. This is fatal. Eleven Bishops voted for it, and the Archbishop of York† alone against it. I am delighted the young Duke of Richmond‡ voted against it. The other curious persons on the same side were Lords Bath, Mansfield, Bagot, Plymouth, Amherst, Delawar, Dartmouth, Enniskillen, Egremont, Audley, &c., &c. . . .”

“House of Lords, Nov. 7, 2 o’clock.

“Our first step this morning was Lord Dacre presenting a protest from the Queen against the proceedings of yesterday. . . . This occasioned a short discussion, upon form only; excepting, indeed, another attempt from the Duke of Newcastle in favor of himself, in which, according to his practice, he distinguished himself as a d——d fool. . . and received his final castigation from Grey. . . . It is supposed the Government have not made up their minds as to what course they are to take and that to-day has been used by them merely as a jaw for time. I had a very good-humoured nod from Wellington this morning while the people in the Park were hooting him.”

* The Duke of Norfolk.

† Right Rev. Edward Venables Vernon.

‡ The 5th Duke, father of the present peer.

“The House has been up these two hours, a division having taken place upon the question whether the divorce clause should be part of the Bill. In favor of this 129 voted, including all our people: against it there were 53, including every one of the Ministers, and all the Bishops but three. Was there ever such a spectacle! . . . In ordinary times a Government would instantly abandon a measure over which they had no controul; there is an end, however, here to speculating upon men’s conduct. . . . And now let me give you a little joke of mine which is very favorably received. Many of us are invited to dine at Guildhall to-morrow by very large cards of invitation from the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs; so, having procured a card of equal dimensions, I send it to Lord Kensington with this alteration only in the style and contents—‘Messrs. Gog and Magog present their compts., &c., &c., and request the pleasure of his lordships’ company at Guildhall to partake with them of a Baron of Beef.’

“Brooks, Nov. 9.

“. . . Castlereagh got roughly handled at Covent Garden last night; so much so, as to be obliged to decamp from the house. Erskine was greatly applauded. . . .”

“Brooks, Nov. 10, 3 o’clock..

“Three times three! if you please, before your read a word further. The Bill is gone, thank God! to the devil. Their majority was brought down to 9—108 to 99; and then the dolorous Liverpool came forward and struck. He moved that his own Bill be read this day six months. You may well suppose the state we are all in. The Queen was in the House at the time, but Brougham sent her off instantly. . . . The state of the town is beyond everything. I wish to God you could see Western. He is close by my side, but has not uttered yet̶such is his suprise.”

York Street, 11th Nov.

“I was a bad boy for the first time last night, and drank an extra bottle of claret with Foley, Dundas, Western, &c., &c., in the midst of our brilliant illuminations at Brooks’s: not that I was the least screwy, but it has made me somewhat nervous. . . . We could distinctly see there were high words between Liverpool and Eldon before the former struck his colours, and when he moved the further consideration that day six months, Eldon answered with a very distinct and audible ‘Not content.’ It is quite impossible any human being could have disgraced himself more than the Duke of Clarence. When his name was called in the division on the 3rd reading, he leaned over the rail of the gallery as far into the House as he could, and then halloed—‘Content,’ with a yell that would quite have become a savage. The Duke of York followed with his ‘Content’ delivered with singular propriety. . . . It must always be remembered to the credit of our hereditary aristocracy that a decided majority voted against this wicked Bill. It was the two sets of Union Peers* and these villains of the Church† that nearly destroyed for ever the character of the House of Lords. However, thank God it is no worse.

“I have said nothing to you of my City feast. . . . My attention was directed to a much more splendid object‡—the Princess Olivia of Cumberland.§ No one can have any doubts of the royalty of her birth. She is the very image of our Royal family. Her person is upon the model of the Princess Elizabeth,‖

* The Representative Peers of Scotland and Ireland.

† The Bishops.

‡ Than Madame Oldi, whom he has described.

§ This remarkable woman, Olive Wilmot Serres, presented a petition to the House of Commons, 14th July, 1820, setting forth that she was the legitimate daughter of William, Duke of Cumberland, second son of George II., and claiming recognition as such. She was the daughter of a house painter in Warwick named Wilmot, and married a foreigner named Serres, by profession a painter. Her striking resemblance to the royal family seems to have convinced many persons of the truth of her story, which was totally unsupported by any valid evidence. [See Annual Register, vol. lxii. p. 331; and vol. xliii. p. 150.]

‖ Third daughter of George III., married in 1818 to Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg.

only at least three times her size. She wore the most brilliant rose-coloured satin gown you ever saw, with fancy shawls (more than one) flung in different forms over her shoulders, after the manner of the late Lady Hamilton. Then she had diamonds in profusion hung from every part of her head but her nose, and the whole was covered with feathers that would have done credit to any hearse. Well! after another quarter of an hour we all took the field again—the Lord Mayor at our head, and the gentle Lansdowne following with dear Miss Thorpe* under his arm. As we approached the great splendid hall, the procession halted for nearly ten minutes, which we in the rear could not comprehend. It turned out that Princess Olivia of Cumberland had made her claim as Princess of the Blood to sit at the right hand of my Lord Mayor. The worthy magistrate, however, with great spirit resisted these pretensions, and, after much altercation . . . she was compelled to retreat to another table, leaving the three Miss Thorpes the only ladies who had the honor to be surrounded by our English nobility. . . . The company assembled in the hall were nine hundred in number, ladies and gentlemen, at five tables. . . . We were marched entirely round the hall, till we arrived at the top, where a table on a slight elevation went across the hall for us guests. Western’s great delight was three men in complete armour from top to toe, with immense plumes of feathers upon their helmets. They were seated in three niches in the wall over our table. . . . It was their duty to rise and wave their truncheons when the Lord Mayor rose and gave his toasts; which they did with great effect, till one of them fainted away with heat and fell out of his hole upon the heads of the people below. . . .

“It is an abominable outrage to leave the Queen till February or the end of January without addresses from the two Houses upon her coming to the Throne, and without making any pecuniary provision for her; but so it will be, for of course the Black Rod will tap at our door on the 23rd the moment the Speaker is in the chair, and thus Parliament will be prorogued

* The Lord Mayor’s daughter.

before a word of complaint can be uttered on this shameful conduct. Thank God, however, whoever is Minister has a pleasant time before him. The people have learnt a great lesson from this wicked proceeding: they have learnt how to marshal and organise themselves, and they have learnt at the same time the success of their strength. Waithman, who has just called upon me, tells me that the arrangements made in every parish in and about London on this occasion are perfectly miraculous—quite new in their nature—and that they will be of eternal application in all our public affairs. . . . They say the river below bridge to-day is the most beautiful sight in the world; every vessel is covered with colors, and at the head of the tallest mast in the river is the effigy of a Bishop, 20 or 30 feet in length, with his heels uppermost, hanging from the masthead.

“I enclose a little love-letter I got from Lady Holland some days since. It was preceded by a message to the same effect a day or two before; but, as you may suppose, I have taken no notice of either.”*

“Brooks’s, Nov. 23, 4 o’clock.

“No! I have seen many things in my life, but, in point of atrocity, nothing equal to our proceedings of to-day in the H. of Commons. Brougham wrote a note last night both to the Speaker and Lord Castlereagh, telling them he should have a communication to make to the H. of Commons from the Queen. Castlereagh did not answer the note; but the Speaker wrote him an answer that he would take the chair at ½ past 2, provided there were members enough present to make a house. We were there, of course, in great force, and he took the chair at the time appointed; but, after swearing in two new members, and when Denman was upon his legs, just opening the Queen’s communication, the Usher of the Black Rod knocked at the door. . . . You may suppose we all made a lusty holloa of ‘Mr. Denman! Mr.

* Holland House disapproved of the activity of “the Mountain” in the Queen’s defence; while Creevey and the rest of the Mountain resented bitterly the deference shown by Holland House to the King’s party.

Denman!’ The Speaker, however, left the chair, upon which Bennet called out with a loud voice—‘This is scandalous!’ As the Speaker walked down the house, followed by Castlereagh, Vansittart and a few others, we holloaed out—‘Shame! shame!’ that might have been heard in any part of Westminster Hall. Certainly such a scene has never occurred in the H. of Commons since Charles the 1st’s time. There were 150 members present. The villains dared not shew this specimen of their low and pitiful spite in public: the galleries were closed; but Lambton has just given the editor of the Traveller an account of what passed. Canning was not in the House. . . . After all, there was no Speech from the Throne, quite contrary to all practices. If there had been one, the Speaker must have come back to report it to us; but this was the thing meant to be avoided; so, after being literally hooted out of our House, after going from the Lords he found his way the nearest road home, leaving us to find out as we could that we were actually prorogued.”

END OF VOL I.

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THE CREEVEY PAPERS A SELECTION FROM THE CORRES- PONDENCE & DIARIES OF THE LATE THOMAS CREEVEY, M.P. BORN 1768—DIED 1838 EDITED BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL BART., M.P., LL.D., F.R.S. IN TWO VOLUMES—VOL. II. WITH PORTRAITS LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1904 CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

PAGE List of Illustrations ix CHAPTER I. 1821. Queen Caroline’s establishment—The summary prorogation—The pretender Olivia—Lady Holland at home—Brougham fulfils a pledge—Dinner with the Queen—Lord Holland’s apology—The Queen excluded from the Abbey—The north to be roused—The Queen’s death—Suspicions about Brougham’s honesty—An honourable executor—Lord Lauderdale—George IV. in Ireland—End of the Royal visit 1-32 CHAPTER II. 1822. Creevey’s activity—In the Whig camp—“A Voice from St. Helena”—The frequency of suicide—Castlereagh’s death—George IV. in Scotland—The Duke of Sussex—Canning assumes the lead—Lord Thanet on the situation—Canning’s voice, Castlereagh’s hand—Mr. Cobbett’s views—Knowsley revisited 33-58 CHAPTER III. 1823-1824. A young lady’s letters—Criticism upon Canning—Two very different dukes—The Duke of Buckingham—Social scheming—Tittle-tattle—At Crockford’s—Royal Ascot—Newmarket—A visit to Lambton—Captain FitzClarence’s opinions 59-83 CHAPTER IV. 1825-1826. PAGE Two Scottish divines—The birth of railways—Creevey’s seat in jeopardy—Lambton revisited—Creevey as an author—Lady Grey’s views—Lord J. Russell on Reform—Canning and the Opposition—The Corn Laws 84-102 CHAPTER V. 1827. Liverpool’s last illness—Brougham receives a challenge—Creevey enjoys his freedom—A Cabinet crisis—Mischievous times—Brougham in the thick of it—Coalition—Creevey’s objections—Wellington and Grey—Death of Canning—Grey and Brougham—Lowther Castle—The Goderich Ministry—Party politics in the north—The affair of Navarino 103-134 CHAPTER VI. 1827-1828. Return to Croxteth—Rumours of war—Lord Grey’s speculations—Sefton and Brougham—What is Brougham after?—General distress in the country—A quarrel—Overtures to the Whigs—Rival marquesses—The Duke of Sussex and the Whigs—Lord Hill puts down his foot—Huskisson resigns—Collingwood’s memoirs—Petworth—Creevey out in the cold—The Clare election 135-167 CHAPTER VII. 1828. An obsequious cicerone—The Bessborough estates—Lord Hutchinson—Power of Kilfane—Impressions of Ireland—Lord Donoughmore’s recollections—Irish society—Dan O’Connell—The Tighes of Woodstock—Creevey’s indiscretion—The Viceregal Lodge—Carton 168-192 CHAPTER VIII. 1829. Catholic emancipation—The Garth scandal—A party at Lady Sefton’s—Intrigues in the Opposition—First trip on the railway—A spendthrift peer 193-205 CHAPTER IX. 1830-1831. PAGE Brougham’s literary schemes—Lord Douro’s engagement—Death of George IV.—Death of Huskisson—Lord Grey’s administration—A party in Downing Street—Queen Adelaide’s Drawing-room—The first draft of Reform—Stirring times—The second reading carried—The Bill in Committee—Creevey returns to Parliament—The Prime Minister—Influenza—The race for honours—Coronation gossip—The Reform agitation 206-239 CHAPTER X. 1832-1833. The prospects of the Bill—A party at Lady Grey’s—Lord Grey resigns—The Reform Bill passed—The end of the old order—The Reformed Parliament—Affairs in Arlington Street—Miss Berry’s dinner-party—Roscoe as historian—King William’s levee 240-260 CHAPTER XI. 1833. The Court at Windsor—Private political history—Lord Holland’s ability—Gossip—Joseph Parkes 261-271 CHAPTER XII. 1834. Creevey’s office threatened—Rogers’s dinner-party—Competition for office—Oxford declines Talleyrand—Creevey’s new post—Anecdote about Lord Grey—Brougham blamed for the crisis—Lord Grey’s opinion of Brougham—A breeze with Brougham—The Road at its prime—Lord Grey in retirement—Overtures to Lord Howick—Melbourne’s dismissal—Character of Lord Sefton—Visit at Howick—At Holland House again 272-303 CHAPTER XIII. 1835-1836. Creevey as an onlooker—Lady Grey at home—“Bear” Ellice—Action against Lord Melbourne—Cassiobury—Death of Charles X 304-316 CHAPTER XIV., And Last. 1837-1838. PAGE Death of Mrs. Fitzherbert—and of William IV.—The young Queen—Brighton revisited—The Marquess Wellesley—Dinner with the Duke of Sussex—Holkham—Lady Charlotte Bury’s book—“Where shall I go next?” 317-336 Index 337 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. II. Mrs. Creevey Frontispiece From a Picture in the possession of Mrs. Blackett Ord, Whitfield, Northumberland TO FACE PAGE Viscount Castlereagh 42 From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, F.R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery Joseph Hume 74 From the Mezzotint by T. Hodgetts, after J. Graham The Third Marquess Of Lansdowne 116 From the Picture by H. Walton, in the National Portrait Gallery George Canning 122 From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., at Christ Church, Oxford John Allen 156 From the Picture by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery Daniel O’connell, M.P. 194 From the Picture by B. Mulrenin, R.H.A., in the National Portrait Gallery Earl Grey 216 From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery The Countess Grey and two Children 244 From the Mezzotint by Samuel Cousins, R.A., after Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. TO FACE PAGE Lady Holland 256 From an Engraving try S. W. Reynolds, after J. Opie, R. A. Viscount Melbourne 326 From the Picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery

THE CREEVEY PAPERS.

CHAPTER I. 1821.

The domestic annals of 1821 are scarcely less painful reading than those of 1820, so deeply smirched with the abortive proceedings against Queen Caroline. King George IV., whose relations with the Marchioness Conyngham were of the same nature as they had been successively with Frances, Countess of Jersey, and Isabella, Marchioness of Hertford, continued in a fair way to bring the monarchy into irreparable disrepute. Nevertheless, preparations went forward on a prodigious scale for celebrating his coronation. Parliament voted £243,000 for the purpose, which, when it is considered in contrast with £70,000 expended on the coronation of Queen Victoria, may give rise to curious reflections upon the relative value returned to their subjects by the two sovereigns. The coronation of George IV. was saddened by the last scene in the squalid tragedy of Queen Caroline.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“London, January 15th, 1821.

“. . . There is the most infamous newspaper just set up that was ever seen in the world—by name John Bull. Its personal scurrility exceeds by miles anything ever written before. In accounting for the motives which have influenced the different ladies who have called upon the Queen, it states yesterday without equivocation, reserve, or by any inuendo, but plainly, that Lady T—— and Lady M—— B—— were induced to go by threats respecting the criminal intercourse that took place between Lady C—— W—— and a menial servant. You will not be surprised that O—— is furious.* . . .”

“17th Jan.

“. . . I dined at Taylor’s on Monday, and in the evening came Ferguson, Bennet, Mrs. G. Lambe, Lord Auckland and Brougham. The latter exceeds in oddity and queerness anything I ever beheld. What the devil he is at I cannot for the life of me make out. He is all for moderation, and his constant fellow-counsellors are Tierney, Scarlett† and Abercromby. I favored him with my fixed determination how I should act, and if you had heard him try to humbug me about the transitory nature of this popular ferment, comparing it to the Duke of York’s case and Mrs. Clarke, you would have snorted out in his face. Yesterday, however, brought me a note from him, and to-day another to dine with him, and I am going accordingly. . . .”

“19th Jan.

“. . . I dined with Brougham on Wednesday, but had not much good of him, as we were not alone. . . . I looked into Brooks’s afterwards, and found Scarlett there. He was as pompous as be damned about publick affairs—change of Ministers—meeting of Parliament, &c., till I frightened him out of his wits by announcing to him the certainty of an opposition and division on Tuesday next.

“Yesterday I met Brougham in the streets, and had a long walk with him, and found him much improved in temper—all sunshine, in fact. He says he never saw any one so improved as the Queen; that she really is very entertaining, particularly upon the

* The names indicated by initials, here and elsewhere, are given in full in the original.

† Created Lord Abinger in 1835.

subject of her travels. He is to manage a dinner for me there at an early date, and at her early hour, which is 3. . . . Meantime, her establishment is on the stocks and is getting on—the Duke of Roxburgh Grand Chamberlain, a young nobleman of 86, so that the breath of scandal can never touch this appointment. He is, however, a very excellent old man, and a Whig, and is worth at least £50,000 per ann. Poor Romilly gained him his estate, and had the highest possible opinion of him. The poor old fellow declined at first, and indeed now has consented with reluctance. I saw his letter to Brougham yesterday upon this subject, which was quite as good as any play. It seems he married for the first time 5 or 6 years ago, and has children. He asks Brougham, therefore, if her Majesty is fond of children, and if he may bring his little ones from Scotland to present to her; and then he says he will only undertake the office of Chamberlain upon condition that he (Brougham) will be guardian to the Marquis of Beaumont, aged 4 years and a half—the Duke’s son. This condition, however, is a secret. Bruffam affected to be squeamish as to accepting this trust, but the job is done. Lord Hood is to be another of the Queen’s household; a Countess of Roscommon (Irish) is mentioned as one of the female staff; Lady Charlotte Lindsay, &c., &c. Pray read Lord Holland’s letter to the Wiltshire meeting; is not his anxiety for the Queen quite affecting, after all one knows of my lady’s virtuous indignation against her? . . . I dined with Mrs. Taylor yesterday—Taylor and Miss Ferguson being engaged at Coutts’s to celebrate his wedding day. They returned in the evening; Miss Ferguson, from her appearance, might have been in a hot bath. They sat down to dinner 30: old Coutts and his bride sitting side by side at the top of the table. The Dukes of York, Clarence and Sussex were there; at side-tables were placed musicians and songsters; one of the latter fraternity from Bath was paid £100 for his trip.”

“21 Jan.

“. . . Sefton and I are going at 12 in his cabriolet towards Brandenburgh House, to see the addressers and processions to the Queen. Meantime the streets are chuck full of people, quite as much as four months ago.

“Lord Holland came up to me at Brooks’s yesterday, and reproached me for never coming near my lady; and, after many civil things in his pretty manner, he said I should go and see her with him. So I did, and she was all civility and humility. At parting, she begg’d I would look in upon her in the evening, and I found afterwards she had written to Lord Sefton in the morning, begging he would accomplish this great point with me. . . .

“Apropos of Tierney, a funny thing happened about him some time ago at Cashiobury. Decaze and Tierney being both dining there, Decaze said—‘If the Opposition came in, what would they do with Napoleon?—Upon which says old Cole* in her way—‘Why, put him on the throne of France, to be sure!’ Which sentiment was sent off by a special courier to old Louis le desiré the instant Decaze returned from dinner. Old Louis forwarded the frightful intelligence to Troppau, where the Emperor Alexander has made the regular complaint and remonstrance to Gordon, our Minister there, who has returned it duly to the Foreign Office. The most comical thing is the different ways in which Castlereagh and Tierney take it. The former has sent the latter a funny message, saying he wishes he would have no more jokes with Decaze about Buonaparte, for that he has played the devil at Troppau. But old Cole is frightened out of her wits, and talks of nothing else—is apprehensive the country gentlemen will be out with it in the House of Commons, and that it may do the party a serious injury. She and Decaze had a meeting yesterday, and the latter has agreed if necessary to depose on oath that he believes Tierney’s observation was only made in joke.

“Holland set off at four this morning for Oxford, to help Lord Jersey at his county meeting.† It was with the greatest difficulty my lady let him go, and he begged me not to mention it before her, as it was a very sore subject.”

* Tierney.

† in support of Queen Caroline.

“23rd Jan.

“Late as it is (being precisely one according to the watchman) I must have a word with you before I go to bed. I dined, as you know, at Sefton’s with Brougham, and at ½ past nine they both pressed me to go to Burlington House, which (tho’ I had been summoned by the circular note) I declined. Before they went, however, I pressed upon Brougham the absolute necessity of having a vigorous discussion, if not division, upon the outrage offered to the H. of Commons by the last prorogation without a speech from the throne under all the extraordinary circumstances of the case. I pointed out to him how the thing ought to be done before the King’s Speech was entered upon, and finally told him, if the meeting at Burlington House did not take this line, Folkestone and Western most likely would. It is impossible to convey to you a notion of his artificial, disingenuous jaw upon this subject, evidently shewing that he was for nothing being done. And so off they went, and I to Brooks’s, where I met Folkestone, who says he will take his line, and Western will support him.

“About ½ past eleven the party came in, having done (as it appears to me) as much mischief as they could in so short a time. Nothing to be done tomorrow, and Tavistock to move on Friday a censure upon Ministers—in other words, a motion to turn them out, and to supply their places with our own people—the only motion to do the Ministers the least service, as I think, under all their great difficulties. This is the more provoking, because Tavistock, from the same motive with myself, did not attend this meeting, and yet had yielded to the views of some one in letting a notice of this motion be given for him. Was there ever anything like the inveterate folly of this Cole in pursuit of her maze? . . .”

“24th Jan.

“. . . As to Folkestone’s intended proceedings yesterday, they were knocked on the head by the discovery of one precedent in the late King’s time, in which a Parliament had been prorogued without a Speech, and by the thanks given in yesterday’s Speech for the supplies of last year. . . .”

“26th.

“Nothing to-day, excepting Wellington’s scrape last night in calling public meetings ‘a farce.’* Was there ever such a goose to get into such a mess? He was pummelled black and blue by Carnarvon, Lansdowne and Holland, and had not only to apologise himself, but to get Liverpool to do the same for him. . . . You never saw a fellow so vicious as Grey, but all cordiality and good fellowship between him and me.

“Pray tell me how I am to act upon a point of form. I am invited to dine on Sunday week both by the Duke of Sussex and the Speaker, and both are considered as commands. . . .”

“29th Jan.

“. . . Saturday I dined at the Fox Club—about 100 of us, Grandees and Tiers-etat united. We are getting very much into the Reform line, I assure you. The Duke of Devonshire has declared for Reform: Slice† of Gloucester at Holkham ten days ago with royal solemnity declared himself a Radical. Yesterday I dined at the Duke of Sussex’s, having contrived through Stevenson to change my day from next Sunday. Lord Thanet took me, and our party were the Dukes of Gloucester and Leinster, Lord Fitzwilliam, Thanet, Grey, Erskine, Cowper, Albemarle, Bob Adair and myself. We had an agreeable day enough. Slice kept us waiting three-quarters of an hour, but this time was not thrown away. Sussex told us in confidence, that the obstacle to the Queen’s name being restored to the Prayer Book did not come from the King, but that he could not tell us

* The Duke, being taken to task in the House of Lords for having, as Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire, refused to convene a county meeting to protest against the proceedings in the matter of the royal divorce, replied with characteristic, but injudicious, bluntness that, having already presented a petition in favour of the Queen signed by 9000 persons in that county, he did not see what good purpose could be served by “going through the farce of a county meeting.” It was an unlucky expression, and was brought up against him on numerous occasions for many years.

† H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester.

more; and even for this valuable communication he desired not to be quoted. I was surprised to hear Lord Grey say that he knew this to be true.

“Then Sussex entertained us with stories of his cousin Olivia of Cumberland, with whom, for fun’s sake, as he says, he has had various interviews, during which she has always pressed upon him, in support of her claims, her remarkable likeness to the Royal Family. Upon one occasion, being rather off her guard from temper or liquor, she smacked off her wig all at once, and said—‘Why, did you ever in your life see such a likeness to yourself?’ It seems that she lived in the capacity of Pop Lolly to Lord Warwick for many of the latter years of her life, and it is from some papers of his, and with the assistance of others, that she has at length started into the royal line.*

“Grey and Lambton and Lady Louisa had been all at Brandenburg House yesterday morning; and my lord’s name was scarcely written by him, before the news flew like wildfire to the Queen, and he was told she begged to see him. So in he and Lambton went, and she seemed to be very much pleased, and so was he. So it’s all very well—better late than never. . . .

“I have two more Royalties to give you, and then I have done with the family. At the Levée on Friday, the King turned his back upon Prince Leopold in the most pointed manner; upon which the said Leopold, without any alteration on a muscle of his face, walked up to the Duke of York, and in hearing of every one near him said—‘The King has thought proper at last to take his line, and I shall take mine’—and so, with becoming German dignity, marched out of the house.

“You will be affected to hear that the dear Duchess of Gloucester is not happy, and that, tho’ Slice is in politicks a Radical, in domestic life he is a tyrant. Some lady called on the Duchess (indeed it has happened to two different ladies), and, being admitted, was marched up quite to the top of the house; where, being arrived out of breath, the Duchess apologised with great feeling for the trouble

* See vol. i. p. 339, note.

she caused her in bringing her up so far, but that in truth it was owing to the cruel manner in which she was treated by the Duke—that he had taken it into his head that the suite of rooms on the drawing-room floor were not kept in sufficiently nice order, and on that account he had them locked up, and kept the keys himself. . . . It is no wonder that the King treated Slice the last time he was at Court with the same sauce he did Leopold. The Radical has declared he will never go again.

“Before dinner, we had some conversation upon the old story whether Francis was Junius, Grey and Erskine both expressing their most perfect conviction that he was. Erskine mentioned a curious thing, which was confirmed by Lord Thanet. It seems they were both dining with Lady Francis, since Sir Philip’s death, when Erskine asked her if Francis ever told her, or whether she ever collected from his conversation, that he was the author of Junius. To which she answered that he had never mentioned the subject, and that the only allusion to it was in a book. So she went out of the room, and brought back the little book ‘Junius Identified,’ and in the title page was written ‘Francis,’ and, signed with his name—‘I leave this book as a legacy to my dear wife.’ This I think, considering he never would touch the subject or the book of ‘Junius Identified,’ affords an additional strong presumption it was he.

“Erskine was to the last degree ridiculous at dinner. Upon Warren’s name being mentioned, he said he certainly could not be called a ‘free Warren,’ and then added—‘indeed rabbits were hole-and-corner men, and who could say they were not?’

“Upon some objections being taken to Erskine’s wig at dinner, he said it had been made for Coutts, and that Mrs. Coutts had been kind enough to give it to him; and then he pulled it off, when, to all our great surprise, tho’ bald, he looked so beautiful and young he might have been 35 or 40 years of age at most.* He was so impressed with our compliments that he has promised to abandon wigs altogether when warm weather comes.

* Erskine was then seventy-one.

“Slice, who I had never met before, and who, you know, is a proverbial bore, behaved very well and modestly, which of course was owing to his being only second fiddle; but I assure you the two cousins made a very good exhibition of Royalty, both in propriety and agreeableness.

“Thanet brought me back—first to Lady Jersey’s, but she was not ready to receive her company, so we came to Brooks’s. Then Cowper took me to Lady Holland’s, where her ladyship looked as forlorn and discontented as ever she could look. She was in state, with Henry* at her feet—few men—no ladies, and the whole concern to the greatest degree sombre. Her great aversion at present is Lady Jersey, as taking her company from her, which I don’t wonder at, as Cowper and I soon went there, and found a very merry party, cracking their jokes about a round table. Lady Jersey herself is a host, and then there were Brougham, Grey, Lambton, Lord Jersey, Duncannon, Lord and Lady Ossulston, Lady Sefton, Lord A. Hamilton, Cowper and myself: so it was all very well. My lady was all ‘mug’ to me about my farce on Friday,† and at parting desired me to lose no time in firing into them again.

“It has given me great pleasure to see Sir Lowry Cole’s name stand next to mine in the list of the division. To some one who talked to him whilst we were dividing, he said he never had but one opinion as to the impropriety of striking the Queen’s name out of the Liturgy, and he was glad the time was come when he could express his opinion by his vote. Upon my word, the gentlemanly conduct of these soldiers—Lord Howard and Sir Lowry Cole—both dependent to a great degree upon the Crown, is quite touching. They leave your independent squires a hundred miles behind them. . . . Of publick affairs

* Lord Holland.

† A speech on going into Committee of Supply, of which Creevey says in another letter—“This little sortie was, I assure you, rather well done, and eminently useful in a very crowded House. ‘Mouldy’ [Mr. Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Lord Bexley] made an attempt to punish me, but was instantly smothered in universal derision.”

there is nothing new. If the people keep up their feelings, and the expression of them as strongly as ever, on the subject of the Queen’s exclusion from the Liturgy, the Government and their followers are no better off, and in truth much worse than before they waded so triumphantly thro’ the dirt on Friday. I keep to my creed that this blackguard, foolish war with the Queen will eventually ruin the Ministers and produce some great change in the House of Commons.”

“Brooks’s, 30th Jan., 1821.

“. . . I dined at Sefton’s yesterday—Lord Grey, Lady Louisa and Lambton and Mr. and Mrs. Bruffham. . . . Grey is so keen with me about giving Brother Bragge* a dust about accepting his office and not vacating his seat, that I must, I believe, accommodate him. . . . When, at dinner, I described old Cole’s attempt at crimping me into the Doctor’s camp† in 1803, assisted by those distinguished statesmen Porter and Brogden, he grinned most profusely, saying—‘God forgive me! as Lord King says, but I can’t help liking him.’”

“Brooks’s, 2nd Feby.

“. . . I have just discharged my duty to my native town [Liverpool] in seconding their petition. I rather think I never did anything so well. I spoke for about 20 minutes; the House was as mute as mice, and Castlereagh as grave as a judge at all I said. After dwelling upon the villainy of Castlereagh’s new law of a 3rd reading of a Bill of Pains and Penalties in the Lords making a moral conviction of the defendant, coupled with all the enormous abuse that was nightly discharged upon her by his friends, I stated the utter impossibility of her taking the money from Castlereagh and his House. . . .”

* The Right Hon. Charles Bragge Bathurst, cousin of Lord Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Bragge Bathurst had been brought into the Cabinet as President of the Board of Control and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

† Tierney’s attempt to enlist Creevey in support of Addington. [See vol. i. p. 22.]

On 5th February Brougham redeemed his pledge to testify publicly on his honour to his belief in the innocence of Queen Caroline. He concluded as follows a speech on Lord Tavistock’s motion of want of confidence in Ministers because of their conduct of the proceedings against the Queen: “It is necessary, Sir, for me, with the seriousness and sincerity which it may be permitted to a man upon the most solemn occasions to express, to assert what I now do assert in the face of this House, that if, instead of an advocate, I had been sitting as a judge at another tribunal, I should have been found among the number of those who, laying their hands upon their hearts, conscientiously pronounced her Majesty ‘Not Guilty.’ For the truth of this assertion I desire to tender every pledge that may be most valued and most sacred. I wish to make it in every form which may be deemed most solemn and most binding; and if I believe it not as I now advance it, I here imprecate on myself every curse which is most horrid and most penal.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, 6th Feb.

“. . . On Sunday morning our grandees, or some of them, had a meeting upstairs here to consider the practicability of making a provision for the Queen by raising from £200,000 to £300,000 by subscription. You will easily imagine I had no business there,* but Sefton and Lord Thanet sent Lambton to bring me there by force, so I heard what passed, and such a game chicken as Fitzwilliam I never beheld. Let me do justice, too, to Alec Baring, who smoothed away the least suggestion of any difficulty; and, in short, it was decided in two minutes to do the thing.

* Seeing that he was such a poor man.

Old Fitzwilliam went off directly to the Duke of Devonshire, who is quite as eager to start as the rest, provided it is not done till the H. of Commons shall have decided this day week, on Smith’s motion, not to restore the Queen’s name to the Liturgy. Then a kind of State paper is to come out from our people, shewing the absolute impossibility of the Queen, situated as she is, accepting the provision from the Crown and Parliament, and proposing their plan, with the names annexed to it, of making a voluntary provision; and no one seems to entertain a doubt of the success of the measure. . . .

“Never was there such an exhibition as that of yesterday by the defenders of the Ministers. Brother Bragge could scarcely be heard, in which he was highly judicious; Bankes might have been hired for Mackintosh to flog; Peel was as feeble as be damned, and the daring, dramatic Horace Twiss made his first, and probably his last appearance on the stage.* On the other hand, I am sorry to say that Tavistock was infinitely below himself. . . . Lambton’s was a very pretty, natural and ornamental speech, delivered with singular grace and discretion, and a beautiful voice withal. But old ‘Praise God’ Milton in a short speech handled a couple of points in a much more powerful manner than anything Lambton did. . . . Nothing but the general and overpowering distress can keep the country steady to the Queen against the Court Ministers. . . . It is said that the appointment of Sir Lowry Cole to be governor of Sheerness was made out, and immediately cancelled after his vote on Friday, and that it is now given to Lord Combermere.† . . .”

* This was a singularly bad prophecy. Twiss, who entered Parliament in 1820, made a fine appearance in the debate on Roman Catholic disabilities on 23rd March, 1821, and vigorously opposed the Reform Bill. Lord Campbell describes him as “the impersonation of a debating society rhetorician,” and adds, “Though inexhaustibly fluent, his manner certainly was very flippant, factitious, and un-businesslike.” Macaulay remarks that, when the Reform Bill passed a second reading, “the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned soul.”

† Cole was appointed Governor of Mauritius in 1823.

“7th Feb.

“. . . I confess I had no notion such a majority could have been found to give a direct negative to the allegation that the late proceedings had been ‘derogatory from the dignity of the Crown and injurious to the best wishes of the People.’ . . . The last half of Brougham’s speech was quite inimitable. He made the declaration he formerly told me he would, as to his perfect conviction of the Queen’s innocence, and he did it in a manner so solemn, and, if I may say so, so magnificent, that it was met with the loudest and almost universal cheers.”

“Feb. 11th.

“. . . I was at Brougham’s by half-past two, and found Craven waiting. As soon as Brougham was ready, we set off to pick up Mrs. Damer, who was to dine also with the Queen. And here let me stop to express my admiration for this extraordinary person. You know she is Field Marshal Conway’s daughter, cousin of Lord Hertford, &c., &c. She is the person who paid all her husband’s debts, without the least obligation upon her so to do, and she is the person who renounced all claim to half of Lord Clinton’s estate when she was informed that by law she was entitled to it. She is 70 years of age, and as fresh as if she was 50. . . . Well—when we reached Brandenburg House, we were ushered up a very indifferent staircase and through an ante-room into a very handsome, well-proportioned room from 40 to 50 feet long, very lofty, with a fine coved ceiling, painted with gods and goddesses in their very best clothes. The room looks upon the Thames, and is not a hundred yards from it. Upon our entrance, the Queen came directly to Mrs. Damer, then to Brougham, and then to me. I am not sure whether I did not commit the outrage of putting out my hand without her doing the same first; be it as it may, however, we did shake hands. She then asked me if I had not forgotten her, and I can’t help thinking she considered my visit as somewhat late, or otherwise she would have said something civil about my uniform support. She is not much altered in face or figure, but very much in manner. She is much more stately and much more agreeable. She was occasionally very grave. . . . She took me aside twice after dinner, and talked to me of her situation. She is evidently uneasy about money. . . . She mentioned no women, but the Duke of Wellington did not escape an observation from her, as to the surprise it occasioned in her that he should be so violent against her. . . . A curious thing happened at dinner. . . . Craven, who turns out to be a wag, with all his propriety, was alluding to that celebrated ball or fête where the Queen was the Genius of History. It seems the whole of this fête was got up by a Duke of Caparo; every character was prescribed by him, and both the Queen and Craven laughed heartily at the recollection that, the Genius of History being to enter preceded by Fame, when the time for their appearance arrived, Fame’s trumpet could not be found, and the performance was stopped for some time, till Fame was obliged to put up with a horn of one of the Duke of Caparo’s keepers. . . .

“Our company of ladies was Mme. Olde and Mme. Felice. . . . Mme. Felice is a very, very little woman, with one of the prettiest faces I ever saw. I should think she was not much older than 20, though she has been married 5 years. As we went down to dinner, Craven handed the Queen, Brougham Mrs. Damer; Mme. Felice, who was leaning on the arm of a foreigner, seeing me unprovided for came in the most natural, laughing manner, and put her arm thro’ mine. . . . Of men, the principal was the Marquis of Antalda, a great proprietor in Pessaro and Bologna . . . a person of great consideration in his own country, a man of letters, and as agreeable a man as you will find anywhere. . . . There might be six or seven other men, and nothing could be more decorous or more courtlike than they all were in their manner to the Queen. . . . We came away before eight. . . . There is a capital picture by Hoppner of Berkeley and Keppel Craven. The only picture belonging to her Majesty is one of Alderman Wood without a frame.”

“Brooks’s, 14th Feb.

“. . . Our folks are to meet presently about the Queen’s subscription. Unfortunately Fitzwilliam is out of town, but Milton is now by my side.”

“4 o’clock.

“The meeting is over: very thinly attended, and things looking damned ill and black.”

“Brooks’s, 16 Feb.

“. . . You never saw such a change in any person as in Brougham. He is involved in the deepest thought, and apparently chagrin. He never comes near Sefton, as was his daily custom, nor can we conjecture what he is about. I think his false step about the Queen in advising her to refuse the money must surely have something to do with it. He seems most wretched. Grey and Lambton and Lady Louisa, &c., &c., are to dine with the Queen to-morrow. . . .”

“24th Feb.

“. . . The Queen has bought Cambridge House in South Audley Street. . . . Thanet and Sefton advanced the deposit money, £3000, this morning. I am afraid you don’t see the Times, otherwise you would read in it Holland’s apology for having said in his speech in the House of Lords that the Emperor of Russia was concern’d in his father’s death. Lady Holland has never slept since; Madame Lieven declines all further intercourse with the Hollands, and, in short, the contemptible statement in the Times, tho’ anonymous, is from Holland himself, and made as his peace offering to the Emperor of all the Russias,* the Lievens and the Princess of Madagascar.”†

* The use of this clumsy paraphrase of the Czar’s title is, of course, very common in British parlance, but is none the less a barbarism. The meaning of the term in Russian is “the all-Russian Emperor,” in the same sense that one uses the terms “Pan-Germanic,” “Pan-Anglican,” &c.

† Creevey’s nickname for Lady Holland was “Princess of Madagascar” or “Old Madagascar.”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“London, 19 July, 1821. “Dear C.,

“This town is in a state of general lunacy beginning most certainly with the Illustrious Person on the throne. Geo. 3. was an ill used man to be shut up for 10 years. His son has slept none, I believe, since you left town; nor will, till it is over. Yesterday he went for near 3 hours to Buckingham House, where Lawrence was painting Lady Conynghame. He then came back and had another row with his ministers, having been all Saturday and half of Sunday in a squabble with them; and, soon after he was housed, there drove along the Mall furiously a carriage and four, which was followed by my informant and found to contain old Wellesley in person. He was actually traced into Carlton House by the back door. You may make what you please of this,* but the fact is undoubted, as Duncannon and Calcraft were the persons who saw him.

“To-day the Q.’s being allowed to enter the Abbey is doubted . . . but I still think it possible the Big Man may have gout and not be up to it.†

“Yours, “H. B.”

“20th July.

“. . . The paroxysm rather encreases than diminishes, and literally extends to all classes. There never was a more humbling sight in this world. The Ministers are still sitting and squabbling; nor have they to this hour (5) made up their minds whether to stop her or not. My belief is they will let her pass, and also admit her at the Abbey if she persists. She is quite resolved to do so, and comes to sleep at Cambridge House for the purpose. But she is sure to blunder about the hour, and to give them excuses for turning

* The inference was that the Cabinet was jibbing about the Queen’s exclusion, and that the King contemplated laying his commands on Wellesley to form an administration.

† The Coronation.

her back by being late. . . . We [Brougham and Denman] thought at one time she meant to command our attendance, which we had resolved, of course, to refuse, as no more in our department than going to Astley’s; but she did not venture. She has turned off the poor Chaplain Fellowes, who wrote all the balderdash answers, to make room for Wood’s son; but the Alderman has failed in an attempt to turn off Hieronymus, the Major-domo, in order to put some friend of his in the place. Dr. Parr has written a vehement letter to advise against her going, and certainly this is the prevailing opinion among her friends. I suppose I must be wrong, but I still cannot see it in the same light; and of this I am quite sure, that she would have been quite as much blamed had she stayed away. It is also certain that nothing short of a quarrel and resigning would have stopped her: perhaps not even that; . . . but to take such a step, one ought to have been much more positive against the measure than I have ever been from the first.”

“Thursday. “Dear C.,

“The Qn. (as I found on going to her house at 20 minutes before six this morning) started at a quarter past five, and drove down Constitution Hill in the mulberry—Lady A[nne] H[amilton] and Lady Hood sitting opposite. Hesse (in uniform) and Lord H[ood] in another carriage went before. I followed on foot and found she had swept the crowd after her: it was very great, even at that hour. She passed thro’ Storey’s Gate, and then round Dean’s Yard, where she was separated from the crowd by the gates being closed. The refusal was peremptory at all the doors of the Abbey when she tried, and one was banged in her face. . . . She was saluted by all the soldiery, and even the people in the seats, who had paid 10 and 5 guineas down, and might be expected to hiss most at the untimely interruption, hissed very little and applauded loudly in most places. In some they were silent, but the applause and waving handkerchiefs prevailed. I speak from hearsay of various persons of different parties, having been obliged to leave it speedily, being recognised and threatened with honors.

“About ½ past six [a.m.] she had finished her walks and calls at the doors, and got into the carriage to return. She came by Whitehall, Pall Mall and Piccadilly. The crowd in the Broad Street of Whitehall was immense (the barriers being across Parlt. St. and King St.). All, or nearly all followed her and risked losing their places. They crammed Cockspur Street and Pall Mall, &c., hooting and cursing the King and his friends, and huzzaing her. A vast multitude followed her home, and then broke windows. But they soon (in two or three hours) dispersed or went back.

“I had just got home and she sent for me, so I went and breakfasted with her, and am now going to dine, which makes me break off; but I must add that the King was not well received at all—silence in many places, and a mixture of hisses and groans in others. However, there were some bounds kept with him. For Wood and Waithman—a division of hissing and shouting—for the Atty. and Solr. Gen. an unmixed hissing of the loudest kind. This verdict is really of some moment, when you consider that the jury was very much a special, if not a packed, one. The general feeling, even of her own partisans, was very much agt. her going; but far more agt. their behaviour to her. I still can’t see it in that light; and as she will go quietly back to B[randenburg] House,* avoiding all mob most carefully, she gains more than she loses, and I think her very lucky in being excluded. They put it on not being at liberty to recognise her or any one, except as ticket-bearers. Lord H[ood] shewed me one which they said of course would pass any one of the party, but she refused to go in except as Q. and without a ticket. The one Lord H. shewed me was the Beau’s,† and I have it as a memorial of the business. . . .”

Brougham now made plans to rouse the North in the Queen’s favour, though he appears to have

* She had come to Cambridge House for the Coronation.

† The Duke of Wellington’s.

opposed Her Majesty going there in person. His plans, here characteristically sketched in a letter to Creevey, were never carried into effect, death intervening mercifully to remove Queen Caroline from the troubled scene—the scene which her continued presence could only have rendered still more troubled. The appalling severity of the remedies administered can scarcely have failed to accelerate her release.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey (at Cantley*).

“26th July. “Dear C.,

“The Queen certainly goes to Scotland. . . . I should not wonder if she were to go thro’ the manufacturing districts. Possibly Birmingham (where the K. refused to go) may be in her way. It is on the cards that she should be found in the W. Riding and in Lancashire. For aught I know H. M. may then pass across towards Durham and Newcastle. Indeed the great towns are peculiarly interesting to a person of her contemplative cast. One whose mind is improved by foreign travel naturally loves tracts of country where the population is much crowded, and it is worthy of H. M.’s enlightened mind to patronise the ingenuous artizan. The coal trade, too, is highly interesting. I only hope she may not call at Howick on her way. . . . The time of her setting out is not fixed, depending naturally upon her beloved husband’s motions. . . . The Chamberlain’s place is not yet given away. The Ministers are believed to have resolved to bear this no longer, and to have agreed on a remonstrance to the K. about the Green Ribbons.† He will, of course, say something civil that means little—make some promise that means less—let them name to one place, name to the other himself—and so settle matters as to enable him to go over to Ireland. . . . The Queen

* Michael Angelo Taylor’s place in Yorkshire.

† The King had been creating Knights of the Thistle without taking the advice of his Ministers.

has lost incalculably by getting out of her carriage and tramping about; going and being refused, and damaging the Coronation, was all very well, but the way of doing it was very bad. . . .”

“28th July.

“The Chamberlain not yet given away, and there seems an idea of Wellesley. I heartily wish the present state of squabble between the K. and his Ministers was over, and he and Ly. C[onyngham] no longer civil to the Whigs. There is no chance of its bringing about any change, but the risk is frightful—I mean of any change operated by such means. His dining with the Beau* to-morrow, and the whole Ministers dining with him [the King] to-day, looks like matters being settled between them. At the Levee yesterday he was particularly rude to Hesse; so was he to the Lord Mayor at the Coronation. . . . I have not seen her [the Queen], but I shall to-night, and certainly shall throw cold water on the northern expedition. . . .

“H. B.”

Viscount Hood (Lord Chamberlain to Queen Caroline) to Henry Brougham, M.P.

“21 July, 1821, Brandenburgh House. “My dear Sir,

“. . . Her Majesty has commanded me to say she intends visiting Scotland, but I have not as yet heard the time fixed. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, Aug. 8.

“. . . Brougham was here for a very short time on Sunday night, having left London at six on Saturday evening, travelled all night, and being obliged to go to York that night (40 miles), so as to be ready for the assizes in the morning. . . . As to his Royal

* The Duke of Wellington.

Mistress, his account was most curious. On Friday last she lost sixty-four ounces of blood; took first of all 15 grains of calomel, which they think she threw up again in the whole or in part; and then she took 40 grains more of calomel which she kept entirely in her stomach; add to this a quantity of castor oil that would have turned the stomach of a horse. Nevertheless, on Friday night the inflammation had subsided, tho’ not the obstruction on the liver.

“Her will and certain deeds had been got all ready by Friday night according to her own instructions. Brougham asked her if it was her pleasure then to execute them; to which she said—‘Yes, Mr. Brougham; where is Mr. Denman?’ in the tone of voice of a person in perfect health. Denman then opened the curtain of her bed, there being likewise Lushington, Wilde and two Proctors from the Commons. The will and papers being read to her, she put her hand out of bed, and signed her name four different times in the steadiest manner possible. In doing so she said with great firmness—‘I am going to die, Mr. Brougham; but it does not signify.’—Brougham said—‘Your Majesty’s physicians are quite of a different opinion.’—‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I know better than them. I tell you I shall die, but I don’t mind it.’ . . .”

Viscount Hood to Henry Brougham, M.P.

“Brandenburgh House, 8th Aug., 1821.

“. . . The melancholy event took place at 25 minutes past 10 o’clock last night, when our dear Queen breathed her last. Her Majesty has quitted a scene of uninterrupted persecution, and for herself I think her death is not to be regretted. . . . She died in peace with all her enemies. Je ne mourrai sans douleur, mais je mourrai sans regret—was frequently expressed by her Majesty. I never beheld a firmer mind, or any one with less feelings at the thought of dying, which she spoke of without the least agitation, and at different periods of her illness, even to very few hours of her dissolution, arranged her worldly concerns. . . .”

Mr. Wilde to Henry Brougham, M.P.

“Guildford, 8th Aug., 1821.

“. . . Lushington and myself this morning saw Lord Liverpool and gave copies of the will and codicils. Government take charge of the funeral, which they intend shall be a private one. Lord Liverpool referred me to Lord Melville, who we saw, and he will immediately order a squadron, which will be ready in a week. The body is to be embarked at Harwich and landed at Cuxhaven. . . . Lushington is married this morning; and has left London, to return on Friday. . . .”

Dr. Lushington to Henry Brougham, M.P.

“Carlton, near Newmarket, 9 Aug., 1821. “My dear B.,

“. . . I arrived just before 4 on Tuesday, and the Queen immediately desired to see me. . . . Baillie soon after assured me she was dying, but that the event would not take place for some hours. I went away for a short time, and then remained in the room till death closed the scene. . . . On her death happening, Wilde and myself secured all the repositories as well as we could. This occupied us till between 2 and 3 in the morning. . . . My situation was truly painful. You know I was to be married that very morning—Wednesday. I could not, for various reasons, postpone it; so, having taken 2 hours rest, I went to Hampstead, was married, and immediately returned to town. I had, on the death taking place, sent an express to Lord Liverpool. He came to town. I saw him with Wilde. He behaved extremely well—said Government would defray the expense of the funeral, and that he issued orders from the Chamberlain’s office. He readily assented that the body should not be opened, and that the funeral should take place at Brunswick. By his desire I went over to Lord Melville, and he arranged that two frigates should be sent to Harwich and convey it to Cuxhaven. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, Aug. 11.

“. . . The death of this poor woman under all its circumstances is a most striking event and gave me an infernal lump in my throat most part of Thursday. . . . Nothing in my mind could be so calculated to injure this poor woman as the extraordinary overture made by Brougham to the Government in 1819. It seems that, at his request or by his direction, the Queen came from Italy to Lyons in the autumn of that year for the sole purpose of meeting Brougham there, to consult with him upon her situation; but, forsooth, ‘he could not go—he was busy.’ This is all the excuse he makes for himself, and then he seems to think it odd she was very angry at this disappointment. He admits, likewise, that on this occasion she became very ill. So he was to have gone to her at Milan in the Easter of 1820, as you know he told me, when he asked me to go with him. . . . But he never mentioned having so lately brought the poor woman to Lyons for nothing. When I recall to mind how often, during our journey to Middleton at that time,* he spoke of the Whig candidates for office with the most sovereign contempt—how he hinted at his own intercourse with the Crown and Ministers, and conveyed to me the impression that he thought himself more likely to be sent for to make a Ministry than any one else—how clear it is that the accomplishment of this divorce was to be the ways and means by which his purposes were to be effected.† . . . There

* See vol. i. p. 295.

† Mr. Creevey was not singular in his suspicion of Brougham. Writing on 12th April, 1821, J. W. Croker observes: “Brougham, it is said, grossly has sold the Queen. There is no doubt that he has withdrawn himself a good deal from her, and I believe has been for some time in underground communication with Carlton House.” Again on April 22nd: “Brougham and Denman sworn in the day before yesterday as Attorney- and Solicitor-General to the Queen. Brougham, I hear, wished to secure the profits without the inconveniences of the appointment, and offered not to assume it if Government would give him a patent of precedence, but the Chancellor refused” [The Croker Papers, i. 172-3]

is one subject which gives me some uneasiness—in the making of her will, the Queen wished to leave some diamonds to Victorine, the child of Bergami, of whom she was so fond. This was not liked by Brougham and her other lawyers, so the bequest does not appear in the will; but the jewels are nevertheless to be conveyed to Victorine. This, you know, is most delicate matter—to be employed on her deathbed in sending her jewels from Lady Anne Hamilton and Lady Hood to Bergami’s child appears to me truly alarming. I mean, should it be known, and one is sure it will be so, for Taylor had a letter from Denison last night mentioning such a report, and being quite horrified at it. On the other hand, when I expressed the same sentiment to Brougham, he thought nothing of it. His creed is that she was a child-fancier: that Bergami’s elevation was all owing to her attachment to Victorine, and he says his conviction is strengthened every day of her entire innocence as to Bergami. This, from Brougham, is a great deal, because I think it is not going too far to say that he absolutely hated her; nor do I think her love for her Attorney General was very great.”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Aug. 14, 1821. “Dear C.,

“I have seen Lushington and Wilde repeatedly. They are at this moment in negociation with the Govt.; or rather throwing up all concern with the funeral on account of this indecent hurry. Their ground is a clear one: they won’t take charge of it from Stade—the port in Hanover—to Brunswick without knowing that arrangements are ready to receive them. . . . The Govt., only wishing the speedy embarkation, as they avow, for the sake of not delaying the dinner at Dublin, insist on getting it on board as quick as possible, and don’t mind what happens afterwards. . . . I shall, I think, be satisfied with going to Harwich with it, and not go, as I had intended, to Brunswick.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, Aug. 18th.

“. . . Here is Brougham again. He has been at Harwich, where he saw the body of the Queen embarked about 3 o’clock on Thursday; and then immediately came across the country, and, after travelling all night, got here to dinner yesterday, and proceeds to Durham to-night to join the circuit there. I wish very much I had been at Harwich: according to Brougham’s account it must have been the most touching spectacle that can be imagined—the day magnificently beautiful—the sea as smooth as glass—our officers by land and sea all full dressed—soldiers and sailors all behaving themselves with the most touching solemnity—the yards of the four ships of war all manned—the Royal Standard drooping over the coffin and the Queen’s attendants in the centre boat—every officer with his hat off the whole time—minute guns firing from the ships and shore, and thousands of people on the beach sobbing out aloud. . . . It was as it should be—and the only thing that was so during the six and twenty years’ connection of this unhappy woman with this country. . . . The Queen appointed as executors of her will Bagot,* the Minister of this country to America, and Lord Clarendon, and she left them all her papers sealed up. The other day Lord Jersey received a letter from Lord Clarendon begging him to come to him, which he did. He [Lord Clarendon] then told him that he was going as executor to open his [Lord Jersey’s] mother’s papers.† The seal was then taken off, and letters from the Monarch to his former sweetheart caught Jersey’s eye in great abundance. Lord Clarendon then proceeded to put them all in the fire, saying he had merely wished Lord Jersey to be present at their destruction, and as a witness that they had never been seen by any one. Very genteel, this, on Lord Clarendon’s part to the

* Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Bagot.

† Frances, wife of the 4th Earl of Jersey. Her relations with the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) were notorious. She died 25th July, 1821.

living Monarch and memory of his mistress, but damned provoking to think that such capital materials for the instruction and improvement of men and womankind should be eternally lost! Let me add to the honor of Jersey, and indeed of his wife (for it was her money, not his), that he had raised his mother’s jointure from £1100 per ann. to £3500, and that he has paid at different times £6000 and £2000 in discharge of her debts. . . .

“And now what do you think Brougham said to me not an hour ago?—that if he had gone with the Queen’s body to Brunswick, it would have been going too far—it would have been over-acting his part; ‘it being very well known that through the whole of this business he had never been very much for the Queen!’ Now upon my soul, this is quite true, and, being so, did you ever know anything at all to equal it?

“Brougham showed me a letter he has received from Pauline,* from Italy, requiring his influence with the Government to obtain permission for her to go out to St. Helena to her brother Bonaparte. It encloses a variety of medical and other reports, stating his rapidly declining health, and that she wishes to go out to him with all possible dispatch. Apropos to this subject, Brougham and Lord Roslyn called on Wilson† one day this week, and found Bertrand and Montholon with him. . . . There are two fellows in London from Talleyrand to negociate Bonaparte’s Memoires from them. This is believed to be their object, and Lady Holland writes from Paris that Talleyrand is cursedly alarmed about these said memoires.”

“Cantley, 27th August, 1821.

“. . . Lauderdale (who is here) tells me that when the Ministers have any papers for the King to sign, they write a letter to Bloomfield begging him to get the King’s signature, and Bloomfield again has to solicit Du Paquier, the King’s valet, to seize a favorable opportunity . . . but that, after all, the operation is the most difficult possible to get accomplished.

* Napoleon’s second sister, the Princess Borghese.

† Sir Robert Wilson.

“The different opinions Lauderdale and I have of late entertained makes no difference in his manner to me. There is not an atom of anything artificial in him, and he sat down to dinner yesterday with us four in his green ribbon, just as he did with us at Brussells. Apropos to his green ribbon: he told us that the day the King gave it him, and almost immediately after, he attended an appointment he had with Lord Bathurst . . . so he took that opportunity of saying:—‘His Majesty, my lord, has just forced upon me the Knighthood of the Thistle.’—‘How?’ replied Lord Bathurst with the greatest surprise, ‘who has made the vacancy?’—‘I don’t know anything about that,’ says Lauderdale, ‘but all I do know is that the King has just made four of us!’ . . . Then again, Lauderdale says when the King knighted these four so unexpectedly to them all, Melville, who was one, said:—‘Has your Majesty mentioned it to Lord Liverpool?’—‘Not a word of it, my good lord,’ says old Prinney, ‘it is not the least necessary, I assure you.’—To you and me, this was very pretty humor, I think, and if Prinney never did anything worse, I, for one, would most willingly forgive him.* . . .

“Now for another of Lauderdale’s stories. You know his connection with the Duke of York and all about him. He was executor, it seems, to the Duchess; so, before the poor woman was buried, the Minister from the Elector of Hesse requested an audience of Lauderdale, the object of which was to say that, as the Duke no doubt would marry again, he had thought it his duty to mention that the Elector, his master, had a daughter whom he thought well qualified to be the Duke’s second wife, and, well-knowing Lauderdale’s great influence with the Duke, he had judged it right to make this early application to him. About a week after the Duchess’s funeral, Lauderdale mentioned this to the Duke, who immediately said:—‘This is the second application to me, for the King has communicated to me his wishes that I should marry again; but my mind

* It was, of course, contrary to constitutional custom; because, albeit the Sovereign is the Fountain of Honour, Ministers are the recognised channels through which such honours flow; and such channels do not usually serve to irrigate the Opposition.

is quite made up to do no such thing, and so I have given the King to understand.’

“Not so, however, our dear Prinney. His mind is clearly made up, according to Lauderdale, to have another wife, and all his family are of that opinion. He goes straight for Hanover and Vienna after his Irish trip, so probably he will pick up something before his return at Xmas. . . .”

“Cantley, Sept. 3rd.

“. . . Lauderdale left us on Wednesday. Mrs. Taylor and myself had each of us a good deal of conversation with him separately about Brougham. To me, he avowed his old opinion as to Brougnam’s insanity, and renewed his old question whether ‘I had any doubt’ on the subject. He told me all that Brougham himself had told me as to him (B.) being the first person to propose the divorce, and he added that Lord Hutchinson had no more to do with the concern than he, Lauderdale, had—that Brougham persuaded him [Lord Hutchinson] to go over to St. Omer’s merely as a friend, and then decoyed him into making the proposal, upon the ground that the Queen would suspect any proposition that came from him—B. . . . I said to Lauderdale—‘How could Hutchinson under such circumstances practice the forbearance he did?’—‘Because,’ said L., ‘he must have fought Brougham and ruined him for ever, and he generously preferred sacrificing his own feelings and himself. It was a question much agitated in the family. Kit Hutchinson* was for war with Brougham, but Lord H. would let nothing be done. Had ever man such an escape as Brougham? To Mrs. Taylor, Lauderdale said that he (L.) was the first man Brougham spoke to in the spring of 1819 on the subject of the divorce, desiring him to forward the proposal either to the King or the Government, but that he (L.) positively refused, asking B. at the same time if it was not highly indelicate for such a proposal to come from him. Upon the whole, I am quite convinced that Brougham’s intention was to sacrifice the

* The Hon. Christopher H. Hutchinson, M.P. for Cork, younger brother of Lord Hutchinson.

Queen from motives either of personal ambition or revenge; and I am still more convinced now of what I always suspected—that, when he entered the House of Commons on the 7th of June (I think it was) last year on his return from St. Omer’s, his fixed intention was to sacrifice her that night by renouncing all further support of her, and that he was prevented from doing so by finding Bennett and myself taking the part we did on that occasion. . . . I enclose you a copy I have taken of a letter from Lady Glengall to Mrs. Taylor—very curious and entertaining. You know she has been Lady Conyngham’s ‘nearest and dearest’ in former times. . . . You know she is an Irishwoman—a niece of old Lord Clare—was at the head of Dublin in the days of all its polished and profligate society; and nothing can be so natural, think, as her criticism upon it in its present degraded state. In her days, Conyngham was in poverty, and Lady Conyngham owed her first introduction to Dublin high life exclusively to Lady Glengall. . . .”

Countess of Glengall to Mrs. Taylor.

“Dublin, Aug. 27th.

“Now then, to perform my promise! but it would require the wit of a Creevey, the pen of a Pindar* or the pencil of a Gilray to do justice to the scene. Bedlam broke loose would be tame and rational to the madness of this whole nation; for persons of all ranks are collected from all parts to add their madness and loyalty to that of this mad-tropolis. The first sight that struck my eyes on landing out of the steamboat was the print of his sacred feet cut in the stone, well turned in, thus [figure]. I proceeded a little further, when a triumphal arch struck my astonished eyes. It was worthy and only fit for Jack-in-the

* I.e. John Wolcott, who, under the pseudonym of “Peter Pindar,” wrote The Lousiad, and a great quantity of occasional, satirical, and often scurrilous poems.

Green on a May Day. Rags hung from every window which are called flags, but which would be taken by any one in their senses for the sign of a dyer’s shop. Not one human being in mourning, and when I appeared in sables at a ball, and was asked who I mourned for, I was called a Radical! He was dead drunk when he landed on the 12th of August—his own birthday. They drank all the wine on board the steamboat, and then applied to the whiskey punch, till he could hardly stand. This accounts for his eloquent speech to Lord Kingston, which you may have seen in the papers:—‘You black-whiskered rascal!’ etc. They clawed and pawed him all over, and called him his Ethereal Majesty. . . . They absolutely kiss his knees and feet, and he is enchanted with it all. Alas! poor degraded country! I cannot but blush for you. Think of their having applauded Castlereagh! It is exactly as if a murderer were brought to view the body of his victim, and that he was to be applauded for his crime; for Dublin is but the mangled corpse of what it was; and he—the man whom they huzza—the cut-throat who brought it to its present condition.

“Lady C[onyngham] shows but little in public. She lives at the King’s own lodge at the Phoenix Park. He returned from Slane* this day and report says he is to pay another visit there. It is much talked of by all ranks, and many witticisms are dealt forth. . . . Ye Gods! how they will fight next week. The persons who are most active and forward in managing the fêtes will be undone, as the money subscribed cannot be collected. It is a melancholy farce from beginning to end, and they have voted him a palace! In short, palaces in the air and drunkards under the table are the order of the day. Ireland, I am ashamed of you! He never can stand it: his head must go. Indeed, were I to tell you half, you would say that it was already going, but in all in which she is concerned, I wish to be silent. . . . Far from doing good to this wretched country, his visit is making people spend money which they don’t possess. . . . Nothing is so indecent as the total neglect of mourning. He

* The Marquess Conyngham’s seat in county Meath.

appeared at his private levee, the day after his arrival, in a bright blue coat with the brightest yellow buttons* . . .

“Ever yours, “E. Glengall.”

“Cahir, Sept. 10th.

“. . . The King I find has cut his voyage short by landing at Milford. He was strongly advised to go quietly to Holyhead, but Sir Watkin† had refused to receive a certain part of his cortège, saying that his wife did not know the ladies. . . . I never saw Lady C. in higher spirits or beauty. She went little into public, and the King hurried over all the sights, as he could not bear to be away from her five minutes.‡ Old Sidmouth was never sober: the newspapers are perfectly accurate on this, as on many other occasions. . . . The Catholics think they are quite triumphant and sure of their emancipation, whilst his Majesty’s nods and winks to the High Churchmen have quite set their friends at ease with regard to his intentions. It is humbug!! and on every side; but the Duke of Leinster, Lord Meath and the Irish Whigs are become quite as well educated courtiers as your Devonshires and others that shall be nameless. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, 13th Sept., 1821.

“. . . My little friend, the youngest Copley,§ can never resist touching up John George [Lambton] for

* “Blomfield tells me that the King intends to wear mourning at his private levee, and crape round his arm for the rest of the time. It was not easy, I learn, to persuade him to this” [The Croker Papers, i. 201]. Mr. Croker was present with the King in Dublin.

† Sir W. W. Wynn, 4th baronet of Wynnstay.

‡ “The King went minutely through the Museum and other parts of the interior. Whether this tired him or that he was too impatient to get to Slane, I cannot tell—perhaps both; but he did not appear on the lawn for above four minutes. . . . Great disappointment, and some criticism, which five minutes more would have prevented” [The Croker Papers, i. 206].

§ Afterwards married to 3rd Earl Grey.

one of his sublimities. The first day he was here he said he considered £40,000 a year a moderate income—such a one as a man might jog on with. This was when we were alone; but it was too good to be lost, and . . . yesterday at breakfast, when we were discussing Lord Harewood’s fortune, little Cop said with becoming gravity ‘she believed it exceeded a couple of jogs.’”*

On 14th August, when Queen Caroline’s body was being removed for embarkation at Colchester, a serious riot took place in the streets, during which two persons lost their lives. At the coroner’s inquest upon the bodies, the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against some of the Life Guards.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Gosforth House, 28th Sept., 1821.

“. . . As you are all soldiers in your hearts, I send you a letter I got from Sefton last Sunday, with his opinion touching the Life Guards. By the by, Lambton sent up £500 from Cantley as his subscription for buying Wilson an annuity equal to the pay he has lost. . . .”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey, enclosed in above.

“Paris, 13th Sept., 1821.

“. . . Let me know what you are at. I take it for granted you are red hot against the Life Guards; if so, I don’t agree with you; and if I had followed my inclination, I should have subscribed for them. I think they are always infamously treated by the mob, and are always much too forbearing; but never so much as on the recent occasion. As for the Government, they ought to be impaled, and I hope they will. What will become of Brougham’s silk gown? . . . I hear the Whigs have great hopes of coming in. I sincerely hope they will be disappointed. . . .

“Yours ever, “Sefton.”

* Mr. Lambton, created Earl of Durham in 1833, henceforward appears in these letters as “King Jog.”

CHAPTER II. 1822. Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, Feby. 8th, 1822.

“. . . I dine at Sefton’s again to-day. Did I tell you that Albemarle is to be married on Monday to ‘Charlotte’ Hunlock?* Such is the case. The lady is 45, which is all very well if he must be married.

“12th Feb.

“. . . I dined with my lord and my lady and the young ladies at ¼ before 4, and we all agreed it was much the best hour to dine at. We were in the house by 10 minutes after 5, just as Brougham got up, and of course I heard every word of his speech, and of Castlereagh’s answer to him.† It is the fashion to praise Brougham’s speech more than it deserves—at least in my opinion. It was free from faults, I admit, or very nearly so; and that I think was its principal merit. Castlereagh’s was an impudent, empty answer, clearly showing the monstrous embarrassments the Ministers are under, as to managing both their pecuniary resources and their House of Commons. The division was a very great one—under all the circumstances a most extraordinary one. The effect of the motion, if carried, was to take off 6 or 7 millions of taxes at once. . . . Against this sweeping motion the

* The 3rd Earl of Albemarle [1772-1849]. Married his second wife, Miss Charlotte Hunloke, 11th February, 1822.

‡ Brougham’s motion was upon the distressed state of the country, and for a reduction of taxation.

Government could only produce 212 votes, and for it were found such men as Davenport M.P. for Cheshire, Walter Burrell and Curtis members for Sussex, John Fane for Oxfordshire, Lawley for Warwickshire, Sir John Boughey for Staffordshire, and a good many Tory members for boroughs. Tierney thought the motion too strong, and would not and did not vote, and we had 21 of our men shut out—Lambton with a dinner at his own house, Bennett, Cavendishes and others. Tom Dundas, Chaloner and Ramsden, who had all come up from Yorkshire on purpose, were in the same scrape; Lord John Russell and others the same.”

“London, 16th Feby.

“. . . I dined at Sefton’s with the ladies, Brougham and Ferguson before four, and was in the House some time before Castlereagh began; and when he did turn off, such hash was never delivered by man. The folly of him—his speech as a composition in its attempt at style and ornament and figures, and in its real vulgarity, bombast and folly, was such as, coming from a man of his order, with 30 years’ parliamentary experience and with an audience quite at his devotion, was such as I say amounted to a perfect miracle. To be sure our Brougham as a rival artist with him in talent and composition, play’d the devil with him, and made a great display. . . . I thought I should have died with laughing when Castlereagh spoke gravely and handsomely of the encreased cleanliness of the country from the encreased excise revenue of soap. . . .”

“Brooks’s, Feby. 28th.

“My benefit went off last night as well as possible.* The ‘front row’ of course could not attend, so I went down and occupied it with myself and my books, with Folkestone on one side of me and Bennet on the other. I disported myself for upwards of an hour with Bankes, Finance Committees and ‘high and efficient’ public men. . . . Our lads were in extacies,

* It was a motion to curtail the powers of the Government under the Civil Offices Pensions Act of 1817. Creevey’s speech occupies nine pages of Hansard.

and kept shouting and cheering me as I went on, with the greatest perseverance. Brougham and Sefton were amongst my bottle holders in the front row, and in common with all our people complimented me hugely. . . . Petty asked me now Hume came off last night. Apropos to Hume, never was a villain more compleatly defeated than Croker,* and so it is admitted on all hands, so that our Joe is raised again to the highest pinnacle of fame for his accuracy and arithmetic . . . Here is Grey, publickly damning the newspapers for reporting my speech so badly, but he has ‘seen enough to satisfy himself it must have been very good.’”

“March 15th.

“. . . I made a very good speech (altho’ you will find little trace of it in the newspapers), and rolled the new Buckingham Board of Controul about to their heart’s content, and to the universal satisfaction of the House. Tierney of course betrayed me by his hollow support, and then I had all the weight of Canning’s jokes to sustain, evidently prepared and fired upon me in the successive, and of course successful, peals. . . . I must, or ought to, regret very much that I let Canning off so easily; because, to do the House justice, they gave me perfectly fair play, and when I fired into the ‘Idle Ambassador’ at Lisbon, I had him dead beat. He dropt his head into his chest, and evidently skulked from what he thought might come. . . . It was a great, and perhaps the only opportunity of shewing up the Joker’s life and what it has all ended in—banishment to India from want of honesty. . . . I think I shall have full measure of these bridal visits. I dine at Ly. Anson’s to-day, on Sunday at McDonald’s, on Thursday with the young people at the Duke of Norfolk’s, to-morrow with the Whigs at Ridley’s.”

“Brooks’s, 16th March.

“I can’t get the better of my chagrin at not having done myself justice upon Canning the other night. . . . I dined at Ly. Anson’s yesterday. We had Coke* and Ly. Anne, Miss Coke, Lord and Ly. Rosebery, Digby and Lady Andover,† Hinchcliffe (Ld. Crewe’s nephew), Mr. Lloyd and myself. I sat next Lady Anson by her desire. I was introduced both by her and Coke to Lady Anne, who, to my mind, has neither beauty nor elegance nor manners to recommend her, but if ever I saw a deep one, it is her. She was perfectly at her ease. On the other hand, I never saw more perfect behaviour than that of all the ladies of the family. Miss Coke I thought was low. We had, however, a very merry dinner, and I went upstairs and staid till eleven. I kept up a kind of running fire upon Coke, and Ly. Anson kept her hand upon my arm all the time, pinching me and keeping me in check when she thought I was going too far. . . . I was at Whitehall last night—Ly. Ossulston, Miss Lemon, Ferguson, Sefton and Vaughan, and then I came here (Brooks’s), and was fool enough to sit looking over a whist table till between 4 and 5 this morning. Sefton and I walked away together, he having won by the evening a thousand and twenty pounds.”

* A dispute between Joseph Hume and J. W. Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty, upon the Navy Estimates.

“April 26th.

“. . . Another event of yesterday was Denman being elected Common Serjeant by the Common Council of London. The Queen’s counsel, who on that occasion compared her husband to Nero! . . . This was homage to Denman’s honesty. I don’t think Brougham could have succeeded, superior as he is to the other in talent.”

“Brooks’s, April 27th.

“I had a long conversation here to-day with Thanet.‡ I must say, ‘altho’’ it might appear to anybody but you parasitical in his member to say so, that in agreeableness and honesty he surpasses all his

* Thomas Coke of Holkham, M.P. for Norfolk, created Earl of Leicester in 1837. Married his second wife, Lady Anne Keppel, on 26th February, 1822, mother of the present earl.

† Viscountess Andover, widow of the 15th Earl of Suffolk’s eldest son, married in 1806 Admiral Sir Henry Digby.

‡ Sackville Tufton, 9th Earl of Thanet.

order—easy. To-morrow I dine with Sefton. Here is little Derby sitting by my side—very, very old in looks, but as merry as ever. Here is Brougham, too, but in a most disgruntled, unsatisfactory state. His manners to me are barely civil, but I take no notice, presuming that time will bring him round, and if it don’t—I can’t help it.”

“Brooks’s, 3rd May.

“. . . Your philosophy is well and solidly grounded. These are feeble grievances as long as you are all well: nay, I might add, what are grievances like these to those of Lord and Ly. Salisbury—the one, the descendant of old Cecil and aged 80 years—the other, the head and ornament and patroness of the beau monde of London for the last 40 years, and yet to have £2000 per ann. taken out of their pockets at last by a rude and virtuous House of Commons. . . . If this distress will but pinch these dirty, shabby landed voters two sessions more, there’s no saying at what degree of purity we shall arrive. Meantime, all your place and pension holders must shake in their shoes. . . . Here is Grey in such roaring spirits, and so affable that I should not be surprised at the offer of a place from him when he comes in, which I am sure he now thinks must be very soon indeed. But Abercromby for my money: he told me last night it was all over with the present men.”

“7th May.

“. . . Brougham was sitting at Holland House on Sunday morning with my lady and various others, when a slight thunderstorm came on, and, according to invariable custom, my lady bolted. Presently the page summoned Brougham and conducted him to my lady’s bedchamber, where he found all the windows closed and the candles lighted. She said she did not like to be left alone, so she pressed him to stay and dine, but upon his saying he must keep his engagement at Ridley’s—‘Ah,’ said she, ‘you will meet Creevey there, I suppose. What can be the reason he never comes near me?’—We both of us laughed heartily at her conscience and fears thus smiting her when she thought herself in danger; so I must leave her to another storm or two before I go to her.”

“Denbies, 28th May.

“. . . Mrs. Taylor says Lady Glengall told her last night she had not a single ticket left for the Hibernian ball out of her 100. . . . You know the original plan was to have had the affair at Willis’s Rooms. The leading female managers being Lady Hertford and Dowr. Richmond, &c., &c. The blockheads, it seems, made up their list of patronesses without including Ly. Conyngham in the number, and she was not a lady to submit quietly to such an insult; so she started this opposition ball at the Opera House, with the King as patron, and all the same ladies as patronesses that were on the other list, except Lady Hertford and Dowr. Richmond. The former is incensed at this practical retort from her successful rival* beyond all bounds. . . . If you wish for anything in the public line, let me tell you that on Thursday or Friday last, Castlereagh, being in Hyde Park on horseback, met Tavistock, and tho’ he has very slight acquaintance with him, he turned his horse about, and lost no time in unbosoming himself upon the state of public affairs. He described the torment of carrying on the Government under the general circumstances of the country as beyond endurance, and said if he could once get out of it, no power on earth should get him into it again.”†

“Brooks’s, 15th June.

“. . . As it is not very often I am in the literary line, let me boast of having read three hours this morning, being very much delighted with a new book I have got. It is the poems and other pieces of Sir Chas. Hanbury-Williams, grandfather to the present Lord Essex. . . . As a wit and poet, I assure you the Welchman is of high order. . . . Then, what with text and notes, you have the whole town before you—male and female—political and domestic—during 30 years of the last century. . . .”

* In the affections of the King.

† Within a few weeks of this Castlereagh died by his own hand.

“18th June.

“. . . On Saturday I dined at John Williams’s in Lincoln’s Inn, being carried there by Lambton in his coach, protected by two footmen. Sunday I dined at Cowper’s with Sefton, Jerseys, Ossulston, George Lambs, Carnarvon, Kensington and Wm. Lambe. . . . I am sorry to find that my friend Sir Thos. Hy. Williams has some great objections to him on the score of delicacy.”

“Cantley, July 21.

“. . . Well, I wonder whether you will be anything like as much interested by O’Meara and Buonaparte as I have been and am still. I can think of nothing else. . . . I am perfectly satisfied Buonaparte said all that O’Meara puts into his mouth. Whether that is all true is another thing. . . . There are parts of the conversations, too, which are quite confirmed, or capable of being so, by evidence. For instance—when O’Meara lent him the Edinburgh Review, just come out, with a sketch of his life in it, he expresses to O’Meara the greatest surprise at some facts there stated, as he says he is sure they are, or were, only known to his own family. It turns out the article in question was written by Allen, and the facts referred to were told to Lord Holland when at Rome by Cardinal Fesch. Again; the conversations which Nap states to have taken place between him and young de Staël, the latter says are perfectly correct as to the periods and the subject of them, tho’ he denies some of Nap’s statements in them to be true. It is very difficult to predict what is to cause any permanent impression or effect, but, judging from my own feelings, I shd. say these conversations of Nap’s are calculated to produce a very strong and very universal one upon very many subjects, and upon most people in future times, as well as our own.”*

* Lord Rosebery’s is the latest hand that has dealt with the prisoner of St. Helena, and that with a very sympathetic touch. Of O’Meara’s book he says—“A Voice from St. Helena, by O’Meara is perhaps the most popular of all the Longwood narratives, and few

The following extract from a letter by Lord Derby refers to the candidature of his grandson, afterwards fourteenth earl, for Stockbridge, and marks the first public appearance of the future “Rupert of debate.”

“Knowsley, 10th August, 1822. “My dear Creevey,

“I last night received your very kind letter and take the earliest opportunity of thanking you for the communication of Ld. Sefton’s letter concerning Edward Stanley’s début at Stockbridge. It is most gratifying to me to hear him so well spoken of. . . . You could not have told me anything that was more acceptable to me, and I feel most grateful to you for this attention. . . . Speaking in Parliament is, however, so very different thing from speaking on the hustings or at an election dinner that I shall still be very anxious for his success in the house, and I earnestly hope that he may not be in too great a hurry to begin. . . .”

Lord Castlereagh, who succeeded his father as second Marquess of Londonderry on 8th April, 1821, but who will always be best recognised under the title which he raised to distinction, perished by his own hand on 13th August, 1822. The circumstances

publications ever excited so great a sensation as this worthless book. Worthless it undoubtedly is, in spite of its spirited flow and the vivid interest of the dialogue. No one can read the volumes of Forsyth, in which are printed the letters of O’Meara to Lowe, or the handy and readable treatise in which Mr. Seaton distils the essence of these volumes, and retain any confidence in O’Meara’s facts. He may sometimes report conversations correctly, or he may not, but in any doubtful case it is impossible to accept his evidence. He was the confidential servant of Napoleon; unknown to Napoleon, he was the confidential agent of Lowe; and behind both their backs he was the confidential informant of the British Government, for whom he wrote letters to be circulated to the Cabinet. Testimony from such a source is obviously tainted” [Napoleon: the Last Phase, 1900].

are too well known to require further reference, except to note that the different causes mentioned by Mr. Creevey to account for this great statesman’s derangement are wide of the mark. Castlereagh had submitted to a peculiarly nefarious system of blackmail by some villains who had entrapped him, and the agony of apprehension resulting from this, acting upon a mind perhaps overstrained in the public service during a long and peculiarly agitated period, brought about the disaster.

Suicide was of painfully frequent occurrence among public men in the first half of the nineteenth century. Paull, the enemy of Marquess Wellesley, in 1808—Samuel Whitbread in 1815—Sir Samuel Romilly in 1818—and now Castlereagh in 1822, are among the figures who disappeared in this melancholy manner from the stage depicted in these papers. It may be idle to speculate upon the source of a tendency which prevails no longer among our legislators; but those who have had occasion to peruse the memoirs and study the social habits of the period under consideration, cannot have overlooked two agencies which must have sapped all but the most robust constitutions. One was the habit of hard drinking, encouraged by all who could afford to give hospitality, in emulation of the example furnished by those who set the fashions. The other was the constant recourse to drastic physic and excessive bleeding to remedy the disorders induced by high living. If these were not contributing causes to suicide, their discontinuance at all events coincides with a marked reduction in its frequency.

It had been agreeable to trace in Creevey’s correspondence some signs of large-hearted regret for the removal of one who had borne so great a part in the national history, and had so long led the House of Commons. The spirit of party seems to have been too acrid at the time to admit any infusion of gentler sentiment towards a fallen foe.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, 14 Aug., 1822.

“. . . And now for Castlereagh—what an extraordinary event! I take for granted his self-destruction has been one of the common cases of pressure upon the brain which produces irritability, ending in derangement. Taylor will have it, and Ferguson also believes in this nonsense, that Bonaparte’s charge against him as told by O’Meara, of his having bagged part of Nap’s money has had something to do with it. Do you remember my telling you of a conversation Castlereagh forced upon Tavistock in the Park in the spring—about his anxiety to quit office and politicks and Parliament?* He did the same thing to Ferguson one of the last nights at Almack’s, stating his great fatigue and exhaustion and anxiety to be done with the concern altogether—just as poor Whitbread did to me both by letter and conversation two years before his death. It is a curious thing to recollect that one night at Paris in 1815 when I was at a ball at the Beau’s, Castlereagh came up to me and asked if I had not been greatly surprised at Whitbread’s death, and the manner of it, and then we had a good deal of conversation on the subject.

“Death settles a fellow’s reputation in no time, and now that Castlereagh is dead, I defy any human being to discover a single feature of his character that can stand a moment’s criticism. By experience, good manners and great courage, he managed a corrupt House of Commons pretty well, with some address. This is the whole of his intellectual merit. He had a limited understanding and no knowledge, and his

* See p. 38.

whole life was spent in an avowed, cold-blooded contempt of every honest public principle. A worse, or, if he had had talent and ambition for it, a more dangerous, public man never existed. However, he was one of Nap’s imbeciles, and as the said Nap over and over again observes, posterity will do them both justice. . . .

“Now, what will come next? Will the perfidious Canning forego his Indian prospects—stay with his wife and daughter to succeed Castlereagh. I think not. I think the former enmity between him and Eldon has been too publickly exposed and encreased, by their late sparring match upon the Marriage Act, to let them come together. Then I think the Beau will claim and have the Foreign Office, and Peel will claim to lead in the House of Commons. Mais-nous verrons! I suppose the King will approve the step Lord Castlereagh has taken, as he was Lady Conyngham’s abhorrence, and Lady Castlereagh would not speak to Lady Conyngham.

“What a striking thing this death of Castlereagh is under all the circumstances! This time last year he was revelling with his Sovereign in the country he had betrayed and sold, over the corpse of the Queen whom he had so inhumanly exposed and murdered. Ah, Prinney, Prinney! your time will come, my boy; and then your fame and reputation will have fair play too. . . . Taylor had a letter from Denison yesterday with a good deal of London jaw in it, and some of it is curious enough considering the quarter it comes from.* Bloomfield is to go to Stockholm as our minister! and then Denison says, had he not been discharged, the Privy Purse was in such a state, Parliament must have been applied to. Bloomfield’s defence is, the Privy Purse was exhausted by paying for diamonds for Lady Conyngham; and all these honors and emoluments showered on him by the Crown are given him to make him hold his tongue. . . .”

* William Joseph Denison of Denbies, M.P., was brother to the Marchioness of Conyngham.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Carlisle, 19th Aug.

“. . . Well! this is really a considerable event in point of size. Put all their other men together in one scale, and poor Castlereagh in the other—single, he plainly weighed them down. . . . One can’t help feeling a little for him, after being pitted against him for several years pretty regularly. It is like losing a connection suddenly. Also, he was a gentleman, and the only one amongst them. But there are material advantages; and among them I reckon not the least that our excellent friends that are gone, and for whom we felt so bitterly, are, as it were, revenged. I mean Whitbread and Romilly.* I cannot describe to you how this idea has filled my mind these last 24 hours. No mortal will now presume to whisper a word against these great and good men—I mean in our time; for there never was any chance of their doing so in after time. All we wanted was a gag for the present, and God knows here we have it in absolute perfection. Hitherto we were indulged with the enemy’s silence, but it was by a sort of forbearance; now we have it of right.

“As for the question of his successor—who cares one farthing about it? We know the enemy is incalculably damaged anyhow. Let that suffice! He has left behind him the choice between the Merry Andrew and the Spinning Jenny;† and the Court—the vile, stupid, absurd, superannuated Court—may make its election and welcome. The damaged Prig or the damaged Joker signifies very little. I rather agree with Taylor that they will take Wellington for the Secy. of State, and that Canning will still go to India. . . . I rather think I shd. prefer the very vulnerable Canning remaining at home. By the way, I hope to live to see medical men like Bankhead tried for manslaughter, at the least. What think you of removing things from poor C., and then leaving him alone, even for 5 minutes?. . .”

* Both of whom committed suicide.

† Canning and Peel.

George IV. made a royal progress to Edinburgh in August of this year. Thanks, in great measure, to the influence of Sir Walter Scott, his Majesty was received in the northern capital with far more respect and enthusiasm than he had been accustomed of late to experience in the south.

From — Stuart to Mr. Ferguson of Raith. Stuart

“Edinburgh, 17th Aug., 1822.

“. . . I send you a Scotsman [newspaper], the Account in which as to the King is pretty correct. He has been received by the people in the most respectful and orderly manner. All have turn’d out in their holiday cloaths, and in numbers which are hardly credible. . . . I have been much disappointed to-day with the levee. . . . There was nothing interesting or imposing about it. A vast crowd, with barely standing room for two hours: afterwards moved to the Presence Chamber, where no one was for a minute. . . . The King did not seem to move a muscle, and we all asked each other, when we came away, what had made us take so much trouble. He was dressed in tartan. Sir Walter Scott has ridiculously made us appear to be a nation of Highlanders, and the bagpipe and the tartan are the order of the day.”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Lancaster, 21st August.

“. . . I dined the day before yesterday at old Bolton’s circuit dinner, and found Canning there. I had a good deal of talk with him about Castlereagh, and he spoke very properly. Neither of us canted about the matter; but he shewed the right degree of feeling. I don’t think he is going to be sent for, and am pretty sure he will go to India. If they are kind enough to do so excellent a thing as try it with the low, miserable Spinning Jenny,* thank God for it!

* Peel.

Only lose no time in reminding Barnes, as from yourself, of the magazine of ammunition for attacking him the moment the arrangement is made—I mean, in the debates of 1819, when I laid it into him in a merciless manner. It is pretty correctly given, and is a fund of attack; the rather that the fellow was caught in the fact of the very lowest trick ever man attempted. It was like having his hand seized while picking a pocket.

“Yours ever, “H. B.”

“Lancaster, 22nd Aug.

“. . . I hope you are sufficiently angry at the cursed cant of the liberal daily papers about Castlereagh. I ought rather to say their childish giving vent to feelings, and bepraising C. absurdly and falsely, merely because he is dead. Such stuff takes away all authority from the press, and makes attacks really of no kind of importance. If they go on upon all subjects upon the mere impulse of the moment, they will soon cease to be any more attended to than a parcel of infants or lunatics.”

“Brougham, 24 Aug. “Dear C.,

“I long to know your speculations upon these times, as I have heard nothing from you since we were bereaved of our Castlereagh; therefore I can’t be sure that you have survived that event. . . . Don’t believe in Canning’s coming in. He may be unwise enough to desire it, and Jenky* may try for him, and it may go so far as a kind of offer; but nothing short of the event will ever convince me of his being in the Cabinet with these men and with this King. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, Aug. 24, 1822.

“This Royalty is certainly the very devil. . . . Sussex arrived on Wednesday between 3 and 4, himself in a very low barouche and pair, and a

* Lord Liverpool.

thundering coach behind with four horses—his staff, Stevenson, a son of Albemarle’s, a Gore, servants, groom of the chambers, a black valet-de-chambre and two footmen, clad en militaires. . . . It has been my good fortune during his stay here to be considered by all parties as his fittest companion. Accordingly, I had a tête-à-tête with him of nearly four hours together on Thursday, and of 2½ yesterday, and my health has really been greatly impaired by this calamity. He has every appearance of being a good-natured man, is very civil and obliging, never says anything that makes you think him foolish; but there is a nothingness in him that is to the last degree fatiguing. . . . Althorpe was here yesterday, and told me there had certainly been rejoicings in the neighbouring market towns upon Castlereagh’s death. . . .

“Robert Ferguson* tells me that he has seen a great deal of Major Poppleton lately, the officer of the 53rd who was stationed about Bonaparte. Bob says Poppleton is quite as devoted to Nap, and as adverse to Lowe as O’Meara, and that all the officers of the 53rd were the same. . . . Poppleton has a beautiful snuff-box poor Nap gave him. What would I give to have such a keepsake from him, and, above all, to have seen him. O’Meara has a tooth of his he drew, which he always carries about with him. . . .”

“Cantley, Aug. 29.

“. . . Did I tell you that our Sussex is to come back to us for Doncaster races? . . . Miss Poyntz has refused Lord Gower,† as has Miss Bould of Bould Hall Lord Clare. . . . Miss Seymour (Minny) when she landed at Calais had O’Meara’s book in her hand, which, when recognised, was instantly seized by the police. What a specimen of a great nation and the proud situation of the Bourbons! However, Sussex told me the book was already translated into both French and German, so the Hereditary Asses of all nation’s won’t escape, with all their precautions. Did I tell you that Sussex says none of his sisters will

* Son of General [Sir] Ronald Ferguson, M.P., originally in the 53rd Foot, succeeded his brother in 1840 as laird of Raith.

† Afterwards 2nd Duke of Sutherland.

touch Ly. Conyngham, which gives mortal offence to Prinney; nor can their justification be very agreeable, for they say, after his insisting upon their not speaking to the late Queen, how can they do so to Ly. C.?

“Cantley, Sept. 3.

“. . . Maria Copley says Miss Canning is quite broken-hearted at going [to India]. She says that her forte is her memory, as proof of which she gave me two instances. One was, getting by heart in a few hours the 39 Articles: the other was, in a somewhat longer time, repeating the whole of a Times newspaper, from beginning to end, advertisements and all. Maria says Lady Charlotte Greville, having dined at the Pavilion not long ago, and having sat next the King, describes him as grown the greatest bore she ever saw. . . . His irritability of temper, they say, is become quite intolerable; his prevailing subject of complaint is his old age, at which he feels, of course, the most royal indignation. . . .”

“Cantley, Sept. 7, 1822.

“. . . Maria Copley has read me a letter from Lady Francis Leveson from her new and noble parents’ Cock Robin Castle,* at the other extremity of Scotland. It is really not amiss as an exhibition of the tip-top noble domestic. Lord Francis† had left Edinbro immediately upon Lord Stafford’s† illness, and Lady Francis followed immediately to pass a month there [at Dunrobin]. She says—‘Figure to yourself my introduction into a room about 12 feet square, the company being Lord and Lady Stafford, Lord and Lady Wilton, Lord and Lady Elizabeth Belgrave, Lord and Lady Surrey, and Lord Gower. A table in the midst of the room, highly polished, I admit, but not a book nor a piece of work to be seen: the company formed into a circle, and every man and his wife sitting next each other, after the manner of the Marquis of Newcastle’s family in the picture in his book.’”

* Dunrobin.

† Afterwards created Earl of Ellesmere.

‡ Created Duke of Sutherland in 1833

“Cantley, Sept. 15th, 1822.

“. . . Amongst other people whom I saw at the ball was Tom Smith the hunter and M.P.* Upon my saying Canning had made a bad thing of it in bringing in no one with him, he said it was quite bad enough to have him brought in without any other of his set, and that he (Smith) was of Falstaff s opinion that Canning was as rotten as a stewed prune, or words to that effect. . . .”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brougham, 14 Sept. “Dear C.,

“Many thanks for your letter. I had, however, yesterday heard (via Bowood where the Hollands are) that all was settled. Canning succeeds to Foreign Office, lead of the House, &c.—in short, all of Castlereagh except his good judgt., good manners and bad English. . . . Now don’t still call me obstinate if I withhold my belief till I see them fairly under weigh. I know the Chancellor’s† tricks: he is ‘the most subtle of all the beasts.’ . . . The Beau‡ is still very unwell, and was cupped again on Thursday night.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, Sept. 19.

“. . . What a victim of temper poor Lambton is! He has been complaining to me of his unhappiness. I observed in reply that he had a good many of the articles men in general considered as tolerable ingredients for promoting happiness; to which he replied:—‘I don’t know that; but I do know that it’s damned hard that a man with £80,000 a year can’t sleep!’ He has not much merit but his looks, his property and his voice and power of publick speaking. He has not the slightest power or turn for conversation, and would like to live exclusively on the flattery

* Thomas Assheton Smith.

† Lord Eldon.

‡ The Duke of Wellington.

of toadies; nevertheless, I am doomed to go to Lambton: he will hear of nothing less, and I have shirked him so often, I suppose I must go. . . .”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Raby, Sept., 1822. “Dear Citizen,

“Your letter gives me some comfort, and indeed much coincides with my own view of the Merryman’s* case. Certainly he presents more sore places to the eye of the amateur than most men. Moreover his coin is now about cried down—at least hardly current. He is stampt as a joker, and therefore dare not joke: not to mention that hard figures of arithmetick are too hard to be got over by figures of rhetorick. All these things, and his gout and irritability, I try to console myself withal, but still I own I am somewhat low—not so much at what we are to have, which is most excellent in its way—but at what we have lost, which is by far the best thing in the world—namely, the Spinning Jenny,† Vesey,‡ Kew, Bellamy and Co. It was indeed too good a thing to happen. . . .”

“Brougham, Tuesday [Sept., 1822].

“. . . I hope you are sufficiently vexed at Hume making such an ass of himself as he did t’other day by his stupid vanity and his attack, thro’ such vanity, on the rest of the Opposition. His kind patronage of Archy is only laughable, but to see him splitting on that rock (of egotism and vanity) is rather provoking. What right has he to talk of the Whigs never coming to his support on Parly. Reform? I can remind him of their dividing some 120 on it in 1812, when he was sitting at Perceval’s back, toad-eating him for a place, and acting the part of their covert doer of all sorts of dirty work in the coarsest and most offensive way, thro’ the whole battle of the Orders in Council, when

* Canning.

† Peel.

‡ Right Hon. W. Vesey Fitzgerald, M.P. [1783-1843], afterwards Lord Fitzgerald.

we beat them and him! I always have defended him when that period of his life has been cast in my teeth, and on this one ground—that Bentham, Mill, &c., who converted him, persuaded me that his former conduct was from mere want of education, and that he was radically honest. But off hands! an’t please you, good Master Joseph! In truth I cannot reckon a man’s conduct at all pure who shows up others at public meetings behind their backs, whom he never whispers a word against in their places. There is extreme meanness in this sneaking way of ingratiating himself at their expense, and the utter falsehood of the charge is glaring. Parly. Reform has never once been touched by him (luckily for the question). The motions on it last session were Lord John’s and my own. His boro’ reform professedly steered clear of the question. I trust he has been misrepresented, but I heard in Scotland that people were everywhere laughing at him for his arrogance and vanity.”

Earl of Thanet to Mr. Creevey.

“. . . I am just returned from Kent, more disgusted than usual at the language and temper of those I saw, which I take for a sample of the rest; everybody complaining, without an idea that they could do anything towards attaining relief. Landlords and farmers seem to have no other occupation than comparing their respective distresses. They ask what is to happen. I answer—you will be ruined, and they stare like stuck pigs. I could not hear of one Tory gentleman who had changed. One booby says it is the Poor Rate—another the Tithe—another high rents—all omit the real cause, taxation, the mother of all evil. It is a besotted country, and may, for aught I know, be a proper audience for Mr. Merriman.

“Brougham has been bidding £15,000 for two farms in Westmorland. The seller has taken time to consider, and, if he does not nail him, he must have found one as insane as himself.”

One is accustomed to associate the introduction of the battue with the reign of Queen Victoria, and especially with the Prince Consort, but here we have an early example of the practice, and not only the practice, but the very term “battue” is applied to it. Holkham has long been famed for shooting, but it is certainly surprising to find that bags on this scale could be made eighty years ago, by men shooting with flint-lock muzzle-loaders. There are few rabbits in the covers at Holkham now; possibly they were more numerous there when George IV. was king.

Viscountess Anson to Mr. Creevey.

“Holkham, Nov. 5, 1822.

“. . . Though not much of a sportsman yourself, you may be living with those who are, and I suppose it would be incorrect to write a letter from hence—the day after the first battue—without mentioning that 780 head of game were killed by 10 guns, and that 25 woodcocks formed a grand feature in the chasse.”

Upon Castlereagh’s death, Wellington went on the embassy to Verona in his place. It was Canning’s policy, on succeeding Castlereagh at the Foreign Office, to make it appear that his predecessor had entered upon an aggressive line in regard to European complications, from which he—Canning—extricated the British Cabinet. But in truth Wellington carried with him and acted upon instructions drafted by Castlereagh himself, whereof the keynote was “to observe a strict neutrality.“Especially was this so in regard to the French invasion of Spain, then imminent. “There seems nothing to add to or to vary in the course of policy hitherto pursued. Solicitude for the safety of the royal family, observance of our obligations with Portugal, and a rigid abstinence from any interference in the internal affairs of that country”—these are Castlereagh’s own words as drafted for his own guidance when he, and not Wellington, was to have been the British plenipotentiary at the Congress; and they disprove the claim made by the partisans of Canning that it was he, not Castlereagh, who first established the policy of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of foreign countries so far as consistent with treaty obligations. This was the more notable, because the Emperor of Russia, formerly distinguished for liberal views, had of late ranged himself in line with the other crowned heads of Europe in desiring to repress by force the revolutionary movement in Spain, which country, he told Wellington, “he considered the headquarters of revolution and Jacobinism; that the King and royal family were in the utmost danger, and that so long as the revolution in that country should be allowed to continue, every country in Europe, and France in particular, was unsafe.”*

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Farnley, 14th Nov., 1822.

“. . . I am happy to see from the papers that the Beau is getting upon his legs again, and I am still more happy that he is at Verona instead of that terrible fellow Castlereagh. It appears to me impossible after all Wellington has said to me about the King of Spain and his perfidy, and with his intimacy with Alava, one of Ferdinand’s victims, that the Beau should be for helping him out of his difficulties. Then he knows the Spanish nation better than anybody else here—their universal hatred of the French—their great resources from their mountains and guerilla warfare. In short, I rely with confidence upon him

* Wellington’s Civil Despatches, i. 343.

as the only man who, on this occasion, could keep those Royal Imbeciles and Villains of Europe in any order, and I consider his being there as our minister as quite a godsend. If this vapouring French ministry do once cross the Spanish frontier, the devil take the hindmost of the Bourbons, both French and Spanish.”

Creevey, having had rather a heated correspondence with Mr. Lambton (afterwards Earl of Durham) on political subjects, chiefly connected with an election for York, and being about to meet him at Croxteth, felt uncertain as to the terms on which they stood together. He therefore wrote to Lambton, bluntly seeking for an understanding.

Mr. Lambton to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, Nov. 15, 1822. “Dear Creevey,

“You have already smote me on one cheek, and I now, in the true spirit of scriptural precept, offer you the other. In other and more profane words, you have used me shamefully. You promised to come to our races: I kept a room for you until the second day after they had begun, altho’ beds were as scarce as honest men; yet you neither came nor sent me word that you had altered your mind. You —— but I had better stop, or I shall work myself up into that vindictive spirit which you deprecate.

“Now for a proof of my forgiving disposition. I not only shall meet you at Croxteth in perfect amity, but shall be happy to take you there, if my time suits your convenience. I am to be at Croxteth on Friday next, and sleep at Skipton on Thursday night. Skipton, I fancy, is about 15 miles from Farnley, and if you will join me there on Friday morning, I will carry you and your luggage safely to Croxteth. You must, however, break your usual rule, and let me know whether this offer suits you or not. . . . Don’t talk to me about politics—I have done with them. If you can tell me anything respecting the Leger—if you have any dark horse who is not spavined—I shall listen to you with attention; but as to Verona, the Bourbons, Reform, Spain, the Pirates, &c., &c., throw them to the dogs: I’ll have none on’t!

“Yours, in the true spirit of Christian feeling, “J. G. Lambton.”

Wm. Cobbett to Mr. Fawkes [a candidate for Parliament].

“12th Nov., 1822.

“. . . The ruin in this part of the country is general. An unruined farmer is an exception. The Pitt system seems destined to fulfil all my prophecies—even those that were thought the most wild. Faith! your antagonist Mr. Canning has his hands full. He has already discovered what it is to negociate with a debt of 800 millions and a dead weight of 100 millions hanging round the neck of the country. This was one of the points that Windham told me I was mad upon. I said—you can have neither war nor peace in safety without getting rid of this infernal debt. He used to say—‘let us beat the French first.’ I used to say that to beat them with bank notes was to beat ourselves in the end. And thus it has been. The country becomes a poor, low, pitiful, feeble, cowardly thing, unless we get rid of the debt; and that is not to be got rid of without a reform in the House of Commons. The conduct of the Lords has always been to me the most surprising thing. Terrified out of their wits at Hunt,* who is really as inoffensive as Pistol or Bardolph, and hugging to their bosoms the Barings, the Ricardos and all that tribe. . . . However, it is useless to exclaim. . . . The war used to be called an ‘eventful period;’ but this is the eventful period for England.”

* Henry Hunt [1773-1835], radical politician, commonly known as “Orator Hunt.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Croxteth, Nov. 26, 1822.

“Well! I found the King* at Skipton before nine on Friday, breakfasting on his own tea, his own sugar, his own bread and even his own butter—all brought from Lambton. However, the Monarch was very amiable, and barring one volcanic eruption against the postboys for losing their way within 5 miles of this house, our journey was very agreeable. . . .”

“Dec. 3rd.

“. . . Lord Hertford owes his blue ribbon to his having purchased four seats in Parliament since his father’s death, and to his avowed intention of dealing still more largely in the same commodity. . . . We continue to go on quite capitally in this house. I never saw Sefton in greater force. I wish you could see the manner of both father and son to the different tenants we see from time to time on our different shooting and coursing excursions. What a contrast to the acid and contemptuous Lambton! However, poor devil, he pays for it pretty dearly, and will probably be a victim to his temper. . . . Lady Georgiana [Molyneux] amused me yesterday by telling me of a conversation she had with Lady Holland, in which the latter had deplored my present hostility to her, and had requested Ly. Georgiana’s assistance in discovering the cause, and producing a reconciliation. . . .”

“Croxteth, Dec. 12.

“. . . The truth is that all the Whigs are either fools or rogues enough to believe that our Monarch is really very fond of them, and that (according to the angry Boy† who left us yesterday) if we, the Whigs. could but arrange our matters between ourselves, the Sovereign would be happy to send for us. This is all he is waiting for; and with reference to it, Lambton told Sefton in the strictest confidence that it is of vital importance to gain Brougham s consent to Scarlett

* Mr. Lambton. † Mr. Lambton.

being Chancellor, and for Brougham to take the office of Atty. Genl.! . . . You may suppose the anxiety of the Earl’s mind till he found me for the purpose of unburthening himself of this confidential communication; and having done so, we indulged ourselves in a duet that might have been heard in the remotest corner of the house. Is it not perfectly incredible? Lambton was in constant communication with Grey whilst here, and (very judiciously!) shewed Sefton some of his dispatches on this subject. . . .”

“Croxteth, 15th.

“. . . We all dined at Knowsley last night. The new dining-room is opened: it is 53 feet by 37, and such a height that it destroys the effect of all the other apartments. . . . You enter it from a passage by two great Gothic church-like doors the whole height of the room. This entrance is in itself fatal to the effect. Ly. Derby (like herself), when I objected to the immensity of the doors, said: ‘You’ve heard Genl. Grosvenor’s remark upon them have you not? He asked in his grave, pompous manner—“Pray are those great doors to be opened for every pat of butter that comes into the room?’” At the opposite end of the room is an immense Gothic window, and the rest of the light is given by a sky-light mountains high. There are two fireplaces; and the day we dined there, there were 36 wax candles over the table, 14 on it, and ten great lamps on tall pedestals about the room; and yet those at the bottom of the table said it was quite petrifying in that neighbourhood, and the report here is that they have since been obliged to abandon it entirely from the cold. . . . My lord and my lady were all kindness to me, but only think of their neither knowing nor caring about Spain or France, nor whether war or peace between these two nations was at all in agitation!

“. . . I must say I never saw man or woman live more happily with nine grown up children. It is my lord [Derby] who is the great moving principle. . . What a contrast to that poor victim of temper who left us last week! [Mr. Lambton].”

“Croxteth, 23rd.

“. . . Brougham arrived here on Saturday, on his way—or rather out of his way—to his nearest and dearest. . . . Of domestic matters, I think his principal article is that Mrs. Taylor’s niece, Ly. Londonderry,* has transferred her affections from her lord to other objects: in the first instance to young Bloomfield, Sir Benjamin’s son; and since, to a person of somewhat higher rank, viz., the Emperor of Russia, and that she is now following the latter lover to Petersburgh. Lady Holland is the author of these statements, and vouches for the truth of them.

“Apropos to Lady Holland, in addition to all her former insults upon the town, she has set up a huge cat, which is never permitted to be out of her sight, and to whose vagaries she demands unqualified submission from all her visitors. Rogers, it seems, has already sustained considerable injury in a personal affair with this animal. Brougham only keeps him or her at arm’s length by snuff, and Luttrell has sent in a formal resignation of all further visits till this odious new favorite is dismissed from the Cabinet. . . . But think of my having so long forgot to mention that Brougham says many of the best informed people in London, such as Dog Dent and others, are perfectly convinced of the truth of the report that dear Prinney is really to marry Ly. Elizabeth Conyngham; on which event the Earl here humorously observes that the least the King can do for the Queen’s family is to make Denisont† ‘Great Infant of England.’”

* Frances Anne, only daughter and heiress of Sir Harry Vane-Tempest of Wynyard, Bart.

† Lord Albert Denison Conyngham, 3rd son of Elizabeth Denison, 1st Marchioness of Conyngham. He was born in 1805, and was supposed to be the son of the Prince of Wales (George IV.).

CHAPTER III. 1823-1824. Miss Maria Copley* to Mr. Creevey.

“Sprotbrough, January 12th.

“. . . We have had a great deal of very agreeable society, chiefly composed of the old ingredients of Grevilles, Levesons, Granvilles, Wortleys, Bentincks, &c.; but they are now all flown—the Grevilles to Welbeck, Ld. F. Leveson to Madrid, the Granvilles to other battues. . . . Lord F. Leveson’s† going to Madrid has surprised everybody—me among others who had seen them together for a length of time. People are inclined to think it a proof of perfect indifference on both sides, but at least certainly on his. The fact is that having, like few other young men, a great aversion to being idle, he applied to Canning for employment; who, when this opportunity occurred, offered it to him, and as it is a remarkably interesting expedition, Harriet‡ wd. not allow him to refuse it. He will be absent only six weeks.

“Lord F. Conyngham’s§ appointment gives great disgust, and I don’t wonder at it. Lord Alvanley calls him Canningham. The King is quite delighted with his Secretary of State, and was seen the other day at the Pavilion walking about with his arm round Canning’s neck.

* Married Lord Howick (afterwards 3rd Earl Grey) in 1832.

† Second son of 1st Duke of Sutherland, created Earl of Ellesmere in 1833, married in 1822 Harriet, daughter of Charles Greville, Esq.

‡ Lady Francis Leveson.

§ Succeeded in 1824 as 2nd Marquess Conyngham.

“Two of your friend Lady Oxford’s daughters are going to be married—Ly. Charlotte to a Mr. Bacon and Lady Fanny to a Mr. Cuthbert. The last is not so certain as the first, as somebody is to be asked for a consent, which I think it probable that most fathers, mothers and guardians would refuse. It must be a bad speculation to take a wife out of that school. Mr. Warrender* is going to marry Lady Julia Maitland at last, and Sir George is to be very magnificent. . . . Your friend, Lady Glengall, is in London, giving ecarté parties every night to the great detriment of society in general, and annoyance of the young ladies in particular. If things should go on en empirant this spring, I prophesy a meeting among that much injured race. . . . The Beau† has been staying at the Pavilion: he is in the progress of telling charming stories of the Congress. I would give my ears to hear them. He is very much recovered, but looks older and thinner from his illness. I hear thro’ a secret channel that Ly. Granville had a great deal to say in Lord Clanwilliam’s getting the situation at Berlin. Mr. Canning’s diplomatic dependents are amazed at such a thing having slipped through their fingers. It is certainly more disinterested than Lord F. C[onyngham]’s, and does him more credit in the eyes of the world. . . . Write, and tell me you are not bored to death by such a letter from a young lady.”

“Sprotbrough, Saturday, 1823. “Dear Mr. Creevey,

“. . . The Taylors are still with us and we are within an ace of a schism about politics at least three times a day. Though I cordially agree with you about the Three Gentlemen of Verona, I cannot think your friend Mr. Brougham’s speech prudent. At this time, when one must sincerely wish peace to be preserved in Europe, it has a most inflammatory tendency. I will not, however, dare to say a syllable about politics to you: a safer line of conduct for me

* Succeeded his brother as 5th baronet of Lochend.

† The Duke of Wellington, who, when Castlereagh committed suicide in 1822, had been appointed Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Verona.

is to agree with Michael [Taylor]. I am painfully striving to inform myself about Spain, and have just read Blaquiere’s book. Comme il fait de la prose. I never read so dull a book made out of so interesting a subject. Las Casas’ book is the most delicious effusion of a sentimental old French twaddle that ever was read; but as far as it goes appears to be very authentic He paints Bonaparte in the brightest colours, and evidently leaves out all spots and dark shades, or softens and explains them away, so that nothing remains but the most admirable hero de roman that ever existed. . . . I am in horror at the thought of the King’s dying. In the first place (though I am no respecter of his), I think he does as well for us, or better than the Duke of York: secondo—we should have a horrid radical Parliament chosen: terzo—London wd. be spoilt this year. There speaks the young lady!”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Feby. 4, 1823.

“. . . Who should arrive at Brooks’s last night fresh from Paris but Og King of Bashan?* You never saw a fellow in such a state of fury against Cochon.† He is for a declaration of war this very afternoon in his friend Canning’s speech. He complains bitterly that we are none of us up to the true mark: that if we would but give Spain a lift now before the Russians and Prussians come to be quartered in France (which he is perfectly sure is part of the present plan) that the Bourbons wd. not be on their throne 3 months. . . .”

“House of Commons, ½ past 3.

“Just heard the King’s Speech, and upon my word the part about Spain is much better than I expected. I don’t see what Brougham is to do with his amendment after it. The first sentence relating to Spain‡

* The 2nd Lord Kensington

† Louis XVIII.

‡ “Faithful to the principles which his Majesty has promulgated to the world as constituting the rule of his conduct, his Majesty has

is a regular spat on the face to the Villains of Verona, and the whole certainly more in favor of Spain than of France.”

“Feby. 5, Brooks’s.

“. . . Well! I had no difficulty in making Brougham prefer the King’s speech last night to his own projected amendment, and to change his regrets into warm admiration. You will see, however, that he by no means abandoned his plan of castigation of the Royal and Imperial scoundrels of Verona. . . . So faithful a picture of villains—portrait after portrait—was never produced by any artist before. If anything could add to the gratification the Allied Sovereigns must have received had they been present, it would be from the way in which our otherwise discordant fellows lapped up this truly British cordial like mother’s milk. Peel could scarcely make himself heard, yet he went further than the Speech, and gave an unequivocal opinion in favor of Spain against France; but Liverpool went still further, and shewed clearly that he is in earnest in trying to keep the peace—that he thinks there is some little, little chance of it; and further, he clearly thinks that if war is once begun, we shall not be able to keep out of it.”

“Brooks’s, 14th Feb.

“I dined here last night much more agreeably, tho’ not so cheaply, with Thanet, Brougham, Kensington, &c., &c. Every day’s experience impresses me more strongly with the great superiority of Thanet over every politician that I see. He is gone to Paris this morning to add, as every one expects, £10,000 more to his already great losses at play. And yet he seems perfectly convinced of his almost approaching beggary under all the overpowering difficulties in which land is now involved!

“Yesterday morning Lord Sefton drove me to the Freemason’s Tavern, the great room of which is fitted up as a court for the tribunal which sits in judgment

declined being a party to any proceedings at Verona which could be deemed an interference in the internal concerns of Spain on the part of foreign powers.”

upon Lord Portsmouth’s sanity or insanity. Certainly, never was a more disgraceful thing than the Chancellor’s conduct on this occasion—to put the property of the family to the expense of £40,000, which it is said it will undoubtedly cost, rather than decide this point himself, which every one who has seen Lord Portsmouth has long since decided.* . . .

“The publick functionaries in Ireland are coming to close quarters. Wellesley has dismissed at a moment’s warning Sir Charles Vernon, the Chamberlain, and two others—men who had held their situations about the Court for years. Their offence was dining at a Beefsteak Club last week, where Lord Chancellor Manners was likewise, and drinking as a toast:—‘Success to the export trade of Ireland, and may Lord Wellesley be the first article exported!’† . . .

“I never saw a fellow look more uncomfortable than Canning.‡ Independent of the difficulty of the times, he is surrounded by perfidy quite equal to his own. People in office are in loud and undisguised hostility to him: it may be heard at all corners of the streets. I never saw such a contrast as between the manners of ministerial men even to him, and what it used to be to Castlereagh. Business begins in earnest on Monday, and I must launch my ‘supply’ on that or some early day, if my nerves are equal to it; but I find them fail me more and more every day.”

“Brooks’s, 21 st Feby.

“. . . Well! we got into a fine mess the night before last upon our Joe’s motion,§ but Canning did what he could for us by his ill-timed and unnecessary vehemence and violence. His own people already pronounce that his irritability must prove injurious to him, and the loss of Castlereagh’s composure and good manners is deplored in a manner not very flattering to his successor.”

* The 3rd Earl of Portsmouth. The enquiry lasted 17 days, and the jury pronounced him to be insane.

† The Marquess Wellesley was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland at the time.

‡ Who was now leader of the House of Commons.

§ Joseph Hume.

“25th.

“. . . Yesterday I spent a very amusing hour with Sefton at the Opera House, seeing the maître de ballet manœuvre about 50 figurantes for the approaching new ballet of Alfred. . . . This done, we went to our own playhouse, where we saw 1st a pas de trois between Wilson, Hobhouse and Canning, and then a pas de deux between Brougham and Canning. . . . After the House I dined at Sefton’s en famille, and to-day I would have you to know I dine with the Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, Premier Duke, &c., alias Barney, alias Scroope!”

“4th March.

“. . . I dined on Saturday at Lord King’s: the party—Duke and Duchess of Somerset; Heber the Tory and classical member for Oxford; George Phillips the patriotic and fasionable savant from Manchester; Sir — Johnson,* a powdered beau of the first order and ci-devant Indian judge; Lord Clare, Lavallette Bruce, George Fortescue and Bennet. Was there ever such a hash? However, the day, contrary to my expectation, was very well. I got on extreemly well with Mrs. Somerset.† You know she is the false devil who robbed her brother Archie of his birthright.”

Miss Maria Copley to Mr. Creevey.

“Sprotbrough, March 6th, 1823.

“Our friend the Beau‡ does not think Ferdinand’s life worth a long purchase after the French army enter Spain. He says that they—the French—will meet with no more resistance in marching to Madrid than he does in going to the Ordnance Office. Two inches of cold steel will do his business very shortly. . . . Lord Francis Leveson (at Madrid) is of the same

* Sir John Johnson, Superintendent-General and Inspector-General of Indian affairs in British North America.

† The first wife of the 11th Duke of Somerset, Lady Charlotte Douglas-Hamilton, daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton.

‡ The Duke of Wellington.

opinion as to Ferdinand’s prospect of a long reign. . . . I hope we shall not interfere, as it must increase both our debt and our difficulties. . . . Pray what do they think at Michael’s* of O’Meara? I was malicious enough to talk of nothing but the Quarterly Review last time that I saw Mrs. Taylor, notwithstanding that she pertinaciously asserted that she had not read a line of it.† She made a determination not to believe one word of it till she saw those notes at Murray’s, with a sight of which I assured her she might be gratified immediately. . . . I am curious to see O’Meara’s defence. How he is to exculpate himself from the many charges of double dealing baffles my poor imagination. He must be a sad, shuffling, dirty wretch.

“A still more difficult riddle for me to solve is your friend Mr. Brougham. Why does he make such love to Canning?—Why is he in none of your divisions?—Why is he in astonishment at the small demand of Ministers?—Is it catalepsy? All your good humour and civility make the debates very flat . . . . Allow me to set you right upon a point which nearly concerns the honour of my family. Heaven forbid that Miss Lemon should have a daughter. Her sister married a Sir Something Davy.‡ Another time be more cautious of taking away the credit of an unfortunate damsel by a stroke of your pen—particularly in a letter to her cousin!”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“March 11th.

“I send you herewith Brougham’s dispatch which I received yesterday. I had charity enough for him not to shew it to any one but Sefton, and he quite agrees with me that he is mad. His lunacy, you may

* Michael Angelo Taylor’s.

† Croker’s article on O’Meara’s book appeared in the Quarterly in February, 1823. At Mrs. Taylor’s Whig and Radical salon O’Meara’s narrative had been accepted as gospel, and Ministers were roundly execrated for the supposed oppressive treatment of their captive.

‡ Sir John Davie, 8th baronet of Creedy, Devon.

plainly see, is to be in power. He cannot endure for a moment anything or any man he thinks can by possibility obstruct his march. He has himself entirely spiked his guns in the House of Commons; he has put it at Canning’s feet, and then he is raving in the country that Hume should presume to open his mouth without his (Brougham’s) permission.”

There is little apparent madness in Brougham’s letter referred to above. On the contrary, it seems brimful of common sense, chiefly referring to a projected attack on the Church of England by Joseph Hume, but it was not militant enough for Creevey.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey [enclosed in above”].

“Durham, Saturday.

“. . . As to Joseph, I hope it may do good. I know that things may with safety be brought on by him, which in any other man’s hands wd. do harm. Therefore I always thought the attack on the Church was safer in his hands than in any others. But I fear he may throw away a great case, and (except your testimony) I see nothing in the other night’s debate to change this opinion. Don’t let us deceive ourselves. There are millions—and among them very powerful and very respectable people—who will go a certain way with us, but will be quite staggered by our going pell-mell at it. The people of this country are not prepared to give up the Church. For one—I am certainly not; and my reason is this. There is a vast mass of religion in the country, shaped in various forms and burning with various degrees of heat—from regular lukewarmness to Methodism. Some Church establishment this feeling must have; and I am quite clear that a much-reformed Ch. of Engd. is the safest form in which such an establishment can exist. It is a quiet and somewhat lazy Church: certainly not a persecuting one. Clip its wings of temporal power (which it unceasingly uses in behalf of a political slavery)* and

* I.e. against Reform.

purify its more glaring abuses, and you are far better off than with a fanatical Church and Dominion of Saints, like that of the 17th century; or no Church at all and a Dominion of Sects, like that of America . . . . The Irish case is a great and an extreme one, and by keeping it strictly on its own grounds and abstaining from any topics common to both Churches, a body blow may be given. But if any means are afforded to the Ch. and its friends here of making common cause with the Irish fellows, I fear you convert a most powerful case into an ordinary one, which must fall. . . . I write this in court, and in some haste. Let me hear whether I am still in the wrong.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“11th March.

“I never told you that I caught the Beau one day last week just mounting his horse, so I went up and stopt him, and had a very hearty hand-shaking. . . . I never saw a man’s looks so altered. He is a perfect shadow, and as old looking as the ark. . . . There must have been an amusing scene between him and Slice* this day week in Ly. Salisbury’s box at the Opera. Slice made a long oration to him against French aggression upon Spain, and ended with requiring to know Wellington’s sentiments upon the probable result. The Beau contented himself by replying—‘It won’t succeed.’ Slice would not be put off this way, and made a second harangue, ending with the same demand of an official opinion; but our Beau again wd. not advance further than—‘It won’t succeed.’†

“17th.

“. . . Thanet has won £40,000 in one night at Paris. He broke the bank at the Salon twice: the question is—will he bring any of this money home with him? I take it for granted not.”

“April 18th.

“You never saw such confusion and consternation as was produced in the Ministerial row by Burdett’s speech [on Catholic emancipation]. . . . In the midst

* H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester.

of the debate arose that alarming episode between Brougham and Canning. . . . Brougham was laying about him upon Canning’s ‘truckling’ to Eldon for his late admission into the Cabinet,* when the latter sprung up in the greatest fury saying—‘that is false!’ Upon this we had the devil to pay for near an hour, and Wilson had at last the credit of settling it by a speech of very great merit, and to the satisfaction of all parties. Brougham, I think, was wrong to begin with; he was speaking under the impression produced upon him by Canning’s blackguard observation to Folkestone the night before, viz. that ‘if he had truckled to the Bourbons, as stated by Folkestone, at all events he would never truckle to him.’ Brougham was going on like a madman, but Canning was much worse in his rage, and in his violation of the rules of the House. . . . The House generally was decidedly against Canning, as it had been the night before upon his passion and low-lived tirade against Folkestone, saying ‘he spoke with all the contortions of the Sibyl without her inspiration.’. . . In short, Canning’s temper is playing the devil with him, as I always felt sure it would.”

“April 21st.

“On Saturday I dined at Harry Martin’s, with the Admiral and his wife, Lord Erskine, old Alexander the Master in Chancery, &c., &c. Poor Erskine at last looks very old and forlorn, tho’ his etherial spark is by no means extinct. Somebody was talking about old Cochon’s† powers of eating, upon which Erskine said he wished ‘the damned scoundrel wd. eat his words.’ . . . He talks for both Spaniards and Greeks with all the enthusiasm of youth.”

“28th.

“. . . Ward (John William)† met me in the street yesterday, and begged me, after all his estrangement from me, to turn about with him, as he wished much to have some talk; and so, as I declined, he turned

* Implying that Canning, who had always advocated emancipation of the Catholics, had consented, as the price of his admission, not to press the question.

† Louis XVIII.

‡ Created Earl of Dudley in 1827.

about himself, putting his arm thro’ mine; and his discourse was that the Government must be strangled—that the Opposition, with the least management in the world, must destroy them—that Peel was lower and lower every day, quite incompetent, and that Canning, with all his talents and superiority, had no support—that Peel had all the Tories, and Canning no one of any party with him. A pleasant statement this to be made by a man who calls Canning his master, or at least who has called him so. . . . Sefton and I were walking in the streets two days ago, when we saw my Lady Holland’s carriage standing at a shop door; so Sefton said—‘Now’s your time! go and get it over.’ So I did: I put my head into the carriage as if nothing had happened—shook hands and cracked my jokes as usual. . . . So when I left her she squeezed Sefton’s hand with the greatest tenderness and said—‘Nothing could be better done!’ . . .

“Og* told me a story of the Duke of Buckingham which Canning had told him in confidence, and which ought to be preserved to perpetuate the base, intriguing spirit of this genuine noble Grenville. . . . Upon Castlereagh’s death this said Duke, altho’ Canning and he had never been on very good terms, wrote the most nauseous complimentary letter to Canning, taking for granted the government would never let so distinguished a statesman leave the country,† and urging him by all he owed to his country to accept the offer when made to him. Canning shewed this letter to Kensington at the time, convulsed with laughter at its style and mean contents. Not content with this, the Duke wrote another letter to Lord Morley, still more extravagant in Canning’s praises, well knowing the latter was sure to see the letter, hoping Canning would not run any risque of serving his country by claims made for any of his friends, for that, when once Minister, all would be at his feet.

“Well—upon Canning’s first interview with Lord Liverpool after his acceptance of office, the latter said—‘What is to become of India?’ to which Canning replied it was an appointment to which he was quite

* Lord Kensington.

† Canning had been appointed Governor General of India.

indifferent, the only object he had at heart being an arrangement for putting Huskisson in a high and responsible official situation. Upon which Liverpool said he knew the Speaker* was desirous of going to India, and if Canning would see and sound the Directors—if they were agreeable to appoint him Governor General, then Wynne† might be placed in the chair and Huskisson have the Board of Controul. Canning accordingly saw the Directors, but tho’ they were very desirous of Wynne being removed from the Board of Controul, as being perfectly inefficient, still they had the greatest possible objections to the Speaker as Governor General. However, Huskisson’s appointment was so very agreeable to them, that at a second conference they struck. Wynne, who hitherto had shown no reluctance to this arrangement, being now called upon for its execution, declared his fixed determination not to give up the Board of Controul unless the Duke of Buckingham had that office, or was one of the Secretaries of State, and of course in the Cabinet. This claim being universally scouted, all was at an end.”

“May 3, 1823.

“. . . I dined at Hughes’‡ on Thursday—17 or 18 people—crowded and dull as be damned. But then the footmen had such cloaths—such rich laced waistcoats—such beautiful new silk stockings and silver buckles! . . . My Lord Lansdowne was affable beyond measure yesterday. He has had a special messenger from Marshal Soult, offering him in the first instance, and before any one else, his Murillos, taken by him when in Spain, and only asking as the price of them one hundred thousand pounds! My Lord said Soult had shown them to him when he was last in Paris, and certainly they were the finest things ever seen—great altar-pieces, &c. . . . I have been to look at the Queen’s trial by Hayter, and never was I more disappointed—a regular daub—and yet I find myself singular in this opinion so far.”

* Charles Manners Sutton, created Viscount Canterbury in 1835, died in 1845.

† The Right Hon. C. W. Williams Wynn.

‡ Mr. Hughes of Kinmel, afterwards created Lord Dinorben.

“6th.

“I really had a most agreeable dinner at Sam Whitbread’s brewery on Saturday. We sat down 22, I think. Sam and William both behaved as well as could be. . . . The entertainment of the day to me was going over the brewery after dinner by gaslight. A stable brilliantly illuminated, containing ninety horses worth 50 or 60 guineas apiece upon an average, is a sight to be seen nowhere but in this ‘tight little island.’ The beauty and amiability of the horses was quite affecting; such as were lying down we favored with sitting upon—four or five of us upon a horse. . . .”

“May 9th.

“. . . Yesterday I dined at Og’s*—his first great state dinner and new French cook, just imported; our company being Jockey of Norfolk† Althorpe, Bennet, Lambton, Ferguson, Titchfield, my lady [Kensington], two daughters and two sons, and I assure you we had a most jolly day of it. . . . At night, Bennet and I went to Lady Derby’s, and certainly an uglier set of old harridans I never beheld in all my life. . . . Humbug Leopold‡ and Bore Slice§ were there. Lady Sefton and I sat together to quiz the whole set, of which none were ever more worthy. To-day I dined at Lord King’s, and there is the devil to do about Lady Jersey wanting to get Brougham not to dine there, but to dine with her to meet Prince d’Arenberg, who wants particularly to meet Brougham. The latter tells Lady Jersey that as Mrs. Brougham dines at Ld. King’s, he can’t let her go there alone; so ‘Sister Sally’ writes to Mrs. Brougham to beg as a particular favor that she will dine at Lady King’s without Brougham. Mrs. B. replies upon Sally, in a dispatch of four sides of paper, that she can’t presume to do so—that she knows full well she never is asked

* Lord Kensington’s.

† Referring to the 12th Duke under the nickname usually given to the 11th Duke.

‡ Chosen King of the Belgians in 1831.

§ H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester.

anywhere but on account of Mr. Brougham, and that she can’t think of incurring the odium of going anywhere without him. . . .”

“10th May.

“. . . As I walked up to Lord King’s door yesterday, up drove Brougham’s carriage, and in it was Mrs. Brougham alone. So I handed her out, dressed like an interesting villager, all in white, with a wreath of roses round her temples, and she made Brougham’s apologies to Lady King for unavoidable absence on account of business; so it was all very well, and I complimented her upon her powers of face. I sat next to her at dinner, and her languishing was really beyond all bearing.”

“May 12.

“. . . Og has been down to Canning at Gloucester Lodge. . . . The object of his visit was to tender his son’s resignation of his seat in Parliament, the said son having voted with Burdett on Tuesday, altho’ his seat was given him by Canning. The latter said he had observed Edwardes go out in the division; but behaved very handsomely indeed about it—said he was a young one and might think differently in future, and, in short, desired he might have his head and do as he liked for some time longer. But Og observed there was no chance of his mending, for that his mother was in his confidence, and he had entrusted to her his decided opinion against the Government.”

“June 3rd.

“. . . My visit to Stoke Farm has been perfect. . . . As a place, it has no other merit than that of having Windsor Castle full in front of it, distant 3 miles. It is on a dead flat, if not in a hollow. It was Sefton’s first residence 30 years ago, during which period he told me he had spent £40,000 on it, and he adds it may now be worth from £6,000 to £10,000. . . .”

“24th.

“. . . On Monday, after dining at Sefton’s, I went to Lady Jersey’s. Her parties are not nearly so numerous as they used to be, and of course they are so much the worse, because they were never too crowded. . . . While I was talking to Ly. Jersey, Humbug Leopold interrupted us, so she sent me a message by her ‘brother Brougham’ to come to her next Monday, and stay and be one of the supper click, which always terminates these evenings. . . . I suppose you know Ly. Elizabeth Conyngham’s marriage with Lord Burford* is off. He became so unmannerly and cross that the lady sent him a letter of dismissal last Saturday. . . . Here is the town in a mutiny at the King giving Lord Salisbury’s blue ribbon to Lord Bath, quite unknown to any of the Ministers. I am delighted, because Lord Bath is the man who said that if he had seen Bergami and the late Queen in bed together it would not alter his vote against the Bill that was to crush her.”

“July 18, 1823.

“. . . I had really a charming day at Roehampton yesterday. It is quite a superb villa or house, with 500 acres of beautiful ground about it, and all Richmond Park appearing to belong to it. What a contrast between Lady Duncannon and her sister Lady Jersey! The quietness and retiredness of the former. She seems, however, very merry and very happy with her nine white-haired children, some of them very pretty. . . .”

“Stoke Farm [Lord Sefton’s], 25th July.

“. . . My life here is a most agreeable one. I am much the earliest riser in the House, and have above two hours to dispose of before breakfast, which is at eleven o’clock or even later. Then I live with myself again till about 3, when the ladies and I ride for 3 hours or so. . . . We dine at ¼ past seven, and the critics would say not badly. We drink in great moderation—walk out, all of us, before tea, and then crack jokes and fiddle till about ½ past 12 or 1. . . . If you want any London scandal, there is a shop at present which is said to surpass what Devonshire House ever was. The receiving house is [erased]— the principal ladies Mrs. F—— L——, young Duchess

* Afterwards 9th Duke of St. Albans.

of R——, Lady E—— V——, Lady C—— P—— the men, young Lister, Geo. Anson, Francis Russell, &c., &c.”

“11th Feb., 1824.

“. . . I dined yesterday at Vesuvius Kinnaird’s,* and such a mixture was never before got together—Sir Francis Burdett and Sir Charles Flint, Lavelette Bruce, and Lord Fitzroy Somerset,† Mr. Creevey and Sir George Warrender—and, what is more, the last two gentlemen sat next to each other to the great amusement of Ellice‡ . . . I cracked my jokes with such success that old Rat Warrender was compelled to ask me to drink wine with him, tho’ he was infernally annoyed all the time, and made a most precipitate retreat after dinner. But my delight was Lord Fitzroy Somerset. . . . I never was more pleased with any one than I was with him during our conversation, which was of some length. . . .”

“March 1.

“. . . On Saturday I dined at Hume’s, where I had the good fortune to sit between Mina and one of the Greek deputies. . . . Mina§ is my delight. Hobhouse wanted to flatter him at the expense of Morillo, Abisbal and Ballisteros, but Mina would not touch it. He spoke in high terms of the talents and courage of Morillo, and of the infinite difficulties all Spaniards were surrounded with. If ever I saw an honest man, he is one; and then he is so hearty and likeable. . . . Yesterday I made my long owing visit at Holland House, and found my lord and my lady alone—she with a bad cold, and he, of course, nursing her. My visit seemed to answer, and I am to dine and stay all night there on Sunday. Would you believe it? Lady H. wd. not let Holland dine with Lord Lansdowne

* Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, a banker in Westminster.

† Created Lord Raglan in 1852.

‡ Sir George, originally a Whig, had become a supporter of the Government, and had quarrelled with Creevey about a taunting speech he (Creevey) had made in the House on the subject of “ratting.”

§ General Espoz y Mina, a distinguished Spanish soldier, commanded a corps under Wellington in the Peninsular war.

last week—a dinner made purposely for Mina, merely because she thought it might not please the King if he heard of it! Nor will she let Mina or any Spaniard approach Holland House for the same reason. Was there ever such a ——?”

“April 2.

“. . . In talking with Lady Derby about young Gill Heathcote’s duel, she put me in mind that young Gill and Mrs. Johnson are cousins—their two grandmothers, Ly. Louisa Manners and Lady Jane Hallyday, having been sisters. So, as the Countess justly observed, after Gill had received Lord Brudenel’s shot for maltreating his sister, he ought to have said—‘Now, my lord, I must beg you to receive my shot for your conduct to my cousin!’ Damned fair, I think. . . . At night I am sorry to say I went with Lord Sefton into that famous, or rather infamous, salon in St. James’s Street, where all the world at present assembles. It far surpasses the salon at Paris in splendor, tho’ nothing like so large nor so agreeable. To me it appears inevitable that all the young ones must be ruined there. I found Sir Colin Campbell at the hazard table, young Lord William Lennox, Lord Bury and various others whom I knew—all in the face of day—no concealment, but in the great and principal apartment of the house. . . . On Sunday, Sefton and I go to hear Irving,* and I am engaged to dine with him, altho’ Sussex has since asked me to dine with him to meet Mina.”

“May 12.

“. . . A piece of news in the fashionable world which has been referred to in the papers is the separation of Henry B—— from his wife. She has long been known to be a ‘neat un,’ but her vagaries at Paris were so undisguised that some friend wrote and advertised her husband of it here, and he, to justify himself before proceeding to extremities, took to breaking open her boxes in pursuit of evidence against her. In one of these he is said to have found 20 locks of hair, with a label on each containing the name of the lover to whom it belonged, such as ‘dear

* Edward Irving, the famous Scottish preacher.

John Warrender’s.’ So having collected his trophies of this kind, with letters equally instructive, he sallied forth to meet her return, and Rochester was the place they came together. Here, upon her giving her solemn word of honor that all the children but one were his, he banished her and the one from his sight for ever, and has taken all the other children from her. She is a Yankee by birth and origin: her husband is a notorious gambler, for whom nobody seems to care a damn.

“Another slip is Mrs. Alderman C—— with our tragedian, Kean. . . . He has been at his letters too, one of which to the lady was intercepted by the alderman, and begun—‘You dear imprudent little ——’ Can anything be more soft or romantic? . . .

“I don’t know whether you noticed that Edward Stanley* made a regular attack upon Hume, defended the Church, and eventually voted against Hume and our people, as did his father.†. You may well suppose this heresy was mightily extolled by the enemy. . . . Lord Derby has been made really ill by it.”

“4th May.

“. . . I told you of my dinner with King Tom,‡ and of my satisfaction with the Crown Prince.§ The latter is really like a young Newfoundland puppy—quite as strong, intelligent and good-natured. . . . At night, Coke was to take me to the honble. House; but . . . we first looked in at Brooks’s, where we found that the whole concern had been knocked up by the Balloon! So many members had run out to see it that Alderman Kit Smith, a furious enemy of the Saints, call’d for the House to be counted. . . . Not forty had remained in it, so all was over! Sefton’s delight in the mischief was unbounded. Brougham had been in bed most of the day on purpose, and had ordered himself to be called at 5 so as to be quite fresh for his reply. Wilberforce had given all his serious

* Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby.

† Lord Stanley, afterwards 13th Earl of Derby. The Stanleys hitherto had been consistent Whigs.

‡ Mr. Coke of Holkham, created Earl of Leicester in 1837.

§ The present Earl of Leicester, born in 1822.

acquaintance notice that he meant to take leave of publick life in his speech on this occasion,* so that every hole and corner was crammed with saints and missionaries in expectation of this great event; when, lo and behold! this wicked aeronaut proved more attractive to the giddy Council of the Nation.”

“June 18, Stoke Farm.

“. . . Our course for the last three days has been to breakfast punctually at 10, to start for Ascot about 11, not to be home again before 6, and after dinner to be engaged in gambles of one kind or another with cards till one or later. . . . Our old acquaintance Prinney was at the races each day, and tho in health he appeared perfect, he has all the appearance of a slang leg—a plain brown hat, black cravat, scratch wig, and his hat cocked over one eye. There he sat, in one corner of his stand, Lady Conyngham rather behind him, hardly visible but by her feathers. He had the same limited set of jips about him each day, and arrived and departed in private. I must say he cut the lowest figure; and the real noblesse—Whig and Tory—were with his brother York.”

“June 19.

“. . . I wish I could sufficiently condense the facts of an affair which now forms the pre-eminent subject of conversation in the beau monde. The parties are P—— G—— and Lady G——. The latter has been parted some time from her husband, and P—— has been the lover of the lady. It seems that Mrs. Peter Free, the sister of Lady G——, has long been pressing her to discard P—— as quite unworthy of her, and in the end she succeeded; so that one fine day our heroine sets forth in all the consciousness of virtuous triumph to carry to her sister, not only the vicious correspondence which had passed between her and her lover, but a copy of the letter which she had written and sent to P——, closing all intercourse with him for ever. By some secret

* The occasion was an adjourned debate on Brougham’s motion for an enquiry into the trial by court-martial of an English missionary in Demerara.

management of the Devil, no doubt, the lady was tempted by him in the shape of a gown to go into a shop; and, having deposited and left upon the counter her ridicule [reticule], the aforesaid Enemy of man and womankind had the address to have it conveyed to the house of Sir B——, who opened and examined its contents. You have of course anticipated that the fatal correspondence was enclosed in it, which he has been kind enough to shew to a pretty numerous circle of his friends. Tom Duncombe tells me he has seen every letter. The parties correspond under the imposing signatures of Jupiter and Juno. . . . The principal novelty to Sir B—— is a child which the lady has born to P——, which is receiving its nourishment and education in the New Road. It is the conduct of P—— to this interesting infant which constitutes the lady’s grounds for abandoning him for ever. It seems the child had lately suffered severely in cutting a tooth—an event which agitated its mother extreamly, but which P—— is alleged to have witnessed with the most stoical indifference; so much so, that she is very naturally led to contrast his conduct with that of his friend De Ros,* who actually wept over the child; and, what is more, has promised to provide for it by his will. It is this last anecdote which peculiarly delights the town, De Ros being one of the cleverest and most hardened villains in it. . . .”

“June 22nd.

“. . . We are all full of a battle that is to take place in the H. of Lords between the Duke of York and our Scroop.† Lord Holland has brought in a bill to enable Scroop, tho’ a Catholic, to officiate in future as Earl Marshal. It was read a 2nd time on Saturday, tho’ the Duke of York and old Eldon were in the minority; but since then the D. of York has become perfectly furious, and has written to every peer he knows, calling upon him to come and protect the Crown against the insidious Scroop. We had a jolly day enough at Whitehall on Saturday, altho’ I never

* The 19th Baron de Ros.

† The 12th Duke of Norfolk.

see Sydney Smith without thinking him too much of a buffoon.”

“25th June.

“I dined last night at Lord Carnarvon’s, where by comparison for amusement Bedlam* decidedly kept the lead, altho’ our company were no other than the Dukes of Sussex and Leinster, Marquis Downshire, Earls Grey, Jersey, Darnley, Cowper and Rosslyn, Lords King, Ellenborough and John Russell, and last and least Messrs. Brougham and Creevey. Carnarvon never uttered, and little Sussex very justly whispered to me as we came away that ‘it had been a malancholy day.’. . . Grey, Rosslyn, Cowper and Jersey went full fig from Carnarvon’s to the Beau’s, to meet the King who dined there, and Grey says to-day cut him most clearly and decidedly. . . .’

“15 July.

“. . . We had beautiful weather at Newmarket. . . . Sefton has a capital house, and, according to custom, his dinners were admirably arranged. Tavistock, Lord Jersey, Punch Greville† and Shelley dined there each day, and on Tuesday the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of York. I had never seen the latter in this sort of way before, and was extreamly entertained. He is the very image of the late Lord Petre; perhaps not quite so clever, and certainly not so polite—in short, a very civil and apparently most good-tempered idiot, without any manners at all. Shelley played the fool in patronising him and shewing him off, and Punch Greville disgraced himself by hunching him; but he took both in the same good humor, and we all drank freely in compliment to the royal guest. . . .”

“Cantley, nr. Doncaster [Michael Taylor, M.P.’s], Sept. 7th.

“. . . I had a most prosperous journey down here. There never was such perfection of travelling. I left London at ½ past 8 on Friday morning, and, without an

* He had paid a visit that morning to the new Bedlam, south of Westminster Bridge.

† Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville [1794-1865], Clerk of the Council and political diarist.

effort, and in a coach loaded with luggage, I was at Doncaster by 5 the following morning—a distance of 160 miles! . . . Lady Anson goes to town next week to be present at the wedding of her niece, the pretty ‘Aurora’—‘Light of Day’—Miss Digby . . . who is going to be married to Lord Ellenborough. . . . It was Miss Russell who refused Ld. Ellenborough, as many others besides are said to have done. Lady Anson will have it that he was a very good husband to his first wife, but all my impressions are that he is a damned fellow.”*

“Cantley [Doncaster Races], 24th Sept.

“. . . George Payne’s loss (in bets) turns out to be £21,000 and not £25,000 as I had been told when I wrote to you on Monday. The £4000 saved is better than nothing, but the whole thing is damnable. . . . If one could suppose such a knockdown blow wd. cure him, it might turn out to be money well laid out; but I fear that is hopeless. He says he shall keep to hunting in future and cut the turf . . . Lady Londonderry is the great shew of the balls here in her jewels, which are out of all question the finest I ever beheld—such immense amethysts and emeralds, &c. Poor Mrs. Carnac, who had a regular haystack of diamonds last night, was really nothing by the side of the other, tho’ in beauty the two ladies are very fairly matched. Such a dumpy, rum-shaped and rum-faced article as Lady Londonderry one can rarely see. . . .”

“Lambton, Oct. 20.

“. . . I got here on Monday night, the company being at dinner, and in the second course. However King Jog, hearing I was arrived, left his throne, and came out, and took me in with him. I found nearer 30 than 20 people there, in a very long and lofty apartment—the roof highly collegiate, from which hung the massive chandeliers—the curtain drapery of dark-coloured velvet, profusely fringed with gold, and much resembling palls. The company, sitting at a long and

* This marriage turned out badly, and was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1830. “Aurora” consoled herself by three subsequent marriages, and died at Damascus in 1881.

narrowish table, never uttered a single, solitary sound for long and long after I was there; so that it really might have been the family vault of the Lambtons, and the company the male and female Lambtons who had been buried in their best cloaths and in a sitting position. Grey and Ly. Elizabeth and Lord Howick are here, the Milbanks, the Wiltons and Bob Grosvenor, the Cavendishes and Henry and his wife, the Dundas’s, the Normanbys, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Hedworth Williamson, young Liddel, Mat Ridley, [illegible] three deep, Capt. Berkley and other captains and majors who ride at our races, not omitting John Mills. To-day, too, my Lord and Lady Londonderry, with Sir Something and Lady Something Gresley,* come. The place is really a fine one, considering how confined it is by coal-pits and smoke, and part of the house quite unrivalled. . . . The capricious young tyrant and devil† is all graciosity to myself. . . . Mrs. Taylor had caught fresh cold before I left Cantley, so that she was bled on Sunday morning and fainted away. . . . We’ll go to our races of to-day. Grey had over and over again expressed to me his nervousness about 14 or 15 of these young men starting for the Cup; the course being very slippery and not wide enough for such a number. You may judge, then, what cause there was for his apprehension when three horses out of the number came in without their riders. . . . Lady Wilton was standing up as white as a sheet, whilst Lady Augusta Milbank fell to the bottom of the coach as if she had been shot. Just then, however, the good-natured Mat Ridley came galloping up with all his might and main to announce that all was safe. . . . Milbank is the only one hurt . . . he has been bled, and is somewhat bruised. . . . Well—all being over, we came home and dined pretty punctually at seven—and such a dinner I defy any human being to fancy for such an occasion. . . . I handed Mrs. Dundas out (Miss Williamson that was) and a pretty good laugh I had out of her at our fare. A round of beef at a side table was run at with as much keenness as a banker’s shop before a stoppage. . . . Was there ever such an

* Sir Roger and Lady Sophia Gresley.

† Mr. Lambton

instance of derangement, with all this expense in other subjects and all his means? I have just been saying to Mills that it is a low Crockford’s, and he admits it is so; but he adds that it is certainly better than last year, for then there was no beef at the side table, but only a sucking-pig! Oh dear, oh dear! it is a neat concern: and yet the comfort of these rooms is beyond. I have got my book I was in search of, and his civility about it makes me almost ashamed of thinking him such a stingy, swindling, tyrannical kip as he certainly is.

“Well, as to kips, I think this Lord Wilton* must certainly be a decided one. He has the worst countenance, I think, I ever saw, and he appears a sulky, selfish chap: but she seems very happy . . . and there is a great charm in all she does. . . .”

“Lambton, 23rd Sept.

“. . . A very large division of us have got to quiz the whole concern of dinner, so that we really have a very jolly time. King Jog himself still sits silent and involved in thought. . . . We are really very much indebted to these grandees for the damned fools they make of themselves. Let me present you with a few particulars. . . . The night before last, between 12 and 1, I being in the library where the same cold fowl always is with wine and water, Lambton came in out of the hazard room, and, finding no water, begun belabouring the bell in a way that I thought must inevitably have brought the whole concern down. No effect was produced, so he sallied forth, evidently boiling, and when he returned he said:—‘I don’t think I shall have to ring so long another time.’ This is all I know of my own knowledge; but, says Lady Augusta Milbank to me yesterday—‘Do you know what happened last night?’—‘Du tout,’ says I.—‘Why,’ says she, ‘Mr. Lambton rung the bell for water so long, that he went and rung the house bell, when his own man came; and upon saying something in his own justification which displeased the Monarch, he laid hold of a stick and struck him twice; upon which

* The 3rd Earl of Wilton, a renowned character in the chase and on the turf.

his man told him he could not stand that, and that if he did it again he should be obliged to knock him down. So the master held his hand and the man gave him notice he had done with him. . . .

“Lady —— has two maids here—one French and the other Italian, the latter of which presides over the bonnet department. [Follows a story about the Italian.] . . . So much for the Italian maid, and now for the French one. Mrs. William Lambton was going along a passage near her ladyship’s room between 12 and 1 this morning, when she found la petite on the floor crying bitterly, and upon enquiring the cause, she said my lady had beat her so: upon which Mrs. W. Lambton sent her maid to her with some sal volatile, and just as she was administering it, my lord —— came out and would not let her have it, saying she did not deserve it and that she was shamming. Now I should be glad to know if there was ever! You never saw any one enjoy these things more than Grey, except indeed Lady Wilton. What a good thing she will make of it all for little Derby and the Countess!”

“Lambton, Oct. 24th.

“. . . I think I never saw Grey to greater advantage, nor Lady Louisa to so much. As for Lady Elizabeth, you never saw a creature so thin or altered in looks. . . . The other night Ly. Wilton, she, Hobhouse, Mills and I had a jaw about life, youth and age. Ly. Elizth. was all for childhood—that she shd. never be so happy again, and that if it was not for her friends, she would as soon die as live. This may be Grey gloom, but I am afraid it must be the behaviour of Lord Lothian.”

“Croxteth, Nov. 10, 1824.

“. . . I left FitzClarence at Gosforth and continue to like him as well as ever. Ly. Sefton says he is out and out the best of the family. . . . Tho’ shy, he is not without the ingenuousness of the family. He said the King was getting very old and cross—that the Duchess of Clarence was the best and most charming woman in the world—that Prince Leopold was a damned humbug, and that he [FitzClarence] disliked the Duchess of Kent.”

CHAPTER IV. 1825-1826.

Domestic politics were in an uneventful stage in the fifth year of George IV. Ten years of peace had told their tale upon the resources of the United Kingdom; the mineral and textile industries were fully employed, and were developing apace; even farmers had ceased to have cause for complaint, if the Annual Register may be taken as well informed, for “agricultural distress had disappeared,” according to that authority, which is scarcely to be reconciled with Lord Sefton’s account of affairs in Lancashire. Mr. Creevey’s letters are chiefly filled with descriptions of the various country houses which he visited, and of their inmates. January finds him north of the Tweed, paying a visit to his friend Mr. Ferguson of Raith.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Raith, 18th January, 1825.

“. . . On Sunday I went to Kirk to hear the great luminary of this county, Dr. Chalmers,* Professor of Humā-nity at Glasgow, and an author upon many subjects. He dined here on Saturday, and was treated as a regular Jeroboam. His appearance on that day was that of a very quiet, good kind of man, with very dirty hands and nails; but on Sunday I never beheld a fitter subject for Bedlam than he was. . . . The stuff the fellow preached could only be surpassed by his

* In 1823 he was Professor of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, but in 1824 he was transferred to the chair of Theology in Edinburgh.

manner of roaring it out. I expected he would have carried the poor Kirkcaldy pulpit clean away. Then his Scotch too! His sermon was to prove that the manner of doing a kindness was more valuable than the matter, in support of which I remember two notable illustrations.—‘If,’ said he, ‘you suppose a fā-mily to be suddenly veesited with the cā-lā-mity of po-verty, the tear of a menial—the fallen countenance of a domestick—in such cases will afford greater relief to the fā-mily than a speceefick sum of money without a corresponding sympathy.’ A pretty good start, was it not—for Scotland, too, of all places in the world! but it was followed by a still higher flight.—‘Why,’ said he, or rather shouted he, ‘Why is it that an epple presented by an infant to its parent produces greater pleesure than an epple found by the raud-side? Why, because it is the moral influence of the geft, and not the speceefick quality of the epple that in this case constitutes the pleesure of the parent.’ Now what think you of the tip-top showman of all Scotland? . . .

“Having heard that the London artist Irving had formerly to do with Kirkcaldy, I asked Fergus and he replied—‘Oh yes: he kept an acā-demy for youth at Kirkcaldy and was the greatest tyrant of a dominie that ever I hard of. He had three different indictments found against him for beating his pupils.’—‘Oh!’ said I, ‘you joke.’—‘No,’ replied Fergus, ‘I never made a joke in my life. I have seen, with my own eyes, his pupils carried home, from his having bruised them so unmercifully; and the truth is, I canno bear to hear his name mentioned.’ The said Fergus is a man of 70 years of age at least, and Provost of Kirkcaldy. Is it not a capital account of the London charmer to whom the fine ladies, Jemmy McKintosh, and Canning, and anybody else of any fame, fly in all directions?”

Lord Thanet’s death at this time seriously affected Mr. Creevey’s position in Parliament as member for Appleby, which seat was in the deceased lord’s gift. By the custom of the unreformed Parliament he felt bound to resign the seat if called on to do so by his lordship’s successor.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Raith, Feby. 6th, 1825.

“. . . Soyez tranquille as to Parliament—as to my having a seat in it, I mean. You have already my mind on this subject . . . particularly as to the value to one’s feelings of not being turned out on a notice or by the intrigues of Ly. Holland, Ly. Blessington, &c., &c. . . . The death of poor Thanet makes a great difference in my feelings as to parliamentary attendance. It was due to him to be at my post; I feel no such obligation to the present earl or my dear constituents. . . .”

“Raby Castle [Earl of Darlington’s], Feb. 16th, 1825.

“. . . This house is itself by far the most magnificent and unique in several ways that I have ever seen. Then what are we to say of its being presided over by a poplolly!! a magnificent woman, dressed to perfection, without a vestige of her former habits—in short, in manners as produceable a countess as the best blood could give you. . . . As long as I have heard of anything, I have heard of being driven into the hall of this house in one’s carriage, and being set down by the fire. You can have no idea of the magnificent perfection with which this is accomplished. Then the and of musick which plays in this same hall during dinner! then the gold plate!! and then—the poplolly at the head of all!!!”*

“Raby, 20th Feby.

“. . . My lady [Darlington] drove me about and shewed me many lions I had not seen before. I am compelled to admit that, in the familiarity of a duet and outing, the cloven foot appeared. I don’t mean more than that tendency to slang, which I conceive it impossible for any person who has been long in the ranks entirely to get over.† To be sure when I

* The 3rd Earl of Darlington was created Duke of Cleveland in 1833. By his second wife, alluded to above, who died in 1861, he had no children.

† It requires an effort to realise how very recent is the toleration of slang in ladies of position. Men, as is amply manifest in Mr. Creevey’s correspondence, permitted themselves to use language of the utmost

look at these three young women,* and at this brazen-faced Pop who is placed over them, and shews that she is so, the whole transaction—I mean the marriage, appears to me the wickedest thing I ever heard of; tor altho’ these young ladies appear to be gifted with no great talents, and altho’ they have all more or less of the quality squall, yet their manners are particularly correct and modest. . . .”

“London, March 7th.

“. . . I wish you could hear Atty Hill’s† imitation of old Dowr Richmond upon the marriage that is about to take place between Mrs. Tighe’s eldest son and a young Lady [Louisa] Lennox. The Dowr. had fixed her mind upon having Lord Hervey, which was more than he did, so Tighe and the young one settled their affairs. . . .”

At this time may be noted the earliest appearance in Parliament of the great railway movement. Mr. Creevey was appointed a member of the Committee to deal with the Bill of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, to which, it would appear, he applied himself in no judicial frame of mind. He acted openly in the interests of his friends Lords Derby and Sefton, who, like most territorial magnates at that time, viewed the designs of railway engineers with the utmost apprehension and abhorrence.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“London, March 16, 1825.

“. . . Sefton and I have come to the conclusion that our Ferguson is insane. He quite foamed at the mouth with rage in our Railway Committee in support of this infernal nuisance—the loco-motive Monster,

licence; but, if swearing was reckoned a grace in male conversation, slang was pronounced a disgrace among ladies.

* Lord Darlington’s daughters.

† Lord Arthur Hill, second son of 2nd Marquess of Downshire, succeeded his mother as Baron Sandys.

carrying eighty tons of goods, and navigated by a tail of smoke and sulphur, coming thro’ every man’s grounds between Manchester and Liverpool. He was supported by Scotchmen only, except a son of Sir Robert Peel’s, and against every landed gentleman of the county—his own particular friends, who were all present, such as Ld. Stanley, Ld. Sefton, Ld. Geo. Cavendish, &c.”

“25th March.

“. . . I get daily more interested about this railroad—on its own grounds, to begin with, and the infernal, impudent, lying jobbing by its promoters. . . .”

“31st May.

“. . . This railway is the devil’s own—from 12 till 4 daily is really too much. We very near did the business to-day; we were 36 to 37 on the Bill itself. I led for the Opposition in a speech of half an hour. . . .”

“June 1.

“. . . Well—this devil of a railway is strangled at last. I was sure that yesterday’s division had put him on his last legs, and to-day we had a clear majority in the Committee in our favour, and the promoters of the Bill withdrew it, and took their leave of us. . . . We had to fight this long battle against an almost universal prejudice to start with—interested shareholders and perfidious Whigs, several of whom affected to oppose us upon conscientious scruples. Sefton’s ecstacies are beyond, and he is pleased to say it has been all my doing; so it’s all mighty well.”

“6th.

“. . . Another charming day we had [at Ascot]. Prinney came as before, bowling along the course in his carriage and four. In passing the young Duchess of Richmond’s open landau he played off his nods and winks and kissing his hand, just as he did to all of you 20 years ago on the Brighton racecourse. . . . Lords Cowper and Jersey joined our sandwich party. . . . As Cowper was an inmate of the Court, I inquired as to their goings on, and how the King lived.—‘Why,’ said he, ‘yesterday I think we sat down about 24 or 25 to dinner at ½ past 7, and the King ate very heartily of turtle, accompanying it with punch, sherry and champaign. The dinner always lasts a very long time, and yesterday we sat very late after it. The King was in deep conversation with Lauderdale, and I think must have drunk a couple of bottles of claret before we rose from table.’ . . . He had prepared for the week by having 12 oz. of blood taken from him by cupping on the Monday. Nevertheless, we all think he will beat brother York still. It was not amiss to hear bold York congratulating Sefton and the Countess upon their victory over the railway. . . .

“Our dinner at Bruffam’s yesterday was damnable in cookery, comfort, and everything else, tho’ the dear Countess of Darlington was there, better dressed and looking better than any countess in London. Mrs. Brougham sat like an overgrown doll at the top of the table in a bandeau of roses, her face in a perpetual simper without utterance. Bruffam, at the other end, was jawing about nothing from beginning to end, without attending to any one, and only caring about hearing himself talk. The company were the Darlingtons and Ly. Arabella, the Taylors, Dr. and Mrs. Lushington, Lord Nugent, Anacreon Moore, a son of Rosslyn’s, a brother of Brougham’s, and myself.”

“June 25th.

“. . . There has been a blow-up again between Prinney and Ly. Conyngham, but matters are all settled again thro’ the kind and skilful negociation of Lauderdale. She has become of late very restless and impatient under what she calls her terrible restraint and confinement, and about 10 days ago announced her fixed determination to go abroad. . . . Lauderdale, however, has satisfied her for the present that, however blameable it was in her at first to get into her present situation, now it is her bounden duty to submit and go thro’ with it.”

Busy intrigues were afoot at this time about seats in Parliament. Brougham was negociating secretly with various noble lords in order to get his friends in; and although his correspondence with Creevey was as cordial in appearance as heretofore, yet Creevey was duly informed by kind friends what was going on. He deeply resented what he considered Brougham’s treachery in trying to oust him from his seat, and wrote with great bitterness and frequency about the villainy of “Wicked Shifts.” Lord Darlington had five seats to dispose of.

M. A. Taylor, M.P., to Sir Robert Wilson.

“Cantley, 11th Sept.

“. . . All my accustomed correspondents are absent from town; I therefore have nothing from the great emporium of news. While Canning is viewing the scenery of the Lakes, and the King is fishing in a punt upon Virginia Water, I am bound to suppose there is no tempest upon the political ocean. I wish that Ferdinand [King of Spain] was hanged—Rothschild, Baring and all the gambling crew in the Gazette—the Sultan driven forth from Constantinople—his wives and concubines let loose—that balloons were actual and safe conveyances, and that I had a villa in the Thracian Bosphorus. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Cantley, 21 Sept. 1825.

“. . . Mrs. Taylor has had an interview with the Countess [of Darlington] upon my case. She said she now spoke with Lord Darlington’s authority—that what she said must be considered as coming from himself. It was, therefore, matter of deep regret to him that Mrs. Taylor had not mentioned Mr. Creevey’s case till his Parliamentary arrangements were all made, which unfortunately they now were, and that all that remained for him now to say was that the first vacancy which happened in any seat of his, Mr. Creevey should have it, and that he never should be without one. Now; altho’ reversionary prospects for a gentleman in his 58th year are no very brilliant matters, yet I think it is all mighty well . . . and as she has once taken me and my concerns into her holy keeping, when we come to cement the connection with a few gambols at Raby, she may perhaps open the Earl’s eyes to an interest in some borough which he never thought of before. . . . We were 23 at dinner to-day, to say nothing of a buck from Ld. Tankerville, another from Lambton, a third from Ld. Darlington, half a one from Lord Fitzwilliam, another half from Ld. Tavistock; not to mention a turtle—also a present, and pines without end.”

“Cantley, Sept. 29.

“. . . What a devil of a good hand Mrs. Taylor is for living in a storm . . . She was evidently much pleased with her grandee of a niece* taking the amiable and dutiful line to her aunt as she did. . . . There are usually only three balls, but, as Lady Londonderry justly observed to Mrs. Taylor, that it must be very dull for people to stay at home in their lodgings on the Tuesday and Thursday evenings, she got up publick balls for these nights also, and at all five balls she [Lady Londonderry] was there the first and went away the last . . . and the result was every one was charmed with her. . . .”

Despite the evil impression Creevey had received upon his first visit to Lambton, he returned there for the races in the following year. His report thereon to Miss Ord contains, as usual, some curious particulars of the menage.

“Lambton, 24th Oct, 1825.

“. . . Altho’ our King Jog did receive me so graciously yesterday . . . the sunshine was of very limited duration. You must know by a new ordinance livery servants are proscribed the dining-room; so our Michael and Frances [Taylor] were none the better for their two Cantley footmen, and this was the case too with Mrs. General Grey, whom I handed out to dinner. . . . Soup was handed round—from where, God knows; but before Lambton stood a dish with one small haddock and three small whitings in it, which he instantly ordered off the table, to avoid the

* The Marchioness of Londonderry, a very great lady indeed, who was staying at Cantley with her aunt, Mrs. Taylor, for Doncaster races.

trouble of helping. Mrs. Grey and myself were at least ten minutes without any prospect of getting any servant to attend to us, altho I made repeated application to Lambton, who was all this time eating his own fish as comfortably as could be. So my blood beginning to boil, I said:—‘Lambton, I wish you would tell me what quarter I am to apply to for some fish.’ To which he replied in the most impertinent manner:—‘The servant, I suppose.’ I turned to Mills and said pretty loud:—‘Now, if it was not for the fuss and jaw of the thing, I would leave the room and the house this instant’; and I dwelt on the damned outrage. Mills said:—‘He hears every word you say’; to which I said: ‘I hope he does.’ . . . It was a regular scene. . . .”

“Nov. 3, Newton House [Earl of Darlington’s].

“. . . In taking leave of Lambton, let me observe once for all that nothing could be better than Lady Louisa,* in her quiet way, to everybody. In every respect and upon all occasions she is a very sensible, discreet person. . . . Nothing on earth can be more natural and comfortable than we all are here. The size of the house, as well as of the party, makes it more of a domestic concern than it is at Raby, and both he and she shine excessively in this point of view. As for her [Lady Darlington] I consider her a miracle. To see a ‘bould face’ turn into a countess, living in this beautiful house of her own, and never to shew the slightest sign of being set up, is so unlike all others of the kind I have seen, that she must be a very sensible woman. Then she is so clean, and she is looking so beautiful at present. . . .”

“Thorp Perrow [Mr. Milbank’s], Nov. 8.

“Well—now for Milbank and Ly. Augusta†—or Gusty, as he calls her. Their house is in every way worthy of them—a great, big, fat house three stories high. . . . All the living rooms are on the ground

* Mr. Lambton’s second wife. She was Lady Louisa Grey, daughter of the 2nd Earl Grey.

† A daughter of Lord Darlington.

floor, one a very handsome one about 50 feet long, with a great bow furnished with rose-colored satin, and the whole furniture of which cost £4000. Everything is of a piece—excellent and plentiful dinners, a fat service of plate, a fat butler, a table with a barrel of oysters and a hot pheasant, &c., wheeled into the drawing room every night at ½ past ten . . . but our events for record are few. . . . In answer to your question about Brancepeth Castle, it belonged to Mrs. Taylor’s uncle, Mr. Tempest. . . . Having left it to his nephew, Sir Harry Vane, the latter sold it to Russell, who has rebuilt the whole ancient castle. . . . Few people could devote £80,000 per ann. to accomplish the job as Russell did. Lord Londonderry told Ly. Ramsden he wished he had never taken Frances [Lady Londonderry] there, for she had raved of nothing else ever since, and was quite out of heart with all they are doing at Wynyard; and Frances is quite right.”

At this time Mr. Creevey was much taken up in preparing for publication a series of letters on Reform addressed to Lord John Russell. He submitted the proofs to Brougham for approval, and his letters to Miss Ord are full of references to the forthcoming work. “You know,” he writes, “one is always occupied at the last in twisting and twining about sentences in one’s head to try if one can make them look better.” The letters were published by Ridgway early in 1826 in the form of a pamphlet.

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Croxteth, Oct. 2, 1825.

“. . . I cannot help congratulating you upon your conversion to reform. I have been long convinced that nothing else will bring down taxation and tythes, and therefore would not give a farthing for any other remedy. . . . I hear our friend the Bear Ellice must be a bankrupt; he is trying to defer the evil day, but fall he must. Did you read Cobbett’s life of Canning in the Statesman? What the devil does he mean by all at once being so completely mollified, and complimenting his talents and beauty? . . . Nothing can exceed the distress here among the farmers: 40 per cent. reduction of rents is the lowest they talk of, and even then I don’t believe they will be able to pay the remainder. Little Derby is very sore. Old Blackburne* begins to think everything is not quite right; he even goes so far as to say he does not see how it will all end.”

The year 1826 opened upon a very different scene to the preceding one. Activity in all branches of industry had brought about the usual results in headlong speculation and over production. A period of depression and inactivity followed in due sequence upon the wave of prosperity, so that the autumn witnessed the failure of many country banks and the collapse of many commercial houses. The Roman Catholic agitation in Ireland was becoming formidable; amendments were moved to the Address in both Houses calling upon the Government to repeal or revise the Corn Laws, and thereby alleviate the general distress, and the commercial panic had to be dealt with by legislation on the currency. “The political sky looks very cloudy,” wrote Mr. Croker to Lord Hertford; “the three C’s—Corn, Currency and Catholics—will perplex if not dissolve the Government.” As regards the currency, a measure was passed prohibiting the circulation of bank notes for less than £5 face value. Scotland successfully resisted this restriction, and enjoys her £1 notes to this day, but these disappeared entirely from England.

The Corn Laws were more thorny matter to

* John Blackburne of Orford Hall [1754-1833], M.P. for Lancashire for 46 years.

handle; nevertheless, in May an Act was passed permitting the importation of 500,000 quarters of foreign wheat, irrespective of the current price in English markets at the time. Thus was the gauntlet thrown down between the rival interests of agriculture and manufacture—the land and the towns; presenting a difficult and disagreeable dilemma for the great Whig landowners, and driving a wedge deep into the Tory phalanx, which had so long withstood external assault.

Countess Grey to Mrs. Taylor.

“Tuesday [February, 1826].

“. . . Things are worse and worse in the City. I have just had a note from thence, and this day all the things in the Stocks have fallen worse than ever. Every soul to whom a shilling is due comes to ask for it. In short, it is a fearful time. As to the opinions on the £1 and £2 notes business, people are so divided that it is impossible to come at the truth. Sir Robert Wilson, Brougham, Lord Lansdowne are with Ministers, and even Lord Dacre; then others—the strongest of the Tories—are against them. Lord Auckland thinks it ruin to us all, and even those who vote for it say that it will make things worse for the present. Ld. Dacre says that he makes up his mind to get no rents for 2 or 3 years, but that he thinks it will eventually do good. I understand nothing about it, but dislike it if it will prevent us receiving rents, which seems allowed on all hands.

“Last night Harriet had her écarté party, and it was very good and very agreeable, except that I lost my £10, which made me rather blue.

“There is a strong report of the Chancellor [Eldon] going out. Gifford, it is supposed, cannot be Chancellor, as all the Bar declare him incompetent, and he himself feels it. Copley is trying, but they say it is impossible, as he is not a Chancery man.* Some say

* Nevertheless, he became Chancellor [Lord Lyndhurst] in the following year.

that our Leach must get it, as he is the only one who can do the business. I think it more likely that the Seals will be put in commission. If Leach gets it, Mr. Vane is sure to get the best thing going. He told me so long since. To be sure, we won’t get all the best things for all our friends, and if he don’t obey we will neither dine with him nor allow him to play at écarté. Lady Elizabeth [Conyngham’s] marriage still drags on. She now says she cannot think of fixing a time for it, as she cannot make up her mind to quit her mother; that is—Lady C[onyngham] puts this into her mouth, and then says:—‘It is so, is it not, Tissy?’—‘Yes, mama,’ answers she. . . . I hear from those who have been there that the Cottage* is more dull than ever: that Lady C. throws herself back on the sofa and never speaks; and the opinion is (which I don’t believe) that she hates Kingy. We have just got over Shoenfeld, the man who fought with Cradock about Mme. de G[enlis] and Mme. de Firmacon. The Dauphine at Lady Granville’s ball said to him:—‘Monsieur, quand partezvous?’ which was reckoned a congé, and he was in consequence sent here as attaché to Esterhazy. He is all whiskers and white teeth, and evidently means to be a ladykiller, and, if I am not mistaken, will succeed. I find that he was with Esterhazy at the very time we were living so much with the Princesse, and that he used to dine every day with us all, at the bottom of the table. So little effect did he make, that we never saw the animal; but he has now gotten a new applique in the shape of a top knot, and passes off for a youth à bonnes fortunes, which is very amusing. . . . I am happy to tell you that a serious phalanx is arranging for the Age newspaper. About 6 or 7 people are going to prosecute—Mr. Fox Lane for his wife, who they chose to say ‘had exposed herself in her box at the Opera with Poodle Byng’ She had not seen him even by accident for 8 months, and then only in the streets; and on the very night mentioned she was sitting over her own fire with her father and brother!

“Lord Kirkwall,† it is said, marries Lord Boston’s

* George IV.’s cottage at Virginia Water, where Lady Conyngham resided.

† Afterwards 5th Earl of Orkney.

daughter. The Belfasts have bought Lord Boston’s house in my street. . . . Houses are dearer than ever. Their’s will stand them furnished in £400 a year. . . . If I dared, I would entreat of you to take no more blue pill. I think that you are ruining yourself, but I know that you have no faith in my knowledge of medicine; but what can be so bad as to take medicine to that excess as to bring on such misery as to affect the mouth.* . . .”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“13th Feby.

“. . . I dined yesterday with old Sussex. After dinner he proposed Stephenson’s and Lady Mary Keppel’s healths† and thus announced that most interesting and opulent alliance. Albemarle was there, and seemed contented. I hear old Coke is furious about it.† . . . We shall have a division on Robinson’s plan.§ Most of the Oppn. will vote for him. I certainly shall. We are gone too far to recede.”

“Alnwick, Feby. 25, 1826.

“. . . I send you an interesting scrap I received last night from the tip-top reformer of all—Lord John Russell. I had desired Ridgway to send him a copy of ‘the Work,’ and at the same time I wrote him [Lord J. R] a few lines myself. It was always one of my hobbies on this subject to make little Johnny’s speech for him, knowing that my materials were much better than any he had ever produced, or had the means of producing. So I was quite sure, if I succeeded, he would be gravelled, and it is quite clear he is so, and I am glad of it, for he is a conceited little puppy. If he is so complimentary as to think the work ‘calculated to do good when money ceases to be uppermost,’ I

* By salivation.

† Henry Frederick Stephenson, private secretary to H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex, married Lady Mary Keppel, 3rd daughter of the 4th Earl of Albemarle.

‡ Mr. Coke of Holkham had married Lady Anne Keppel, an elder daughter of Lord Albemarle’s.

§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Currency Bill.

wonder when he thinks his speeches upon Reform will come into play as doing good!”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brancepeth Castle, March 13, 1826.

“. . . Tho’ I say it who should not say it, I don’t think I ever followed faster hounds than my friend Russell’s, nor did I ever see a more beautiful run, nor a fox more gallantly run into and killed. I was in at the death, I assure you. . . . Oh what a house this is for beautiful apartments and comforts without end! O’Callaghan, who knows Lowther well, says it is not to be mentioned in the same year with it—such perfect good taste in everything, and the man who did it all just lived in it seven months. . . .”

“London, March 20th.

“. . . I have just been at Ridgway’s for the first time, and altho’ I am only in a 2nd edition,* I know I am in port. Hobhouse,† who, you know, is a brother author, told me yesterday unasked that it was unique and quite unanswerable, and so he intended to say on Lord John Russell’s motion next month. . . . This I shall immediately follow up by putting my name to it.”

“London, March 21.

“Never did I see anything like the town for dulness. . . . The only thing going on is at Ly. Tankerville’s and a few other houses, where ladies of easy virtue meet every night, and as many dandies as the town can supply. Écarté is the universal go with them—the men winning and losing hundreds a night; and as the ladies play guineas, their settlement each night cannot be a small one. I met Vesuvius‡ yesterday, who came up to me open-mouthed about my work. He said a review of it would appear very shortly in the Westminster Review. . . . I saw little white-faced Lord John [Russell] too, but not a word of compliment from him. . . .”

* Of his pamphlet on Reform.

† John Cam Hobhouse, M.P. [1776-1854], created Lord Broughton in 1851: a copious writer.

‡ Hon. Douglas Kinnaird.

“April 14th.

“. . . I was in time to hear Hobhouse tell Canning that it was with real heartfelt pain that he still heard from him his deliberate opinion against all parliamentary reform, because he [Hobhouse] was one of a great portion of this country who looked to him with gratitude and affection for his conduct since he came into office, which would amount to VENERATION if he would but give way upon this vital question!!! And this from a man who took such pains to insult Canning by a picture of him three or four years ago in the House! To do some part of the House justice, this affectionate address was received with a very marked titter . . . from the Old Tories at the expense of both Hobhouse and Canning. Lord Rosslyn satisfied me afterwards by facts that nothing can equal the rage of the Old Tory Highflyers at the liberal jaw of Canning and Huskisson. . . . I saw Brougham, who told me that by some accident the letters to Lord John Russell” would not be reviewed in the next number of the Edinboro’ Review, which had been in the press for a fortnight. 1 beg you will suppress your indignation, as I do, at this monstrous piece of perfidy and villainy, considering all that has passed between him and me on the subject. . . . I dined at Sefton’s yesterday. Bold York dined with them the last time as usual, and I trust will do so again, but his life is considered in great jeopardy. To think of these two men—him and is brother, the King—both turned 60, and terrible bad lives, having new palaces building for them! The Duke of York’s is 150 feet by 130 outside, with 40 compleat sleeping apartments, and all this for a single man. . . . Billy Clarence,† too, is rigging up in a small way in the stable-yard, but that is doing by the Government.”

“April 26th, Newmarket [at Lord Sefton’s].

“. . . My racing campaign is over for the present, and I have had four very agreeable days—very good sport each day, and one’s time one way and another

* I.e. Creevey’s pamphlet on Reform.

† William IV.

quite occupied. . . . We have had Jersey, Shelley, F. Russell, Ld. Wilton, Bob Grosvenor, Lord Titchfield and Lord George Bentinck, Lady Caroline and Pawlett, Mills, Irby, Wortley and his son, different days. Wortley is dying for me to pair off with him, but I must do my duty you know. . . . I start per coach at ½ past ten, and as the distance is only 60 miles, I hope to be in time for Michael [Taylor]’s dinner.”

“May 3rd.

“. . . I was one of the majority last night in support of his Majesty’s Ministers for cheaper corn than the landed grandees will now favor us with. . . . It certainly is the boldest thing that ever was attempted by a Government—after deprecating any discussion on the Corn Laws during the present session, to try at the end of it to carry a Corn Law of their own by a coup-de-main, and to hold out the landed grandees as the enemies of the manufacturing population if they oppose it. . . . If a good ultra-Tory Government could be made, Canning and Huskisson must inevitably be ruined by this daring step. You never heard such language as the old sticklers apply to them; and, unhappily for Toryism, that prig Peel seems as deeply bitten by ‘liberality,’ in every way but on the Catholic question, as any of his fellows. I was laughing with Lord Dudley under the gallery at this curious state of things, who said if the Duke of York wd. but come down to the House of Lords and declare that ‘so help him G——, corn should never be under 80s.,’ he would drive this Radical Government to the devil in an instant.”

“May 5.

“. . . Well—the villains jibbed after all. . . . In language the Ministers are everything we could wish, but in measures they dare not go their lengths for fear of being beat, as undoubtedly they would. Indeed it is very doubtful if even this temporising scheme of letting in 500,000 quarters of corn, in the event of scarcity, will go down in the Lords. . . . I never saw anything like the fury of both Whig and Tory landholders at Canning’s speech; but the Tories much the most violent of the two. . . . It is considered, in short, as a breaking down of the Corn Laws.”

“8th.

“. . . The land has rallied in the most boisterous manner. The new scheme is considered as a regular humbug, and a perfect insult to the agricultural intellect. In short, Canning and Huskisson are rising (or falling) hourly in the execration of all lovers of high prices, Whig and Tory, but particularly the latter. . . .”

“11th.

“. . . On Monday we beat the land black and blue about letting in foreign corn; but the Lords, it is said, are not to be so easily beat as the booby squires. There is to be a grand fight—the Ministers and Bishops against the Rutlands, Beauforts, Hertfords, &c. Liverpool gives out that, if he is beat, he will give up the Government, which may be safely said, as there is no one else to take it.”

“12th.

“. . . Well, you see the landholders, high and low, are the same mean devils, and alike incapable of fighting when once faced by a Government without any land at all. Was there ever such a rope of sand as the House of Lords last night? to be beat by 3 to 1 after all their blustering. . . .”

“13th.

“. . . Sefton and I voted differently on the late measures in our House; but, to do him justice, no one is more amused at the contemptible figure and compleat defeat of both Squires and Lords. The charm of the power of the Landed Interest is gone; and in a new Parliament Canning and Huskisson may effect whatever revolution they like in the Corn Laws. . . .”

“23rd.

“. . . I dined with poor Kinnaird yesterday, and the sight of such persons as him and her in their present condition is as striking a moral lesson as the world can furnish. He is the only man of real genuine vivacity I know left in the world; and, wreck as he is, he still preserves the lead in that department. He is doomed to death, and his sufferings are dreadful. Sefton drove down Alava, Douglas Kinnaird and myself; we were shown into his bedroom, where he lies upon a couch, with a covering over every part of him but his head and arms; and then he was wheeled in to dinner. . . . Then to look at her—a perfect shadow, living, as it were, by stealth likewise; and to think of what she was when the whole play-house at Dublin used to rise and applaud whenever her sister, Lady Foley, and herself used to enter the house, in admiration of their beauty only, and not their rank, for they did so to no others of the Leinster family. . . . It is just 20 years since I saw old Fox with his white favor in his hat upon the marriage of his cousin Lady Olivia Fitzgerald with Kinnaird.’

CHAPTER V. 1827.

The hour, long expected and prepared for by Canning, at length struck. The public service of Lord Liverpool was brought to a close by his fatal illness in February, 1827. Undoubtedly, by experience, brilliant oratory, and commanding ability, there was no one in the Tory ranks on the same level with Canning. There were impediments, arising both from the King’s distrust of Canning on the Roman Catholic question, and the distrust of his own colleagues—Wellington, Eldon, Peel, &c.—upon that and other grounds. Canning occupied in the Ministerial party much the same elevation as Brougham did in the Opposition: everybody paid tribute to the talents of both men, but nobody trusted them or imagined that either of them had much in view except his own aggrandisement.

The most powerful engine of statecraft in the Georgian era was patronage; and although those great hotbeds of patronage, the Bar and the Army, were in the grasp of his High Tory colleagues, Eldon and Wellington, Canning had used his influence over Liverpool with judicious foresight. He had secured the Lord High Stewardship for Lord Conyngham, and the Under-Secretary ship of Foreign Affairs for his son, Lord Mount Charles, thereby earning for himself Lady Conyngham’s paramount influence at Court. Nor did he neglect (and none knew better than he how to cultivate) the good graces of Madame de Lieven and the King’s physician, Sir William Knighton. With these cards in his hand, he played a strong game against tremendous odds. One cannot but admire the skill and nerve of the player, however much one may deplore the temper displayed by his formidable opponent, the Duke of Wellington, who, when he found himself outwitted, threw up the command of the Army. Creevey, as a bystander, saw a good deal of the game.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, Feby. 10, 1827.

“. . . As Scroop* was very gracious, I said I must ask him if what I heard was true, that the Duke of Clarence said to him at the [Duke of York’s] funeral that he hoped before long to see him in the House of Lords.† He said it was not at the funeral, but when the King was last at the House of Lords, when he [Clarence] did say so to him in the hearing of Lord Gwydir, and shaking his hand most heartily at the same time:—‘But,’ said the Duke [of Norfolk], ‘I ought to add that he said precisely the same thing to me at the Coronation, and then voted against us on the very first opportunity!’ So our Billy is a wag, is he not? . . .”

“13th Feby.

“. . . Tyrwhitt continues to see the King at all times, in his bed as well as out of it. . . . He says that Knighton is the greatest villain as well as the lowest blackguard that lives, as well as the most vindictive chap. He is eternally upon the watch, and more than ever during Tom’s [Tyrwhitt’s] tête-à-tête. He came in without knocking, and planted himself at the bottom of the bed, Prinney observing when he saw him:—‘Damme, I thought you had been at the other end of

* The 12th Duke of Norfolk.

† The Duke of Norfolk was debarred as a Roman Catholic from silting in the House of Lords.

the town!’ In the course of this conversation, Prinney said:—‘I wish my Ministers would leave off this new fashion of giving ambassadors leave of absence from their stations. Here is my Lord Bloomfield, I find, has got leave from his right honorable friend and Secretary Canning to come home; but if he comes to me, I’ll take care to hurry him out again.’*

“It was not amiss to hear the different reasons assigned by Taylor and Tom [Tyrwhitt] for the fall of this truly great man Bloomfield. Taylor’s account is direct from Denison—alias Lady Conyngham, and he says that the year the King went to Ireland, Bloomfield went first to prepare everything, and being at the play at Dublin when ‘God save the King’ was called for and vehemently applauded, Bloomfield was kind enough to step to the front of the box he was in, and to express by his bows and gestures his deep sense of gratitude for this distinction, and that this being reported to the Sovereign, he never forgave it. . . . Bloomfield was ruined from that moment if you can call a man ruined who, in our recollection twenty years back, was little better than a common footman; and who, having made himself a fortune by palpable cheating and robbery in every department he had to do with, demands and obtains an Irish peerage, the Order of the Bath, and an embassy to a crowned head . . . this, in truth, being the price of keeping his master’s secrets.* And this is the apothecary Knighton’s hold too, he having all that other rogue McMahon’s papers and letters . . . Lady Beauchamp gave McMahon £10,000 for getting her husband advanced from a baron to an earl.”

“Feb. 17.

“. . . Here’s a business for you. Liverpool has had a paralytic stroke, so says Croker; but Westmorland only admits that he is not well. However I have no doubt Croker’s account is the true one. . . .

* Lieut.-General Benjamin Bloomfield, R.A., was successively gentleman-attendant, marshal, and chief equerry and private secretary to George IV. as Prince of Wales and Prince Regent. He succeeded Sir John McMahon in 1817 as keeper of the privy purse, went as Minister to Stockholm in 1824, and was created an Irish peer in 1825.

It is quite true about Ld. Liverpool. He had a fit of apoplexy at ten this morning. He is a little better, but politically dead. Canning is better, but has some extraordinary violent pain over one eye, nor will he be the better for this new excitement. He’ll be beat as well as Liverpool. . . . Did you ever see a more disgraceful thing under all the circumstances of the country than this plunder of £9000 a year for our Billy,* after having got £3000 a year by the Duke of York’s death. Who would be in a place, without the possibility of stopping such villainy? Yet the division was respectable, altho’ Mother Cole the leader and Jack Calcraft and others did vote for the job. Holland was under the gallery all the time, canvassing openly in the most disgusting manner on behalf of his dear and illustrious connection.”

“19th.

“Well—what is your real opinion as to who is to supply Liverpool’s place? I think somehow it must be Canning after all, and that then he’ll die of it. . . .”

“March 5.

“. . . Yesterday about 3 p.m. Dandy Raikes, who is a member of Brooks’s, but was never seen there before, having watched Brougham go in there, followed him, and taking a position with his back to the fire, said aloud:—‘Mr. Brougham, I am very much obliged to you for the speech you made at my expence. I don’t know what latitude you gentlemen of the Bar consider yourselves entitled to, but I am come here purposely to insult you in the presence of your club.’ . . . Brougham was eating some soup, and merely replied with great composure:—‘Mr. Raikes, you have chosen a strange place and occasion for offering your insult,’ and shortly after walked away, there being present about 8 or 10 persons. I learnt this from Ferguson, who had just entered Brooks’s as Raikes was concluding. We both agreed that Brougham must call Raikes out, and that the latter must be expelled the club for the marvellous outrage. . . . In going into Brooks’s at 5, which you may suppose was pretty well

* H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence [William IV.].

crammed with gossipers, no tidings were to be had of our Bruffam; but upon returning home* I found he had been here in pursuit of Fergy; and, having caught him, had begged him to carry a challenge for him to Raikes, which the General peremptorily declined to do upon the grounds of having been mixed up in so many such things. So Brougham went off after Wilson. I learnt this at six, and our Taylor and myself went off at seven to dine at Denison’s, where we had Lords Say and Seale and Reay, W. Pawlett, Ellice, Ferguson and Stephenson. Brougham was to have been; but as we all supposed he was otherwise engaged we sat down to dinner without him; tho’ in about ten minutes in he came, occupied a chair which was next to me, and having talked exclusively to myself the whole night upon every subject but the one, I never knew him more agreeable in my life. Upon coming away at eleven, we were to bring Fergy down here in our coach, but Brougham stopt him; and when he followed us, we found that Wilson had forwarded his challenge to Raikes, but that in the meantime Brougham had been taken into custody, carried to Bow Street, and bound over to keep the peace. This had been the handiwork of Jack the Painter, alias Spring Rice, who was present at the row at Brooks’s, and had taken himself off to Bow Street immediately to inform; his only object, I have no doubt, being not to lose Brougham’s vote to-night upon that most vital of all subjects—the Catholic question. . . . From the long time that has elapsed since Brougham made the offensive speech in question, and from the extraordinary mode adopted by Raikes to insult him, I cannot but believe that he has been worked up to this step by such chaps as Lowther, Glengall and Belfast, and that he was made to believe Brougham was a shy cock; for Lady Glengall has always been harping upon that tack of late, as how he was made to marry Mrs. Brougham by one of her brothers upon a certain event being known, and such stuff as this.† Lady Mary Butler has just been here,

* Mr. Creevey, on losing his seat in Parliament, had taken up permanent abode with his friends the Taylors, in Whitehall.

† Mrs. Brougham was a widow—Mrs. Spalding of the Holm in Galloway—when she married Brougham. She was a daughter of Sir William Eden of West Auckland, co. Durham.

and said that Mr. Raikes was with them last night, and that Mr. Brougham had been arrested, which was thought very odd. So he has got into a rare mess with these devils. . . . Tankerville has just said to me it was quite right in Spring Rice to inform Sir Richard Birnie [?] of Brougham and Raikes. He you know is the first authority as a fighting man.”

“March 6th.

“. . . The King comes to town on Thursday, deeply impregnated, it is said, with his father’s conscientious scruples against the Catholics. . . . Lady Conyngham writes word to her brother that the great man will not permit any one whatever to speak to him upon the subject of Lord Liverpool’s illness, or who is to succeed him. Moreover, he adds that he will not be spoken to about such matters for some time yet to come. Was there ever such a child or Bedlamite? or were there ever such a set of lickspittles as his Ministers to endure such conduct? . . .”

“7th.

“. . . The Catholic question was lost by four last night; but it was, in truth, a fight for power and not for the Catholics. . . . So far the business is done that the Cabinet must be broken up; at least it appears impossible it should be otherwise. Who is to be uppermost remains to be seen; ultimately, I think Canning must win, tho’ he would have no chance if the King really has the anti-Catholic feelings of his father, and had but a hundredth part of his courage. But he is a poor devil. . . . In going up to Audley Street I called upon the Pet* in Arlington Street. . . . I think his principal amusement was a note he had got from old Lady Salisbury, in which she says:—‘As I find Creevey can’t dine with us on Sunday, suppose we change our day to Wednesday, when I hope he will be disengaged. I leave it to you to settle with him.’ So I think to have lived to be called ‘Creevey’ by old Dow. Salisbury, and to have her dinner party put off for my convenience, is far beyond what any mortal could have predicted.

“Well, our Brooks’s parliament has just been sitting in judgment on Dandy Raikes—an immense

* Lord Sefton.

meeting, old Fitzwilliam in the chair. It ended, as it should do, in Raikes sending an apology to the club; but matters are getting worse and worse as to Brougham, and I see distinctly he will have to fight Raikes after all. Kangaroo Cooke is Raikes’s second. Dear Lady Darlington is just come in to us, and she has not a doubt but that B. must cross the water and have this business out; which, of course, is her lord’s opinion likewise, and so says the town in general.”

“9th.

“. . . The Monarch stole back to Windsor yesterday, having been fifteen days at Brighton without leaving his dressing-room, or seeing the face of a single human being—servants, tailors and doctors excepted. What the devil is it to come to? This of course is our Denison’s account from his sister. . . . Old Billy* is much more tender than any one else in his regrets about my being out of Parliament. He is always at it, and before people. . . . However, it is all mighty well; for, notwithstanding that the Honorable House has been at its best this week in the interest of its debates and the conflict of parties, I have never felt any other sentiment than that of gratification at not being there—so help me ——! Such feeling, I suppose, is partly idleness, partly contempt for all the performers, and a conviction from long experience that no possible good can be effected by such an assembly, to say nothing of the perfidy of our own chaps in particular, whenever a chance of doing any good arises.”

“13th.

“We had a rum dinner enough at Denison’s on Saturday altho’ the Earl of Darlington was there, and a very merry one at Kensington [Palace] on Sunday, where he and my lady were likewise, and about 14 of us. The Duke [of Sussex] handed out the Countess, the Earl, Lady Mary Stephenson, and Mr. Creevey Lady Cis. The Duke said:—‘Come, Creevey, come and sit next to Lord Darlington;’ which of course I did, and he was mighty playful with me all the day.”

* Lord William Russell, brother of the 5th Duke of Bedford. He was murdered in 1840 by his French valet Courvoisier.

“15th.

“. . . Duncannon shewed me a letter written by the wife of the jaoler in the county of Galway to the maid servants in Lord Besborough’s house in that county. . . . I think you will admit it has very pretty fun in it.

“‘Mrs. Murphy’s compliments to the ladies of Wandler [?]. II the maids would like to see Sergeant Black hang’d she will be happy of the honor of their company at breakfast to-morrow. I will have the pleasure of conducting the ladies to the gallows. Mrs. Murphy will take care that the execution shall be deferred till the ladies arrive.’”

“April 2.

“. . . Much has been going on at Windsor lately upon our ministerial projects. Canning and Wellington were closeted with Prinney one day, Peel for as long the next, and then—best of all the three—Cheerful Charlie* went down yesterday, his object being, it is said, to protest on behalf of himself and brother Tories against Canning being cock of the walk. . . .”

“April 11th.

“The town will have it to-day that all is settled—Canning Minister, and that he has received the King’s commands to form a Govt. on the same principles as the last; . . . yet I don’t believe it, because Tankerville dined yesterday with the Duke of Wellington, who told him that all was still at sea, and that he—Tankerville—knew just as much how it would all end as he—Wellington—did. Now we all know that, with all his faults, Wellington is precisely the man to speak the truth upon such an occasion without either design or humbug. I would stake my life it was as he said at the time he said it. . . .”

Mr. Creevey’s confidence in the Duke’s candour on this occasion was scarcely justified. On the very day that Wellington made the above statement to Lord

* The 5th Duke of Rutland.

Tankerville, he had received Canning’s letter informing him that he had been commissioned by the King “to lay before his Majesty . . . a plan of arrangements for the reconstruction of the Administration,” and adding, “I need not add how essentially the accomplishment must depend upon your Grace’s continuance as a member of the Cabinet.” To this Wellington replied on the same day, intimating his anxious desire “to serve his Majesty as I have done hitherto in the Cabinet, with the same colleagues. But before I can give an answer to your obliging proposition, I should wish to know who the person is whom you intend to propose to his Majesty as the head of the Government.” There was something of wilful misunderstanding, if indeed it was misunderstanding, in the Duke’s failure to perceive that the King had entrusted Canning with the formation of a Cabinet.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Holkham, April 14th.

“This is a damned bore, you must know, not having the London letters and newspapers till four o’clock in the afternoon. It’s all mighty fine for King Tom* to have his own house the post-house, which it is; but give me a professional one in preference to a squirearchy postmaster. . . . I was more delighted with my approach to this house than ever, and so I am now with everything both within it and without it—except the company, who, God knows, are rum enough, and totally unworthy of all Lord Chief Justice Coke has done for them in creating the estate, and the Earl of Leicester in building and furnishing the house. Our worthy King Tom is decidedly the best; but—without offence be it said—he by no means comes up to his ancestor the Chief Justice. . . . Digby and Lady

* Mr. Coke of Holkham.

Andover* are both speechless [erased]; Stanhope and Mrs. Stanhope are worthy, honest, absent, lackadaisical bodies that don’t seem to know where they are or who they are with; and this is our present stock, except a young British Museum artist, who is classing manuscripts, and a silent parson without a name! But then—what have we not in reserve? Do not we expect Lord John Russell, the Knight of Kerry, Spring Rice, and various other great and publick men? We do indeed! tho’ during the different times I have been here, I have known many expected who never came. But you’ll not quote me. In the mean time, it’s all the same to me whether they come or not. I came to see the place. I doat upon it. . . . I was not sufficiently struck when I have been here before with the furniture of the walls in the three common living rooms, which is Genoa velvet, and what is more, it has been up ever since the house was built, which is eighty years ago; and yet it is as fresh as a four-year-old. To be sure, the said Earl of Leicester was no bad hand at finishing his work: never was a house so built outside and in. The gilded roofs of all the rooms and the doors would of themselves nowadays take a fortune to make; and his pictures are perfect, tho’ not numerous.”

Canning’s appointment as premier was the signal for the resignation of those Ministers who had hitherto resisted the Roman Catholic claims—Wellington, Eldon, Bathurst, Melville, Westmorland, Bexley, and Peel. Canning immediately opened negociations with the Whig leaders—Lansdowne, &c.—for a coalition.

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“London, April 13, 1827.

“They all declare their motive for resigning is strictly personal—that the Catholics have nothing to do with it; it never came into question. The D. of Wellington, who has also given up the Army, says nothing

* Lady Andover, widow of the eldest son of the 15th Earl of Suffolk, married Admiral Sir Henry Digby, K.C.B.

shall induce him to connect himself with that man. He has just told this to Ly. Jersey, and has shown her letters—one from Canning to him, announcing that he had received his Majesty’s commands to form a Government. This he answered to the King. He says Canning’s letter was most impertinent. . . . Peel says he could not serve under Canning, nor would any of the others. . . . Lord Londonderry has resigned the Bedchamber in a letter to the King saying he had prevented the Queen being received at Vienna, and that as H.M. had given his confidence to a man who entertained such different opinions on that subject, he could no longer serve him. In short, traits of humour are without end. Bathurst did not know of the Chancellor’s, Wellington’s and Peel’s resignation till he missed them at the Cabinet dinner at Wynne’s on Wednesday. He went home and wrote a very formal letter of resignation to Canning. . . . If Opposition support, Canning may stand, and they certainly ought to keep out these villains.”

Mrs. Taylor to Mr. Creevey.

“Whitehall, 17th April. “My dear Mr. Creevey,

“What a goose you were to leave town in such delightful mischievous times! Dear Brougham arrived the night before last upon a summons from Lord Lansdowne. . . . He called upon Lord Darlington on his way up, and I see his object is to get those two to take office, as an excuse for himself. He is outrageous at the idea of Copley* being Chancellor, and told me he was sure it would never be. . . . As you may believe, he is in a very disturbed state, and up to his ears in some intrigue or other.”

“21st.

“. . . Brougham was here last night in a state of insanity after the negociation between Ld. Lansdowne and Canning was broke off, which it was, in consequence

* Sir John Copley, who, on becoming Lord Chancellor on Lord Eldon’s resignation at this time, was created Baron Lyndhurst.

of the former not consenting to an entire Protestant Government in Ireland.* From this he went to a meeting he and Sir M. Wilson got up at Brooks’s, consisting of Jack the Painter,† the Knight of Kerry, the Calcrafts and a few more shabby ones, anxious for place at any rate; and there it was agreed to send Ld. Auckland and the younger Calcraft to Ld. Lansdowne to remonstrate, and to prevail upon him to renew the negociation. . . . Brougham told me he had refused being Attorney-General, but I don’t believe it was really offered to him, for I hear the higher powers objected to him.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Holkham, April 21st.

“. . . I have no doubt that the selection of Copley to be Chancellor has been the stumbling-block to Lansdowne, for old Lord Wm. Russell writes to Lord John that no man of honor could sit in the same cabinet with such a scoundrel as Copley, and that Canning is for ever disgraced in having taken him. . . .”

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“April 21st, 1827. “My dear C.,

“As I am sure by instinct that you are with the true and faithful servants of the Lord in this time of our trial, and not with the vain and foolish Malignants, I write to say that the negociation was off last night, and we had a row at Brooks’s (which I own I created) and the negociation is on again to-day, with a fair prospect of success. These difficulties come from some of our friends being still in the year 1780. . . . Sefton’s letters would put life into a wheelbarrow, or anything but a superannuated Whig. My principle is—anything to lock the door for ever on Eldon and Co.

* I.e. a Lord Lieutenant, Chancellor, and Secretary opposed to Catholic Emancipation.

† Mr. Spring Rice, created Lord Monteagle in 1839.

I have the easier pushed this great matter, because I can have no sort of interest in its success. My crimes (which I prize as my glory) of 1820 are on my head;* and by common consent the King is to be gratified.”

“April 27, 1827. “Dear C.,

“I fear you are a rural politician—ruris amator—one of the provincials of whom Jonathan Raine said in his N. Circuit verses— ‘Quid memorem quotquot, rurali more, colonis Ruris amatores dant sua jura suis?’ So you have a politick of your own, as Maude has a law. How can you, being of [illegible] mind, possibly think that the Ministry—or any Ministry—can stand on volunteer and candid support? My only principle is:—‘Lock the door on Eldon and Co.;’ and this can only be done by joining C[anning].

“Well, even my not being in office is making the devil’s own mischief. Where am I to sit? [illegible]’s place, or Pitt’s old hill fort? or where? How am I to communicate with C[anning]? Besides, the Tories don’t believe me with C., and are trying to trap me by motions. Nice, to be sure, had any man such a singular, not to say absurd power over a Govt. as I shall have. Lord L[ansdowne], D. of Devonshire, &c., all take place protesting against my exclusion, and swearing they only submit to it while I do. Scarlett A[ttorney] G[eneral], but Eldon went off in a headache to escape swearing him in. . . .

“H. B.”

Edward Ellice, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Brooks’s [no date].

“. . . Be assured Bruffam will bolt! He is very sore at Scarlett’s appointment, with all his professions of disinterestedness, and no wonder! He says support of an ‘hon. and learned member opposite’ is

* His defence of Queen Caroline.

not quite the same thing as that of ‘my hon. and learned friend near me;’ and that his exclusion will shut his mouth. This is all as I expected. We shall see strange confusion and quarrelling in the end. Lord Grey has shut his door upon Tan., and if they don’t take care, will lead the new Govt.—with or without Ld. Lansdowne—a pretty dance in the Lords. . . . I envy none of them the legacy the Tories have left their successors. They have drained the cup of good things to the dregs, and left many a bitter draught for those that follow them. . . . The fellow can’t wait for the letters, and indeed I could only add some lies of the day.

“Yours, “E. E.”

Michael Angelo Taylor, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Denbies, May 6th, 1827.

“. . . I am almost sick at what is passing. The scene in the House is to my mind so strange that I know not where I am. I keep my old place. What is to be concocted for the general good I cannot conjecture . . . Brooks’s rings with the praises of Canning—how well he does—how ill the Sovereign is, and how improperly Canning has been dealt with. Canning has dissected both Whigs and Tories; and I profess, if I was to swear fealty, I should be more inclined to swear it to him than to Lansdowne and Co. Darlington raves about ‘the new Premier. The Catholic Question is only safe by being postponed, he thinks. Duncannon now counts noses on the other side, and sits on the Treasury Bench. I can say for myself that not much of decent respect has been shown to me. I have supported the Whigs for eight and thirty years at an expense of above £30,000. My house and table have been the resort of the party, and on their account, partly, the King has got rid of me. To the astonishment of many, not a syllable has ever been mentioned to me.”

Lord Althorp to Mr. Creevey.

“Albany, May 11, 1827.

“. . . It is impossible for me not to write to you and say how much gratified I am at finding the line which I have taken approved of by all those with whom I first began my political life, which was in 1809, on the Duke of York’s business. It is impossible for me to put any confidence in Canning, but I must support him as the least of two evils. Lord Lansdowne and those who, like him, take office or identify themselves with the administration, appear to me to have more courage than discretion; and I think they would have done better to have acted with more caution. But the thing being done, we have only to choose between the two parties, and the line it is our duty to take is plain enough at present. . . . I much fear that His Majesty will be indulged in every sort of extravagance in order to win him over.”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“London, 28th May, 1837.

“You are indeed a benighted, rural politician, and your letter is truly a provincial reverie. I do say the junction is justified by the exclusion of Eldon, Wellington, Peel and Bathurst. It could have been brought about by no other means, and I consider it as an immense benefit conferred on the country. . . . As to the ‘baseness of the junction,’ and the rest of your apple-blossom twaddle, I really thought at first, Mr. Secretary of the Board of Controul, that you were alluding to the blasted, disgraceful coalition of Fox and the pure, highminded Grey with old Bogy.* There, indeed, was a sacrifice of every principle upon earth for place. I don’t stand up for Canning, but I think the junction with him is a chance for the country against nothing. Don’t forget that Grey, whose opposition is solely personal, once preferred him to Whitbread. He had, as you well know, the choice between them. . . . I don’t care a damn—nor do you—for the Catholics; but I say their chance is a

* Lord Grenville.

hundredfold better under the new Cabinet than under the old; and so do they. . . . Depend upon it that horticultural pursuits damage a male’s understanding. I am delighted, therefore, that you are once more coming into the civilised world, where I trust you will, with proper care, come to your senses.”

Mr. Creevey to the Earl of Sefton.

“Rivenhall Place, May 31st, 1827.

“Vous vous trompez, mon cher, when you say Lord Grey ever voted for Canning in preference to Whitbread. At the period to which you refer, he was the only one who voted for Whitbread against Canning, and he did so under strong circumstances as affecting Whitbread. You are aware of the half kind of hostility that existed between Whitbread and Grey from the time of the latter taking office in 1806, and one act in particular of Whitbread’s made Grey furious. When Prinney became Regent, the Whigs and Grenvilles thought the game was all their own again, and in casting the parts for the new administration, Whitbread was to be Secy. of State for the Colonies; but, before he wd. touch it, he made it a sine qua non that Ld. Grenville, as First Lord, should not be Auditor likewise—a proposition, I say, that made Grey furious, as an injustice to Grenville, and a reflection upon their former Government; but as nothing could shake Whitbread, the proposition was laid before Grenville, who, greatly to his honor, wrote a letter in which, tho’ he arraigned very freely what he thought the injustice of the demand, still he thought so highly of Whitbread’s services, that he struck rather than not have them. Well, all this, as you know, ended in smoke; but shortly after (upon Perceval’s death, I believe) when the game was again in view, the question arose whether Canning or Whitbread was to be adopted. Grey voted for Whitbread, in spite of all the provocation he had given him, upon the express ground of having confidence in his character, which he had not in Canning’s. You are right, therefore, when you say that Grey’s objection to Canning is personal, tho’ not entirely so. If such personal objection was well founded then, as I think it was, surely it is much stronger now, after Canning’s leaving his Govt. in the lurch as he did upon the Queen’s trial, and his late lies at the expense of his colleagues and Castlereagh, in setting up for the sole deliverer of the new world. All these tricks are of the same school, and make a personal objection to him which I have never known apply to any public man before.

“What you say of coalitions generally, is true—they are all bad, and all popular principles are sure to be sacrificed in such a mess. When Brougham wrote and asked me what I thought of this concern, I replied that I had an instinctive horror of the very name of a coalition; and yet, with all the sins of the last one in 1806, it surely is not to be compared in its design and formation with this one. Fox and Grenville had been acting openly together in opposition. When Pitt got the Govt. in 1804, he could not induce Grenville to accept office and leave Fox. When Pitt died, and old Nobbs* sent for Grenville to make the Govt., the latter would not listen to any prejudice against Fox, but made the Crown divide the Govt. between them. Now surely to see Whigs thrusting themselves tail foremost into Canning’s pay as subalterns, is, at least, a very low-lived concern as compared with the last coalition. . . . I say both upon public and personal grounds, I never would identify myself with Canning. . . . I should like no better fun than backing the renegado Canning every night against the Tory Highflyers, but as to trusting myself in the same boat with him, and, above all, taking his money—you’ll excuse me!”

Mrs. Taylor to Mr. Creevey.

“June 1, 1827.

“. . . Mr. Canning’s weakness was pretty visible in the Penryn case.† Brougham was so very tipsy,

* George III.

† Gross bribery and corruption had been proved to prevail in the little Cornish borough of Penryn, which returned two members. Lord John Russell’s motion that it be disfranchised was opposed by the Government, and defeated by 124 votes to 69.

that for some time after he got up to speak he did not know what he said, and neither Tierney, Macdonald nor Abercromby were in the House. Little Sir T. T[yrwhitt] has just come in to tell me he was this moment passed in the street by Mr. Lambton in a travelling carriage alone; so that he is come up to see if peerages are plenty!”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“London, June 11th.

“. . . Lambton has called upon Knighton and told him to tell the King that the moment he heard at Naples of the shameful way in which he [the King] had been treated by his servants, he had travelled night and day to serve him; in consequence of which, he is to dine and sleep one day this week at the Cottage after Ascot. This comes from Ly. C. to her brother Denison. . . . Then Brougham is so anxious about dear Mrs. Brougham that he has consulted Knighton about her case, who is so good as to see her daily. Was there ever?* . . .”

“June 15th.

“. . . It is said that Lambton owes upwards of £900,000, and has little or no profit from his coal trade to help him out of the mess. . . . The Duke of St. Albans is to be married to Mother Coutts on Saturday. She gives him £30,000 as an outfit—the rest to depend on his good behaviour. . . . Chickens are 15/- a couple, Mrs. Taylor tells me; but what do you think of cock’s-combs being 22/- a pound, and it takes a pound and a half to make a dish!”

“Brooks’s, 19th.

“. . . In my walk here I met Althorp . . . and asked him how things were going on.—‘Very bad,’ says he.—‘What an odd thing,’ says I, ‘that Robinson† should turn out so wretched in the Lords.’—‘Yes,’ says

* Sir William Knighton being the King’s physician and confidential adviser on many things besides his health.

† Mr. J. Robinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1823-27, had been made Viscount Goderich, and became Colonial and War Secretary.

he, ‘and what is worse, Lansdowne is very little better, so that Grey, acting the part he does, cuts him to atoms.’—‘Do you suppose,’ says I, ‘it was the question of corn that made the great Opposition in the Lords?’—‘No,’ says he, ‘it was the question of Canning, and only that; for you know no one can have any confidence in him.”

“June 20.

“. . . You see the buttering speech Bruffam has been making at Liverpool in favor of Canning, to say nothing of his lies about his having refused a silk gown from Eldon, and saying that the latter had always behaved so well to him! . . . Sefton said to Mrs. Taylor yesterday at dinner:—‘Well, Mrs. Taylor, what is your opinion of Brougham now?’—‘Why,’ says she, ‘exactly what yours used to be, Ld. Sefton, the worst possible.’”

“June 23.

“. . . I sallied forth yesterday for a walk before dinner, and who shd. I see but Wellington coming out of Arbuthnot’s house in Parliament Street—his horses following him. So thinks I to myself—what line will he take? which was soon decided by his coming up and shaking me by the hand. I said—‘Curious times these, Duke!’ and then, by way of putting him at his ease and encouraging him to talk, I added—‘I am what they call a Malignant: I am all for Ld. Grey. I have this moment left him, telling him my only fear was his becoming too much of a Tory.’ . . . Turning me round by main force and putting his arm thro’ mine, he walked me off with him to the House of Lords.—‘There is no chance,’ said he, ‘of Ld. Grey being too much of a Tory; but you are quite right, and you may tell him from me that, so long as he keeps his present position, unconnected with either party, he has a power in the country that no other individual ever had before him.’

“Then he fell upon Canning without stint or mercy—said it was impossible for any one to act with him, and that his temper was quite sure to blow him up. He said a part of his (Wellington’s) correspondence had been withheld; that when he found that his amendment to the Corn Bill, if carried, wd. be fatal to the Bill, he wrote to Huskisson saying he was willing to come to any arrangement so as to prevent that; but Canning, thinking that he should beat him in the Lords, would not let Huskisson listen to such a proposal. . . . In short, you never heard a fellow belabour another more compleatly con amore than the Beau did Beelzebub—every now and then stopping and nearly pulling the button off my coat from his animation. I am only provoked that I omitted asking him whether he recollected a conversation of ours one day after dinner at his house at Cambray, in which I did my best in describing the perfidious character of Canning, but he would not touch it. . . .

“You will be glad to hear that our impertinent Whigs have been disappointed in their expectation of Darlington claiming his seat from Ld. Howick. Grey told me he waited upon Darlington and tendered his son’s resignation, as a matter perfectly of course from the line he (Grey) had taken, as well as his son; but Ld. Darlington wd. not listen to the thing, and said he should take it as a personal favor never to have the subject mentioned again. It is very creditable to the Duke of Cleveland (that would be) to keep up his connection with a man that is such an infernal stumbling-block in the way of all their honors.”*

“Low Gosforth, 9th August.

“Well—I suppose Canning is dead long before this,† and so goes another man killed by publick life. His constitution, it is true, was not a good one, but the knock-down blow has been his possession of supreme power, his means of getting it and the personal abuse it brought down upon his head. And now, what comes next? As far as the present Cabinet is concerned, I should think they would willingly consent to Lansdowne succeeding Canning; but what says George 4th to this? Again, if such was the case,

* Lord Darlington had to wait six years for his dukedom. Lord Howick sat for one of Darlington’s seats in Winchelsea.

† About twenty-four hours.

Brougham must lead the House of Commons as a Cabinet Minister, and what would the King and the Church and the Tories say to that?”

In perusing the correspondence of such a voluble gossip as Creevey, one pauses occasionally to wonder whether his information is as trustworthy as it is varied and lively. The following extract, describing the position of the Duke of Wellington in regard to the Command-in-chief of the Army, and his correspondence with the King on the subject, would not be worth printing except as a test of Creevey’s accuracy. Taken as such, it is satisfactory to find that nothing could be closer to the facts of the case. The correspondence referred to is printed at length in Wellington’s Civil Despatches, iv. 37.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Barningham Park [Mr. Mark Milbank’s], Aug. 13.

“. . . The Whigs, I think, are done. Snip Robinson,* you evidently see, is everything with Prinney. Only think of Petty† buckling to under him, and the venerable Tierney too and old goose-rumped Carlisle.† . . . I am happy to find that both these Raby and Lowther tits talk very freely of Lord Lansdowne’s degradation in having Lord Goodrich [sic] put over him. . . . No tidings of the Beau yet! but he must have his mare again,§ not only because everybody’s language is that the Army is going to the devil under Palmerston,‖ but Mrs. Taylor has told me of a correspondence

* Viscount Goderich, who became Prime Minister on Canning’s death.

† Lord Lansdowne.

‡ The 6th Earl of Carlisle.

§ A saying current at the time, expressive of a man regaining his old position.

‖ Viscount Palmerston was Secretary-at-War.

between the King and the Beau upon this subject, which Grey told her the Duke had shown him.

“It seems for some time after the Duke left the Horse Guards he called perpetually on Sir Herbert Taylor, and gave him his opinion and advice as to what was going on, and Taylor availed himself of one of his interviews with the King to express his great obligations to the Duke for his kind and useful counsel; upon which the King wrote the Beau a letter at the beginning or end of which he called him his ‘good friend’;* thanked him for all his kindness to Taylor, and urged him to retract his resignation. The Beau considered this as the tricky suggestion of Canning; but, be it so or not, Grey represents his answer as perfect—regretting he should have been misunderstood—that his private honor would never permit him to retract, but his wish was always the same, to be of what use he could to the army. Since then, the King said to Lord Maryborough that the Duke of Wellington never comes to see him now, and upon the other saying he was sure it was only the apprehension of intruding that kept his brother away:—‘Oh no,’ said the King, ‘he knows very well I am always delighted to see him.’ Upon this being told the Duke, he made that last visit to Windsor, which made the jaw in the paper. So I can have no doubt, upon all these grounds, that his mare at least is certain, and then I think the noses of the old Click will be poking themselves in one after another, till not a single Whig nose is left in the concern.”

“Barningham, Aug. 19th.

“Yesterday I went out for the first time on horseback in pursuit of prospects, and found about 3 miles off upon the high road a perfect one—a single high-arched bridge of great elevation, springing from rocks considerably above the level of the Tees, which comes rumbling down with great majesty over a rocky bed with trees on both sides. Standing on the bridge, the view closes on one side with an abbey ruin of Edward

* The letter begins “My dear Friend,” and ends “Ever your sincere Friend, G. R.” [Wellington’s Civil Despatches, iv. 37].

3rd’s time, and the other with Rokeby, celebrated, you know, by Sir Walter Scott. The bridge was built by Morritt, the present owner of Rokeby. . . . At dinner our company was the said Morritt and his two nieces.”

Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey.

“Lyneham, 21st August.

“. . . I had a very curious letter from Brougham the other day, presuming that Canning’s death would remove the obstacle which before existed to my supporting the Government. He tells me that he had given an assurance of his support to whoever might be the leader of the H. of C, feeling it to be essential to the maintenance of a ministry, whose principles, as far as they go, he approves; that he has refused any political situation, which had been pressed upon him by Canning; and, being excluded by the personal objections of the King from any other situation in his profession, he must remain as a supporter of the Govt. in his hill-fort: that his support of Govt. is quite disinterested, having received nothing but slights, which had injured him in his profession; that he had asked only that the legal promotions shd. be suspended for a year: that Cross being put over his head, and the appointment of the other King’s Counsels, had hurt him in the Circuit. I shortly answered him that the differences of the last session were the more unfortunate as not being likely soon to be removed; that I wished only to explain that my objections were not merely personal to Canning, but that they applied principally to the manner in which the Government was composed; that in this respect they were rather increased than diminished by all I had hitherto learnt of the present changes, and that I must remain in my former position, unconnected with any party, and supporting or opposing as the measures of the Govt. might be accordant or at variance with my principles and opinions.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Aug. 24.

“I am very sorry I did not ask Morritt for a copy of his work on the situation of ancient Troy. You must know that he has a brother, one of the hugest great fat men you ever saw; and as the elder brother is called ‘Troy’ Morritt, the other goes by the name of ‘Avoirdupois’ Morritt. Damned fair for the provinces!

“. . . The perfidy of the Arch-fiend* to Lambton! . . . He gave Powlett a history of the peerage as told by Lambton himself to Brougham. Says Lambton:—‘I directed my auditor to wait upon Ld. Lansdowne, and to make that claim which I thought I had a perfect right to, of being made a peer. But Stephenson refused to execute this commission.’—‘When,’ said Brougham [to Powlett], ‘Lambton opened the case and his claims to me, I thought it but fair to give him my honest opinion that he had none—that he had only his own seat in Parliament—that he took little or no part in debates, and that, in short, his claim was wholly untenable.’ Now whether all or any or what part of all this is fiction, I know not; but was there ever such a perfidious monster as this Bruffam, or such an insolent jackanapes as this Lambton. The latter, I flatter myself, is diddled, tho’ he did return from Paris to be present, with myself, at Canning’s funeral. I was rather ashamed to see my name upon such an occasion and in such a crew.†

“Well now, tho’ somewhat late, my Portuguese Marshal—Lord Beresford—came to dinner on Sunday, and was off before breakfast yesterday [Thursday]. I can safely say that in my life I never took so strong a prejudice against a man. Such a low-looking ruffian in his air, with damned bad manners, or rather none at all, and a vulgarity in his expressions and pronunciation that made me at once believe he was as ignorant, stupid and illiterate as he was ill-looking. Yet somehow or other he almost wiped away all these

* Brougham.

† Mr. Creevey was not at the funeral, though reported to be so in the papers.

notches before we parted. In the first place, it is with me an invaluable property in any man to have him call a spade a spade. The higher he is in station the more rare and the more entertaining it is. Then I defy any human being to find out that he is either a marshal or a lord; but you do find out that he has been in every part of the world, and in all the interesting scenes of it for the last five and thirty years. . . . The history of these two Beresfords is really interesting. They are natural sons of old Lord Waterford,* and were sent over in their infancy to a school at Catterick Bridge under the names of John Poo [Poer?] (the Admiral) and William Carr (the Marshal), and they kept these names till they were about 12 years old. . . . They are still in ignorance of who their mother was, or whether they had the same; but from the secrecy upon this head, from their being sent from Ireland, and, above all, from Lady Waterford having seemed always to shew more affection to them than to her own children, there is a notion they were hers before her marriage.”

“Lowther Castle, Aug. 27th.

“. . . More perfect civility and politeness was never shown by man to man than by the Earl [of Lonsdale] to myself from the moment I entered the house; and, give me leave to say, for rather a feeble artist and one who was dressed in a star and garter and a blue ribbon, he was very agreeable. But dear Lady Lonsdale is the girl for my money, being either half-witted or half-cracked, and she and I are one. . . . This place as a castle is a palpable failure compared with Raby or Brancepeth, but the park is most beautiful . . .”

“28th.

“. . . Take a specimen of my lord’s turn for storytelling. I was going it at breakfast just now with considerable success in the ‘Nanny goat’† line; so my lord in his turn said:—‘You have heard of Mr.

* The 2nd Earl of Tyrone and 1st Marquess of Waterford.

† Anecdote.

Fitzgerald, who was called the Fighting Fitzgerald, whom I used to see a good deal of at Lord Westmorland’s. There was a man who bet a wager he would insult him; so, going very near him in a coffeehouse, he said—“I smell an Irishman!” to which the other replied—“You shall never smell another!” and, taking up a knife, cut off his nose.’”

“Hartlepool [a house of Lord Darlington’s], Sept. 9th.

“. . . Lansdowne has now compleated his own destruction by letting Prinney and Robinson force Herries* down his throat. . . . What a treasure on such a rainy day to have one’s Decline and Fall with one. I really think it is a great business for such a lazy devil as myself to have read every word of it. I except no book when I say no single author supplies one with such useful or such general matter. Damn his writing, but his stuff is invaluable.”

“Doncaster, Sept. 18.

“. . . Soon after our arrival I went out, and the first group of men I fell into was Ld. Jersey, Ld. Wilton, Bob Grosvenor, &c., &c., which soon ended in a tête-à-tête between Wilton and me, in which I regretted that Edward Stanley had taken a place so inferior, as I thought, to the claims and position of his house.† He made the only defence that could be made—Edward’s love of business, and it was merely a beginning. Then he stated of the Government generally:—‘It is a crazy concern altogether. The King is in ecstacies at having carried his point about Herries, and will have all his own way for the future. The Whigs have moved heaven and earth to get Ld. Holland into the Foreign Office, but the King would not hear of it. . . .’”

* The Right Hon. J. C. Herries, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer.

† Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby. He had been appointed Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Huskisson being Colonial and War Secretary.

“Doncaster, Sept. 20.

“. . . You must know our steward, the Duke of Devonshire, started the first day [of the races] with his coach and six and twelve outriders, and old Billy Fitzwilliam* had just the same; but the next day old Billy appeared with two coaches and six, and sixteen outriders, and has kept the thing up ever since. . . .”

“Wentworth House [Earl Fitzwilliam’s], 23rd Sept.

“. . . Well, have you read our Bruffam’s letters to Lord Grey with all the attention they deserve? and was there ever such a barefaced villain, and so vain a wretch and fool too? I wish you could see the veins of Lord Grey’s forehead swell and hear his snorting at Brougham’s demand for justice to his pure disinterested motives. . . . The judicial situation he refused was Chief Baron of the Exchequer. . . . Lord Rosslyn told me that Brougham in a letter telling him of this offer said:—‘It was made me by Canning just before his death, and, as I believe, with no other view than that of getting rid of me.’ . . . I told you what Lord Wilton said to me about Holland. Grey says all the Cabinet agreed to it but cher Bexley, alias Mouldy; but the King when it was proposed to him said he would have no Minister who had insulted all the crowned heads of Europe. Lord Cowper, who as well as Lady Cowper and her daughter are staying here, tells me Alvanley says ‘Goodrich will cry himself out of office.’ Cowper and Milton, who are quite against Grey and us malignants (including Milton’s father), state the utter impossibility of such a feeble artist remaining where he is. . . . Princess Lieven says I must be writing a political pamphlet, and Mrs. Taylor is pleased to tell her who it is to, and that I do the same every day. . . .”

Deeper and deeper grew Creevey’s distrust of his ancient ally Brougham; wider and ever wider yawned the chasm between the old Whig Guard, represented for the nonce by Lord Grey, and those very men who,

* The 4th Earl Fitzwilliam.

under Grey’s leadership, were ultimately to effect the profound, though bloodless, revolution of 1832.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Wentworth, Sept. 24.

“. . . Another instance of our Bruffam’s hypocrisy. Wm. Powlett (I beg pardon, Lord William Powlett)* said to me:—‘Brougham is very sore at your not having called upon him during your stay at Lowther. My father shewed me a letter from him in which he said—“I cannot but feel greatly hurt that, after the long and intimate connection between Creevey and me, he should have been at Lowther, and never come to see me.”’ Now was there ever such a canting, mischievous fellow? He has done all he could to injure me—has washed his hands of me in every way—he knows I could not come to him—he knows that, if I could have done so, he was not at home. He does not care one damn if I was at the bottom of the sea—most probably would rather I was there than not—and yet, for some base purpose of his own—gets up this scene of lying sentiment; to Darlington, too, of all men. . . . At dinner I heard Princess Lieven say to Lord Fitzwilliam:—‘Your house, my lord, or your palace, I should rather say, is the finest I have seen in England. It is both beautiful and magnificent.’—To which old Billy replied—‘It is indeed.’ She then proceeded:—‘When foreigners have applied to me heretofore for information as to the houses best worth seeing in England, I have sent them to Stowe and Blenheim; but in future I shall tell them to go down to Wentworth.’ The last compliment was received by old Billy in solemn silence! not an atom of reply!”

“Stapleton, Sept. 28th.

“. . . What a comfortable house this is, and how capitally ‘dear Eddard’† lives. . . . What a fool this good-natured Eddard is to be eat and drunk out of house and harbour, and to be treated as he is. The

* Second son of Lord Darlington, who was about to be raised to the dignity of a Marquess on 5th October. Lord William afterwards became 3rd Duke of Cleveland.

† Hon. Robert Edward Petre, third son of the 9th Lord Petre.

men take his carriages and horses to carry them to their shooting ground, and leave his fat mother to waddle on foot, tho’ she can scarcely get ten yards. Then dinner being announced always for seven, the men neither night have been home before 8, and it has been ¼ to 9 that Dow. Julia* and her ladies have been permitted to dine. Then these impertinent jades, the Ladies Ashley, breakfast upstairs, never shew till dinner, and even then have been sent to and waited for. . . . Dow. Julia makes one eternally split with her voice and her words and her criticism upon everybody. She is always at it and always right, and a good honest soul as ever was. . . .”

“Raby Castle, Oct. 4th.

“. . . Lord Londonderry is so disliked and despised in his own country that it has been injurious to the Beau to be shewn off by him.† . . . The Duke is Commander-in-chief and identifying himself with the Old Tories, and the Bishop of Durham gave him a dinner yesterday that has made the Marquess of Cleveland‡ shake in his shoes. He, tho’ Lord-lieutenant, would not accept the Bishop’s invitation to meet the Duke of Wellington, and we had quite a scene between him and Lord William two days ago about the latter going. However he was quite firm, and said nothing should prevent him, as member for the county, accepting the invitation. All this on Cleveland’s part was dirty toadying of the King and Governt., saying this was an opposition Tory visit of Wellington’s to the north. . . . The Marchioness would have liked the fame of having the Beau here, and he had promised Lady Caroline to come if he was asked; but Niffy Naffy did not dare.”

* Juliana, daughter of Henry Howard of Glossop, and second wife of the 9th Lord Petre.

† The Duke of Wellington had been paying a visit to Wynyard. Lord Londonderry (3rd Marquess) was the Duke’s Adjutant General in the Peninsula. Despite the Duke’s distrust of him, he continued to address him in correspondence as “My dear Charles,” until their final rupture over the Corn Laws in 1846, when the Duke’s letters begin “My dear Lord Londonderry.”

‡ Lord Darlington’s patent of marquess is of the same date as this letter.

“Oct. 6th.

“. . . It should be a rule in coming to this house not to exceed 3 days, when the party is purely domestic, because the artificial situation of the Marchioness becomes much more striking. The delusion can’t last: it becomes low comedy—low life above stairs. The scenes are magnificent, the dresses superb, but still it is the part of the Marchioness of Cleveland by Miss Tidswell. . . . The Marquis himself, too, is quite a different man from when I was last here. He is always civil, but there is no spring in him, one might almost say no utterance. He seems absorbed in thought and by no means happy. We had, to be sure, a little conversation last night, when he was kind enough to admit Mrs. Taylor and myself to an inspection of a new pattern for his livery buttons! . . . Good God! how I write. I mean so badly. It is now after dinner; I am sure I am not drunk, but the pens are the very devil. . . . Lord Charles Somerset complains that he could not sleep either of the three nights at Wynyard, never having slept before in cambrick sheets, and that the Brussels lace with which the pillows were trimmed tickled his face so he had not a moment’s peace. . . . Grey says he would not dress Lady Londonderry for £5000 a year: her handkerchiefs cost 50 guineas the dozen; the furniture of her boudoir cost £3000. Alnwick Castle is the place for real comfort! You ladies are handed out to breakfast, as well as at dinner; and, that entertainment over, the sexes are separated as at a cathedral; so much so that Tankerville was arrested by the coatflap for attempting to invade the seraglio. Cornwall, a London flash, was there lately, and was so bored that, having consented to be one of the Duke’s male riding party (for here again the sexes are kept separate) he hid himself; but in an unguarded moment looked out of the window to enjoy their being off without him; when the Duke, looking back, saw him, and they returned and took him.”

“Howick, Oct. 14th.

“. . . Grey read me a letter he had yesterday from Lady Jersey from Euston. . . . She represents her host, the Duke of Grafton, and the visitors, Lord John Russell, &c., as hanging very loose indeed by poor Snip* and the Government. Grey says nothing annoys Brougham so much as not being able to make any impression upon Lady Jersey. . . . She is as firm as a rock to Grey and the Beau. Grey’s creed is that Brougham must blow up: that he is in so many people’s power with his lies of different kinds, that one fine day they will be out.”

Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, Oct. 20th.

“I had a letter this morning from good old Fitzwilliam. Brougham had been at Wentworth uninvited, and evidently for the purpose either of making recruits, or of holding out the appearance of his being well in that quarter—probably both. Fitzwilliam smoked him, and took care that he should not go away deceived as to his opinions, which are exactly what you would have expected from a good honest Whig—in good times. . . . Circulars are sent from the Foreign Office to all people connected with the Government for subscriptions to Canning’s monument. I wish you would write an inscription for it!”

The struggle maintained by the Greeks against the Ottoman power came to a crisis in the autumn of this year. On 6th May the Greek army under Karaiskaki was cut to pieces near Athens; the Acropolis was bombarded at intervals till the garrison capitulated on 2nd June, and the utter subjugation of Greece by the Turks was imminent, when Great Britain, France, and Russia interposed to preserve her independence and presented their ultimatum to the Porte, which succeeded in protracting the negociations till the end of September. Meanwhile the Turkish general Ibrahim was devastating parts of Greece with circumstances

* Lord Goderich, the Prime Minister.

of the utmost barbarity. The British and French admirals, perceiving in this a breach of the armistice which the Porte had conceded, proceeded to destroy almost the whole Turkish fleet in the Bay of Navarino; an act which was vigorously denounced by the Opposition in the British Parliament.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Low Gosforth, Nov. 14th.

“. . . Well! so the magnanimous Allies have really destroyed the Turkish fleet, and a more rascally act was never committed by the great nations, nor upon more false and hypocritical pretences. But the consequences! the consequences! Keep your eye on them, my dear! . . . Altho’ Viscount Dudley and Ward* may have some personal objections to his head being placed on Temple Bar without the rest of his body, that is the proper position for it, or that of any English Ministers who by this act have opened the East and West to French and Russian ambition and villainy. . . . I take a much more extensive view of this Turkish business than my brother statesman Earl Grey does. We long-sighted, old politicians, my dear, see a fixed intention on the part of Russia to make Constantinople a seat of her power, and to re-establish the Greek Church upon the ruins of Mahometanism—a new crusade, in short, by a new and enormous power, brought into the field by our own selves, and that may put our existence at stake to drive out again.”

Time brings its revenges, and we have lived to see the Liberal party adopt and express different views to these about “the unspeakable Turk.” Yet it is opinion, and not the method of the Turk, that has changed.

* Foreign Secretary.

CHAPTER VI. 1827-1828.

The fusion of a section of the Whigs with the Canningite Ministry wrought confusion in the groups composing both the original parties. The Old Tories, headed by Eldon, Londonderry, and the Duke of Rutland, stood disdainfully aloof, waiting an opportunity for effective flank attack. The Duke of Wellington, hitherto closely identified with that section of the Ministerialists, had resumed his old post at the Horse Guards, after laboriously explaining that his quarrel with Canning had not been the cause of his resignation of his military command, and that his resumption of the same was not in consequence of Canning’s death. But there was no whisper of his re-entering the Cabinet under Goderich, whom all men regarded as a minister pour rire; everything pointed to a political rapprochement (there is no equivalent English term) between Wellington and Grey. Meanwhile, if the ranks of the Tories were seamed by dissension, not less estranged were the Whigs among themselves. The “Malignants,” few in number, held apart with Lord Grey. They were drawn from every section of the old Opposition—that haughty old Whig, Earl Fitzwilliam, stood shoulder to shoulder with Thomas Creevey, representative of the extinct “Mountain” of the Regency days. Nothing could exceed the bitterness which had sprung up between these Malignants and the rest of their party, nor the violence with which among themselves they denounced their ancient colleagues, whether those who had already accepted office, like Lord Lansdowne, or those who openly coveted office, like Lord Holland, or those who were suspected of secretly intriguing for office, like Henry Brougham. So intense was party feeling that it strained, and in many cases severed, friendships of long standing. Creevey never had a heartier ally than Lord Sefton; from the day, five and twenty years before, that he first entered Parliament as an obscure individual known to nobody, Sefton had befriended him, co-operated with him on the “Mountain,” and caused him to regard Croxteth, Stoke, and Arlington Street as always open to him. Sefton had given his adhesion to the Coalition Cabinet; this was enough to fire Creevey’s indignation, and there ensued some months of estrangement in consequence. That, however, was soon put right by the warm-hearted Sefton who would suffer no difference of opinion on public affairs to poison the springs of private friendship. He insisted upon Creevey returning to Croxteth, and crushed out all suspicion by his irresistible good humour.

It was very different with Brougham. Closely as Creevey had been associated with him in the past and profoundly as he admired his talents, it is clear that Brougham never succeeded in winning his confidence. He exhausts his vocabulary of vituperation—a pretty extensive one—in denouncing him at this crisis.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Croxteth, Wed., Nov. 21, 1827. “My dearest Bessy,

“Well, here you see me after all, and everything as right as ever it can be. I arrived here in a chay from Ormskirk yesterday between one and two, and as I pass’d the front of the house, was upon the lookout to see if there were any watchers at the windows. Lady Maria was at her bedroom one, and we had mutual salutations. Where my Lord had seen me from I don’t know, but he was below at the hall door to receive me, and in the middle of very cordial handshaking said:—‘You old rogue! I did not feel sure of your coming till I saw you.’ I was then taken up to see the ladies, and nothing could be warmer than my reception was by each, and Lady Louisa said more than once or twice during the day—‘You don’t know how happy you have made us all by coming.’ So it’s all mighty well.

“As we were sitting cozing about the fire, Sefton said:—‘Well, Brougham is very angry with you for not coming to see him at Brougham.—‘O,’ said I, ‘he is a neat artist. The affectionate, tender-hearted creature wrote a blubbering letter to Lord Darlington, saying how deeply hurt he was that such an old and attached friend as I was should have been so near him and never come to see him; but,’ I added, ‘he never mentioned that he was not at home if I had done so.’ . . . A little after, one of the young ladies said—‘We have seen a good deal of Mr. Brougham lately; he went to the play with us 3 or 4 times, and you never saw such a figure as he was. He wears a black stock or collar, and it is so wide that you see a dirty coloured handkerchief under, tied tight round his neck. You never saw such an object, or anything half so dirty.’ This is all that has passed hitherto respecting the Arch Fiend. . . .

“I said to Sefton just now out a-shooting—who is Montron?—‘Why,’ said he, ‘he is a roué who has no visible living and has one of the best houses going in Paris. He was employed very much by Talleyrand in his jobs and by Buonaparte likewise, and of course he is in very bad odour with the present Government of France; but he is a clever man and most entertaining.’ I need not add he must be an infernal scoundrel, and to my mind he is the worst mannered man I ever saw. . . . We are expecting hourly a proper match for him in villainy, Henry de R——. . . . He [Montron] is known to and has lived with all the world, but his polar star has been, and continues to be, Talleyrand. He married a Duchesse de Fleury, who was divorced from her husband on purpose; but who afterwards left him to live with a painter. One of his most conspicuous stations was in the Court of the Princess Borghese, where he lived openly with her principal lady. I never heard anything equal to the depravity of Madame la Princesse, according to the stories Montron tells Sefton, and Montron stated himself as having been the minister to her pleasures in selecting lovers for her. It was for such like offices that the moralist Buonaparte whipped Master Montron into prison one fine day, and kept him there, saying he would put an end to the debauchery of his sister’s establishment. So much for my new friend! Is he not a neat one? . . . I really think there is nothing going on by letter now between Sefton and Brougham, which is odd enough, after all that has passed; but I feel certain Sefton would not conceal anything that was going on, and if he ever mentions Brougham, it is only to say how impossible it is for me to conceive the state of his filth in all ways. . . . Poor Sefton! he was quite au desespoir the night before last; there had been so few pheasants that day at Kirby Ruff, his best cover. He was really speechless, except when he said it was the last time he ever should be there. In short, he might have lost half his estate at least. To think of the most successful man in life, and with the outside of everything the world can give, and he can’t exist without excitement for every moment of the day; whilst a pauper like myself can live upon idleness and jokes, without a blank day to annoy me. . . .”

“Croxteth, Dec. 6th, 1827.

“. . . I accompanied the shooters yesterday to their ground, about 7 miles off. The day was splendid —the sport brilliant—Sefton, his 3 sons, Berkeley Craven and Mr. McKenzie killing 141 pheasants, above 100 hares, &c., &c. On coming home the night was so dark that my lord declared he could not see the road; and so it turned out, for he overturned us. . . . We were not a mile from home, so we left the carriage and groped our way on foot. . . .”

Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, Dec. 13, 1827. “My dear Creevey,

“. . . Sefton’s conduct can only be explained on the supposition that he feels himself bound not to abandon, in their difficulties, an administration which he originally promised to support; but I do not think this feeling can prevail long against his own opinion and the increasing opinion of the publick. At present, according to all appearances, they will not be able to extricate themselves from this Turkish scrape. I have a letter to-day from Paris saying that the Russian army has crossed the Pruth, with the intention of permanently occupying the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. This, in their diplomatick jargon, they say is not to be considered—any more than Navarin—as a measure of war, but as a moyen d’ exécuter le traité de médiation. This is not very unlike the case of a man who should knock another down, and then say—‘I did not do it with an intention of hurting you, but only from the most friendly desire to keep you quiet.’ Whatever the explanation may be worth, of the fact I have no doubt, and as little that the Russians will not again abandon the possession of these countries. These [illegible], notwithstanding the gloss which it is endeavoured to put upon the measure, as well as a general apprehension of the increasing power of Russia, which has been quickened by her late successes in Persia, have already produced speculations on the necessity of a combination to resist her projects, and there seems no great improbability in supposing that the cannon fired at Navarin may prove the signal of another general war in Europe. The best chances against it are to be found in the general poverty of all the Great Powers. Austria can hardly find the means of moving an army; we are no longer in a condition to give subsidies; and even Russia, in the countries in which her armies will have to act, could not find immediately the means of defraying the cost of their maintenance in active service, and some compromise may thus be produced at the expense of the poor Turks who will be plundered both by friends and foes, and whose helpless imbecillity deprives them of all hopes of a successful resistance. This is the only way which I can at present foresee for the Ministers to escape from the difficulty which Mr. Canning’s much-lauded policy has brought upon them, but which would require more energy, more skill, more union and more wisdom than I think likely to be found in our present Councils.

“As to Brougham—I believe him to be mad. Our correspondence has ceased, but I have lately seen, under his own hand, things that would surprise even you . . . that Canning had no more to do with the treaty of the 6th of July than you or I, and that it was entirely the Duke of Wellington’s . . . that there is a complaint of the King’s unconstitutional interference with the patronage of the Ministers. If this should be proved to be so (the if is good) nobody wd. be more for resisting it than himself; and, if requisite, he should be glad to see a union of the respectable men of all parties, headed by Lord Grey, for that purpose. . . . All this I have seen actually in black and white—does it furnish a case to justify my suspicion of madness?

“At the end comes out the true solution of the riddle. He is full of indignation at Phillimore’s being put over Lushington’s head, because the latter was counsel for the Queen. No thought of himself, of course! nor any reference to his own situation, proving indisputably his claim to the acknowledgment of disinterestedness, which you may remember in his letter to me. . . . The Duchess of Northumberland told Mrs. Grey the other day that about Navarin the King had said that the actor deserved a ribband, but the act a halter. A pleasant distinction for his My.’s Ministers! Lansdowne, however, I hear is in favour ever since he submitted about Herries, but that the King spoke neither to Tierney nor to Mcintosh at the Council when the latter was sworn in.

“Ever yours, “Grey.”

“Howick, 15th Dec.

“. . . With the feelings of sincere regard and great liking that I have for Sefton, nothing can be more gratifying to me than the expression of corresponding feelings on his part: nor could anything give me more sincere pleasure than a visit from him here, more especially if you could meet him. Is there any chance of your coming? . . . You will see in the papers the reports of Lord Goodrich’s resignation. . . . Will the King put the thing fairly into the hands of Lansdowne, allowing him to bring in some of the old Whigs? or will he take it as the head of a Tory administration? Or will Huskisson be the man, with all the load of unpopularity which weighs upon him? or will the whole concern break up, and Peel and the Beau be called upon to form a new Government? . . . Holland is the only person of whom I have heard that goes the whole length of defending the business of Navarin in all its parts, and that with a degree of violence that really surprises me. I can only consider him, therefore, as prepared to take anything or do anything to support the Government as it is. . . . I had heard of Dudley’s love, and of the Countess St. Antonio’s joke that he was become ‘a Ward in Chancery.’ If the lady takes as much out of him as the Court usually does out of its suitors, I should think there would be little left of him at the meeting of Parliament.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Liverpool, Dec. 14, 1827.

“I left Croxteth yesterday. . . . Sefton first gave me your letter, but his main object [in coming to my room] was to show me in the most perfect confidence a letter he received from Brougham this morning, enclosing one the latter had received from Lambton at

* The Earl of Dudley’s family name being Ward.

Paris, and as Sefton said when I had seen both letters, it would be for me to decide which was the greatest madman. The subject was Lambton’s peerage, which he (Lambton) contends should not be a simple barony, very properly observing that it is no promotion for the first commoner of England to be made the last baron! But, in short, without seeing his letter with one’s own eyes, its contents would be perfectly incredible, and the result is his calling upon Brougham by all those ties of early disinterested friendship, which have bound them to each other for life, not to let him be less than an earl. . . . Brougham states in reply, or says he does so, that our friends in power are so jealous of any approach to them, that it is quite impossible to assist him; and then, in his comment upon Lambton’s letter, loads him with every species of ridicule for his pretensions; till at length he gravely enters the field himself as a man of family at least two centuries older than that of Lambton, and as having the 2nd barony of England in his (Brougham’s) own blood. Now really! was there ever? . . . Punch* writes there is not an individual in the city who does not consider our attack upon the Turkish fleet [at Navarino] as the greatest outrage ever committed by any Government or country, and above all—by ours. In speaking of Lord Goodrich he says he is considered by all as a mere nullity, and by no one more so than the King, and does whatever he likes and cares for no one. Pretty well this from Mr. Clerk of the Council, is it not?

“Before these letters came Sefton had said to me:—‘By God! the Government can never stand; this Navarino business must destroy them.’ . . . Only think of there not being a syllable of politicks in Brougham’s letter to him yesterday! I saw it all. My own belief is that Brougham is not the person to whom Sefton has bound himself, if in some unguarded moment he has done so; but I suspect it is Petty. He always speaks of Brougham as if he loathed him. My dispatch to Grey contains all the matter just stated, except about the Brougham and Lambton correspondence. . . .”

* Charles Greville.

“Croxteth, Dec. 16.

“Well, the Pet* was charmed that the rain had not stopt me, and so were the ladies, and all mightily pleased at breakfast with my description of Miss Creevey’s drum† and supper. I did the company by helping them to stuffing out of the hare, to make up for the little I could get from the hare itself. Then the day became quite fine and all was to be ready for shooting in half an hour. In a turn or two I had with Sefton on the terrace he said:—‘Well, I have written to Brougham by this post and have said to him—“I observe you never mention any politicks in your letter of yesterday; from which I conclude, of course, you are ashamed to advert to our late nefarious attack upon the Turks. For myself I can fairly say I have gone as far as any man in my endeavours to prevent the return of the Tories to power; but if I am expected to support the infernal outrage at Navarino, it is too high a price to pay for accomplishing my object, and I think it right to declare I will not do it. And now, as you have hitherto given me an explicit account of the part you meant to take when the Government was about to submit my measure to Parliament, I beg you will be as frank with me upon this occasion as I have been with you.”’ . . . Sefton is to send me his answer, which one should think must be a dokiment of some interest.

“Well but—to wind up my intercourse with the Pet: when the carriages were ready for the shooters in the stable yard, where they always embark, I went to be present on the occasion, and when Sefton came, who was the last, he said:—‘Creevey, I want to speak to you;’ and taking me into the Riding House he said:—‘I can’t let you go without telling you that McKenzie has proposed to Maria. It has happened just now.’ I said I had seen quite enough to be sure it would come to that and added:—‘He is a man of fortune, is he not?’—‘I fancy so,’ said Sefton, ‘but I know nothing about it. He seems a damned good

* Lord Sefton.

† Mr. Creevey had been the night before to a party at his sister’s house in Liverpool, and driven out to Croxteth to breakfast.

kind of fellow and a particular friend of [illegible].’ This was all, but it was quite enough to show it would do.” . . .”

During the Cabinet crisis in January, 1828, following on Lord Goderich’s resignation, Creevey was staying with his step-daughters in Essex, but was kept closely informed by Lord Sefton of every shifting phase of gossip. The letters were written daily, sometimes twice or thrice a day, but the interest of them has for the most part evaporated. The question of greatest moment to the Whigs was whether Huskisson would join the Duke of Wellington’s Cabinet.

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Brooks’s, 12th Jany., 1828.

“. . . Sir Chas. Stuart is talked of for Foreign Secretary. Petty† may now retire and enjoy his charades at Bowood in quiet. He is admitted by common consent to be the damnedest idiot that ever lived, not even excepting the domestic Goderich.”

Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey.

“Berkeley Sq., Jany. 25, 1828.

“. . . I have not time, nor, indeed, do I know enough, to say much of the present posture of affairs. To me it seems that the Beau, as you call him, is placing himself in a situation of dreadful responsibility and danger. His taking the office of Minister, after all that passed on that subject last year, to say nothing of other objections, would, in my opinion, be a most fatal mistake, and I still hope there may be time, and that he may find friends to advise him to avoid it. But there is another danger which presses still more strongly on my-mind. Huskisson’s friends boast

* The marriage never took place. Lady Maria Molyneux died unmarried in 1872.

† Lord Lansdowne.

everywhere that Corn Laws, Free Trade, Portugal, Navarino—in short everything—have been conceded to him as the price of his accession to the Government. The Duke, I know, tells a different story; but this proves that these matters are not distinctly understood and settled as they ought to be for the security of the new Government. The consequence is that it is left in the power of that rogue Huskisson to choose his own time and ground for a quarrel, if he shd. find it his interest to break up the Administration.

“No communication or proposition of any kind has been made to me. I hear our old friends are eager for red-hot opposition; but I certainly shall remain in my old position, and act as I may find right, without any consideration of either party. . . .

“Ever yours, “Grey.”

Brougham’s position at this time was a puzzle alike to his political friends and foes. In the previous August he had written to Lord Grey, submitting that Canning’s death had removed the last obstacle to prevent Grey supporting Lord Goderich’s administration, informing him that he, Brougham, had, within the preceding six weeks, refused “the most easy and secure income for life of £7000 or £8000 a year, and high rank, which I could not take without leaving my friends in the House of Commons exposed to the leaders of different parties.” He claimed, therefore, to have proved that he was acting “without the slightest tincture of interest.” “I have agreed,” he says, “to support the leader of the House of Commons, whoever he may be. . . . As for my real individual interest, I believe no one can doubt that it is clearly my game to see a weak Government, with only Peel (whom I never found very invincible), and myself at the head of the Liberal party.” Reading between the lines of this strange letter, it is easy to see why Brougham was so tender towards the men in office. Had they been turned out and a purely Liberal administration been formed, he knew it was hopeless for him to look for political office so long as George IV. was king. Brougham had offended too deeply for that in Queen Caroline’s trial. Grey, who had deeply disapproved of the coalition under Canning, merely replied that “at present all reasonable grounds for confidence on which I could give any assurance of general support [to the Government] appear to me as much wanting as ever. I must remain, therefore, in the same position, supporting such measures as are consistent with my principles, and opposing, without any inducement to forbearance, whatever may appear to militate against them.” To Creevey, Brougham continued to write in a strain of greater levity than he adopted towards Lord Grey.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“[January] 1828.

“. . . Don’t be alarmed, but endeavour to receive with equanimity, and if possible with fortitude, the painful intelligence that your beloved Sovereign has been most dangerously ill, and is still in a very precarious state. He lost in all 120 ounces of the blood-Royal in the course of about ten days. The complaint was inflammation, I suppose of the bladder, for they say it was owing to some illness of the prostate gland. I am told he is very far indeed from rallying as he used to do when bled formerly, and that all the loyal subjects near his person are in much consternation.

“The Parlt. is likely to open in a very ‘unsatisfactory’ state—as our friend Castlereagh (God rest his soul) was wont to say. The chief ‘feature’—I mean Peel—will find it quite impossible to calculate on a majority on any one question, except perhaps a motion for turning them out or reforming the Parlt.; and how he is even to get thro’ the forms of a debate, if he is opposed by all the parties not in office, seems inconceivable, for even Vesey is not there, being laid on the shelf for some months. The Ultras are in great force, and the Huskissons full of faction. As a proof of the kind of steps the Tories are taking, I may say that your friend Lord Lonsdale has, in a letter which I have a copy of, been encouraging the Cumberland county meeting, advising them to lay the state of distress before Parlt., because the Beau desires it; and adding that they should not point out any remedies, but only ascribe it to the burthens upon agricultural produce and the reduced currency. . . . Lonsdale then seems to have thought that it might be said—‘How happens your son Billy to be in office while you are thus mischievously embarrassing H.M. Government?’ so he adds, awkwardly enough, that he is convinced Lord Lowther’s first consideration is the interest of the country, and that he never would keep office if he thought, &c., &c., &c.

“I find that the worthy Laureate, Southey, is to move or second the resoln. that the distress is within the power of the Legislature; and a cousin of the family (H. Lowther), who holds one of their livings, is to move another. Meanwhile, the Beau stands firm and says ‘he will keep his position;’ meaning, of course, without any change. But unfortunately it is Peel whose position will be to keep; so then, they say, the Beau adds—‘he shall bring forward measures, and if the Parlt. won’t support him, he can’t help it.’ His strength is no doubt in the Ultras, whom no one can wish well to, and the Huskissons, whom few will trust, after what happened two years ago. But this feeling won’t carry the said Beau thro everything, and I am quite confident he reckons without his host if he counts on it to the extent I hear.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Whitehall, Feby. 5, 1828.

“. . . We had Lord Durham (who stood my observations on his being grown taller very affably),* Sydney

* Mr. Lambton had been created Baron Durham on 29th January.

Smith, Bob Adair, Lord Robert Spencer and Ferguson at dinner. . . . There is no end to the disasters of the Whigs. Poor Jim Abercromby and the fair Mary Anne* give out that they leave town for ever and ever next Easter, and fall back upon a little farm in Derbyshire; but no longer to superintend the dear, deaf Dick-aky Duke’s property, for that appointment was given to another when Jim was dubbed a Privy Councillor, it being too infra dig. to be a Right Honorable Bailiff! and about £2000 a year more derived from law sources were sacrificed for ever in like manner as being inconsistent with his rank. Scarlett, too, is said to be perfectly speechless, except when he tells that being deprived of the power of returning to the circuit is a clear loss to him of £5000 a year. . . . When Mrs. Taylor and I were left alone about one this morning, she said:—‘As I know, Mr. Creevey, I may trust you with anything, I must tell you poor Mr. Denison is broken-hearted about his sister Lady Conyngham; and his only relief, he says, is imparting his grief to me.’ According to his own account, he protested to her from the first against her living under the King’s roof; but that the thing, instead of getting better, has become daily worse and worse. Not that even now he can suppose there is anything criminal between persons of their age, but that he never goes into society without hearing allusions too plain to be misunderstood; and he lives in daily fear and expectation of the subject coming before Parliament. In short, such is his feeling that he has called formally upon his sister to leave her fat and fair friend and to go abroad. He has been backed in this application both by Lord Mountcharles† and Lady Strathaven, and he has told her his will is to be altered immediately if she holds on; but she treats all such interference only with bursts of passion and defiance, always relying upon Lady Hertford’s case as her precedent and justification. . . .”

* Third son of General Sir Ralph Abercromby. He was Speaker from 1835 to 1839, and his wife was Marianne Leigh, daughter of Egerton Leigh of the West Hall, Cheshire.

† Lady Conyngham’s eldest surviving son.

In the beginning of 1828 the quarrel of the Malignants with Brougham passed into a sharper phase, and occupies a great space in Creevey’s correspondence at that period. It would be wearisome to follow the matter in anything like detail; suffice it to explain that Brougham had circulated a report that, at Doncaster races, Lord Grey had explained to Lord Cleveland (Darlington) the reason for his refusing to support Canning’s ministry, namely, “that it leaned too much to the people and against the aristocracy.” In an evil moment for peace, Brougham imparted this information to Creevey, reckoning, perhaps, on Creevey’s ancient impatience with Grey for acting as a drag on the wheels of progress. But by this time Grey had become the idol of Creevey, who promptly remonstrated with his lordship on the imprudence of his sentiments as reported by Brougham. Grey indignantly denied having made any such statement to Cleveland, and received that gentleman’s denial of having had any communication with Brougham on the subject. Cleveland also forwarded to Grey an explanatory letter from Brougham, which, to judge from the force of language it elicited from Creevey, scarcely served to re-establish matters on a better basis.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Whitehall, Feb. 15, 1828.

“. . . This composition of Brougham’s is a letter to Lord Cleveland written, of course, at Cleveland House and of four sides’ length. No one who has not seen it can conceive its low, lying, dirty, shuffling villainy. However, with all his manoeuvres, he can’t escape the charge, and he states in his own words, rather at more length and in stronger terms, exactly the same substance of the conversation between Lord Cleveland and Grey as having passed at Doncaster, that he stated to me. Then he attempts to make out that the words are vague and may not warrant the construction put upon them, and the Lord knows what besides. He goes into fresh lies as to his uniform support of Grey’s character, and how he silenced three London channels of abuse of him, and was only too late by half an hour in not stopping the hostile article in the Edinburgh Review, and concludes with a warning against mischievous tale-bearers, who, for their own purposes, would make mischief between Grey and him.

“Grey’s answer to Lord Cleveland is that he is anything but satisfied with his lordship’s letter; that Brougham’s letter is conclusive proof of the truth of the injurious statement he has made respecting his [Grey’s] conversation at Doncaster; and as his lordship had admitted in conversation at Cleveland House that there never was the least foundation for such allegation, he claims in justice to have the same admission under his lordship’s hand. This brought another letter from our Niffy-Naffy marquis, in terms as explicit as could possibly be selected, stating the pleasure he had in complying with Lord Grey’s request, and declaring unequivocally that no such conversation as that alleged to have passed at Doncaster between him and Lord Grey, or anything approaching to it, had ever taken place; and he concludes by expressing his regret that any misunderstanding should take place between Brougham and Lord Grey, and with an offer of his services—tho’ unauthorised by Brougham—to bring about their reconciliation. To this Grey returns a civil answer, stating the relief it is to his mind to have this unequivocal denial of the injurious statement circulated by Brougham having any foundation in fact; but that, with respect to Brougham, until he shall make the same unequivocal denial of the circulation of the injurious statement, and say that it is entirely destitute of truth, all confidential intercourse between them must be suspended. And so the thing ends, and a charming mess it is for the arch-fiend—Lady Jersey, the Duke of Bedford, &c., having already copies [of the correspondence]. Grey . . . says Rosslyn made him much milder in his expressions than he wished.”

“6th Feby.

“. . . After our dinner at Fergy’s, Lord Sefton made me go with him to the opera . . . . From the Opera House we went to Crockford’s new concern, which is magnificent and perfect in taste and beauty. For a suite of rooms, it is the greatest lion in England, and is said by those who know the palace at Versailles to be even more magnificent than that. . . . After breakfast this morning I sallied forth to see the alterations in St. James’s Park, and they are really great improvements, but the new palace* still remains the devil’s own. . . . Grey is quite satisfied with the Beau, and says he will do capitally in the Lords as Minister.”

“7th.

“. . . In the course of my political jaw with Grey I said that, altho’ I never expected the Beau to apply to him for assistance in the formation of his Cabinet, yet I did expect after all their friendly intercourse, and after all Lord Grey’s essential service, he would have communicated to him what was going on. He said very naturally that he did not think himself entitled to such communication, and proceeded to tell me what he did consider as meant from the Beau to him, and with which—little as it was—he seemed quite satisfied. It seems a letter came from the Beau to Lauderdale, directed to him at Howick, the Beau’s name being written in the corner, and this in the midst of the concern. When Grey forwarded it, he told Lauderdale it had been a severe trial to his virtue to resist opening it at such a time, so Lauderdale sent it back to him. Its contents were to tell him he had offered the Ordnance to Rosslyn, and to beg all Lauderdale’s influence with him to induce him to accept it and then he goes on to say he wishes his Government to be anything but an exclusive one, that his own wishes would make it even more comprehensive, but he finds considerable difficulties from preconceived prejudices. Grey is quite right, I have no doubt, in supposing the ‘comprehension’ meant him, but the poor fellow thinks the ‘preconceived prejudices’ were those of

* Buckingham Palace.

Peel and the Tories, whereas I cannot doubt their being the property of Prinney. However, as I said before, he seemed as pleased as Punch with everything, and particularly with his own conduct and situation; and so was she.”

“8th.

“. . . Let me mention to you that the Tankervilles have a box at the French play, and that he and she have it the alternate weeks. Is not that the image of them both? . . . Taylor was with old Eldon at his house this morning about business, and Eldon told him he had been shamefully used upon the formation of the present Government—never consulted—nothing offered him! Was there ever? Eldon whining at his unhappy fate after all—and to Michael Angelo Taylor too! Oh dear, oh dear!”

“11th.

“. . . I went to Brooks’s, and, upon entering the room, Bruffam was sitting at a table with his back to me, convulsing a group of noblemen and gentlemen who stood round with some good story. Not having seen him before, I took up a lateral position to him, with my eye fixed upon him, waiting for recognition; which was no sooner effected than up he sprung to embrace me with ‘Well, old ultra-Tory, how are you?’—‘Charmingly, I thank you, dear moderate Tory; how are you?’ . . .”

“Brooks’s, 12th.

“. . . Sefton is cracking his jokes to the right and left to a numerous audience, all at the expense of Huskisson and Dudley, as if he had not been their supporter for these six months past. I really can’t approve of him. Huskisson fell 50 per cent. in last night’s jaw, and the Beau gained a corresponding degree of elevation. In short the latter will do capitally: his frank, blunt and yet sensible manner will beat the shuffling, lying Huskisson and Brougham school out of the field. . . . My sincere opinion is—and I beg to record it thus early—that the Beau will do something for the Catholics of Ireland.”

“19th.

“. . . I was well pleased with the hearty effusion of my ingenuous friend Sir Colin Campbell* yesterday, whom I met for the first time since his return from Ireland.—‘Well,’ says I, ‘Sir Colin, so we’ve got the Beau at the top of the tree at last.’—‘Yes, but sorely against his will. I can assure you, Mr. Creevey, he would much rather have remained at his own post as head of the Army; but, by God, sir! nobody else would take the office, and he could do no other than he did. But, sir, you may rely upon it, he’ll make an excellent minister. . . . I can assure you the old Tories are already frightened out of their senses of him.’ . . . In my way back from Lady Elizabeth Whitbread’s this morning I was stopt by Burdett, who got off his horse and would walk back with me across the Park, his object being to deplore the times. . . . With all his admiration of Brougham’s talents in publick and his social ones in private, his opinion was that the world would be benefited by his being out of it.”

“21st.

“. . . The Beau has made Lady Grey’s brother an Irish bishop and Lord Rosslyn Lord Lieutenant of the county of Fife; which, as his two first acts, is not amiss, and quite enough, as Colin Campbell said, to frighten people out of their senses.”

“23rd.

“. . . Allow me to mention, en passant, that the Marquis of Cleveland remains in London over tomorrow for no other purpose than that of dining with the Duke Of Wellington. Now was there ever?—after all that passed last summer. The Marquis, however, has really struck, and keeps the patronage of the county versus Lord Londonderry!”

“25th.

“. . . Lord Rosslyn told me last night that he would have taken the Army if the Beau had offered

* Not he who afterwards became Lord Clyde, but a namesake, who acted as brigade-major at the battle of Assaye, and throughout the first Marhatta campaign.

it to him, tho’ he had refused the Ordnance; but he supposed the Duke would not let it be in other hands than that of a subaltern of his own.”*

“26th.

“. . . I met Lord Lansdowne in Oxford Street for the first time since his fall. His appearance alone was a sufficient disqualification of him for managing the affairs of the country in its present difficulties. His person was carefully protected by an umbrella, he being the only person in the street who had one up, and there not having been a single drop of rain the whole day. I congratulated him upon having no explanations to make in these explaining times, and I told him his first step had been the fatal one for him—that of submitting to the wretch Goodrich as his leader in the Lords.”

“27th.

“. . . Dined at Lord Grey’s last night, where Lord Durham and Bob Adair were the only company. Lord Rosslyn and Lady Georgiana Bathurst came in the evening. Grey and my lady were both very much amused at my making Lord Durham tell who dined at Brougham’s Cabinet dinner last Sunday. Durham was one, and Sefton and the Duke of Leinster, Lord Stuart (Sir Charles that was), old Essex and four Scotch barristers. So much for a Cabinet dinner by a person who says he is at the head of 200 gentlemen of the House of Commons, and who could only muster one member of that body (Sefton) on this great occasion.”

“March 3rd.

“. . . I met Lauderdale, who made me go with him to his lodgings, where I was a full hour; but he splices so many subjects upon one another, it is difficult to make a selection. . . . He is of opinion that any minister or any King must be stark, staring mad that would trust Brougham for a minute. . . . I was in the ‘Nutshell’ at ½ past 7.† Robin Adair, young

* Lord Hill had been appointed Commander-in-Chief.

† Lady Holland, from whom Creevey had long been alienated owing to the schism in the Opposition ranks, bad sent him a pressing

Lord William Russell, Charles Fox and myself, were the only additions to John Allen and my lord and my lady—the latter, of course, being handed down to dinner by Lord William. He planted himself by her side at the table, but she said:—‘No, Lord William, let Mr. Creevey come next to me: it is so long since I have seen him.’ Was there ever? . . .”

“5th.

“. . . So you see Prinney crept into town at last on Monday night in the dark, when nobody could see his legs, or whether he could walk; but as there is a Council at St. James’s to-day we must hear something of him shortly. Lord Rosslyn is to be there to be sworn in as Lord Lieutenant of Fife, and he has promised me to keep a sharp look-out on the legs. . . . Here is an invitation for Sunday week from the Duke of Sussex, and Stephenson says, ‘Oh, you must come, because it is a dinner purposely for Lord Grey, and the 16 persons asked are selected as his tried friends, and the thing is meant as a marked compliment from the Duke to Lord Grey’ Now in the world, was there ever? Sussex being, or having been, quite as much for Canning as any of the other fools, rats and rogues. I find the Duke of Bedford, Jersey and old Fitzwilliam are of the elect, as well as Taylor and myself; but neither Sefton nor Brougham.”

“March 17, 1828.

“. . . Think of Grey telling me that yesterday morning he made his first appearance in a new ‘Wellington’ coat (a kind of a half-and-half great coat and undercoat, you know, meeting close and square below the knees), which was no sooner seen by Lady Grey and her daughters than it was instantly stormed and carried fairly and by main force from his back, never to see the light again—at least on his back.”

“19th.

“. . . Sefton was very good fun about a morning call on Lady Holland. . . . Amongst other things she

invitation to dine with her in “her nut-shell,” a house in London where she was living during a temporary absence from Holland House.

* Buckingham Palace.

talked about ages, and observed that Lord Sefton and Lord Holland were of the same age—about 56. ‘For myself,’ said she, ‘I believe I am near the same;’ and then the page being called, she said: ‘Go and ask Mr. Allen how old I am.’ As the house is so small and the rooms so near, they heard Allen holloa out in no very melodious tones—‘She is 57.’ But Lady Holland was not content with this, and said it was too old for her, and made the page go back again; and again they heard Allen roar in a much louder voice: ‘I tell you she’s 57.’ . . .”

“March 20th, 1828.

“. . . Nash or some of his crew waited upon Wellington the other day, stating the King’s pleasure to have a part of the new palace at Pimlico* pulled down and the plan altered; to which the Beau replied it was no business of his; they might pull down as much as they liked. But as this was not the answer that was wanted, he at last said:—‘If you expect me to put my hand to any additional expense, I’ll be damned if I will!’—Prinney is said to be furious about it . . . . Prinney said to the Duke of Leeds the other day:—‘Duke, you are one of the few people I can trust in times like these. Dine with me to-day at six.’ Which he did, and they both got so drunk as to be nearly speechless. . . . Mr. Bankes is to move tomorrow for a committee to enquire into the expense of public buildings, and the Government is to accede to the motion, which will of course bring Windsor and Pimlico palaces to view. Well may Prinney say as he does that ‘he sees distinctly we are going to have Charles 1st’s times again.’ . . . The Beau is rising most rapidly in the market as a practical man of business. All the deputations come away charmed with him. But woe be to them that are too late! He is punctual to a second himself, and waits for no man.”

“Brooks’s, March 26th.

“We have an event in our family. Fergy has got a regiment—a tip-top crack one—one of those beautiful Highland regiments that were at Brussels, Quatre-Bras

* Buckingham Palace.

and Waterloo. But his manner of getting it is still more flattering to him and honorable to Lord Hill, backed, no doubt, as he must have been by the Beau. It has been the subject of a battle of ten days’ duration between the King and Lord Hill. The former proposed Lord Glenlyon, the Duke of Athol’s second son, married to the Duke of Northumberland’s sister, who has been in the King’s Household, and, as the King said, had his promise of this regiment (the 79th). On the other hand, the King has been known to say over and over again that Ferguson never should have a regiment in his lifetime—for various offences. He voted and spoke against the Duke of York; he went to Queen Caroline’s in regimentals; he moved for the Milan Commission, seconded by Mr. Creevey in a most indecent, intemperate speech, and was voted against by Tierney and all the Whigs as being much too bad; and yet little Hill has carried him thro’. . . . It is understood Lord Hill signified his intention of resigning if his recommendation was not acceded to. . . . I feel quite certain that Lady Conyngham’s sneers and Sir Henry Hardinge’s fears were all connected with this then pending battle.”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Newmarket, April 26th, 1828.

“The great fun of the week was the defeat of the Grosvenors, who all came from every part of the world to see Navarino win in a canter. He is the worst horse at Newmarket, and they have been deluded by their trainer Dilly, who made them believe he had beat Mameluke in a trial. Think of a man of £200,000 a year sending his horses to a notorious rascal who trains for Gully, Redesdale and Stuart! They make use of his horses for their betting.”

Earl Grey to Mr. Creevey.

“May 1st.

“. . . Here is a story, for the truth of which I do not vouch, but it is in general circulation. The King had appointed the Bishop of Winchester (our own Sumner) to administer to him the Sacrament on one of the Sundays about Easter. The Bishop was not punctual to his time, and when he arrived, the King, in a great passion at having been kept waiting, abused and even swore at him in the most indecent manner; on which the Bishop very coolly said he must be permitted to withdraw, as he perceived his Majesty was not then in a fit state of mind to receive the Sacrament, and should be ready to attend on some future day, when he hoped to find his Majesty in a better state of preparation!”

The Duke of Wellington took a different view from Mr. Huskisson, who had been in the Goderich Cabinet, upon the Corn duties; in fact, early in spring, Huskisson had laid his resignation before the King, and only consented to withdraw it upon the provision being inserted in the new Corn Law that the full duty of 20s. a quarter upon imported wheat should only be levied when the price fell to 60s. a quarter—the lowest, as landowners maintained, which was compatible with the existence of British agriculture. But when the question of the disfranchisement of Penryn and East Retford came again before the House of Commons, three Ministers—Huskisson, Palmerston, and Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne)—voted against their colleagues in favour of disfranchisement. Immediately after the division, Huskisson wrote to the Duke to say that he would “lose no time” in affording him an opportunity of placing his office [Colonial Secretary] “in other hands.” The Duke took the mutinous minister sharply at his word, and refused to listen to the remonstrances of Palmerston and Dudley, who assured him that Huskisson had no wish to resign. Huskisson wrote to the Duke to the same effect; but the Duke’s military habit of discipline unfitted him for the kind of patience necessary to keep together a political party. Weary of perpetual friction with his Canningite colleagues, he declined all overtures for reconciliation. Huskisson was allowed to go, and was followed out of office by Palmerston, Grant, Dudley, and Lamb.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Stoke, 3rd June [Ascot Races].

“. . . Grey has seen all the correspondence between the Beau and Huskisson, and a greater mass of lies has never been circulated than those by Huskisson’s friends. In short, everything Wellington has done has been straightforward to the outside, and Huskisson has acted like a knave throughout, and Ward,* who was a negociator between them, like a perfect idiot. Prinney was the only sensible man besides the Beau, and stuck to him like a leech.”

“4th.

“. . . Well, have you read Huskisson’s charming compositions of letters that he read of his own accord and as his own defence. Never was there anything so low and contemptible throughout, either in intellectual confusion or mental dirt. In short, thank God! he is gone to the devil and can never shew again. The Beau, both in talent and plain dealing, in his letters and conduct, is as clean and clear as ever he can be.† The Pet‡ is quite right upon all these matters at last, Bruffam, tho’ evidently by no means extinguished, is damaged in his estimation.”

“5th.

“. . . On Tuesday the King made Jersey go over the names of all the company in this house, and when

* Lord Dudley.

† Referring to the correspondence between Mr. Huskisson and the Duke of Wellington about the resignation of the former.

‡ Lord Sefton.

he mentioned mine Prinney was pleased to say:—‘Well, he’s not much of a jockey I think!’”

“Whitehall, June 17th.

“. . . At night Frances* and I were at Lady Jersey’s by half-past eleven. I wish it had been earlier, for we met the Duke of Wellington coming downstairs with a lady under his arm. He put his hand out to me, and gave me a very natural shake, and this was all, you know, that could pass between us under such circumstances. I must say my curiosity to be mixed up with him again is much abated by his late horrible appointments—Croker a Privy Councillor—Vesey Fitzgerald a Cabinet Minister—and, above all, that offensive, inefficient sprig of nobility, Lord Francis Leveson Gower, to be Secretary for Ireland is really beyond all enduring. The last, I presume, is Lady Charlotte Greville’s doing, and must, one should think, be most prejudicial to the Beau. As for Jack Calcraft, I don’t care a fig, and I am sure the dirty Canning Whigs have no cause of complaint against him. Talking of Secretaries for Ireland, do you know of Wm. Lamb’s† crim. con. case? The facts are these. Lord Brandon,† who is a divine as well as a peer, got possession of a correspondence between his lady and Mr. Secretary Lamb, which left no doubt to him or any one else as to the nature of the connection between these young people. So he writes a letter to the lady announcing his discovery, as well as the conclusion he naturally draws from it; but he adds, if she will exert her interest with Mr. Lamb to procure him a bishopric, he will overlook her offence and restore her the letters. To which my lady replies, she shall neither degrade herself nor Mr. Lamb by making any such application; but that she is very grateful to my lord for the letter he has written her, which she shall put immediately into Mr. Lamb’s possession.”

* Mrs. Taylor.

† Afterwards 2nd Viscount Melbourne and Prime Minister.

‡ The Rev. William Crosbie, Lord Brandon, D.D.

“Dolphin Inn, Chichester [where Creevey was staying with the Seftons for Goodwood Races], August 11th.

“. . . You may judge of our weather at Stoke when I tell you that, with all their courage and contempt of rain, we were on horseback only once, and for less than one hour, and then were wet thro’. But if the body was not regaled, the mind was—at least by me—for I pitched my tent daily in the greenhouse, read Lord Collingwood and his life and letters thro’, and was delighted with him. You must excuse me if I am rather pompous and boring upon this subject. You see, my dear, that altho’ the poor man was the bravest and best and most amiable of men, this personal character of his is nothing compared with the part he acts in history for the four or five years intervening between Nelson’s death and his. At that time the Army was nothing, compared with what it became immediately after, and Collingwood alone by his sagacity and decision—his prudence and moderation—sustained the interests of England and eternally defeated the projects of France. He was, in truth, the prime and sole minister of England, acting upon the seas, corresponding himself with all surrounding States, and ordering and executing everything upon his own responsibility. . . . One has scarcely patience to think that, whilst our Government had the sense to see, and to tell him again and again, that his value to them and the country was such as could never be replaced, and to implore him actually to continue his services at the known and certain sacrifice of his life, still the villains were base enough to refuse every recommendation of his in favor of meritorious officers, as he justly observes, when parliamentary pretensions were to be put in competition.

“The agreeableness of the work is greatly added to by the constant proof it affords of the early, long and intimate union between Nelson and Collingwood. Even in the novel line, I have found nothing so calculated to lumpify one’s throat as when one of these great men of war, poor Nelson, in his dying moments desires his captain to give his love to Collingwood.

“. . . A delightful drive to Arundel, the outside of which, grounds, &c., have been made perfect by our Barny* (who was not there); but the devil himself could make nothing of the interior. Anything so horrid and dark and frightful in all things I never beheld.”

“15th.

“. . . The house at Goodwood is perfection. It is an immense concern, and every part of it is gaiety itself. It was building when I was at Chichester in 1800 by the old Duke.† and tho’ he lived to finish it, he only left one room furnished. The present Duke‡ has gone on with the furnishing by one room per annum, and as far as he has gone nothing can be done with more perfect taste. . . . Turning out of the hall on our right into the principal drawing-room, 60 feet long at least I should say, with a circular room open at the end—both rooms furnished with the brightest yellow satin . . . here we found the ladies and various men. . . . There were four sisters of the Duchess,§ . . . and four plainer young women one can’t well see. The Duchess, tho’ in my mind not nearly so pretty as the Seftons think, is greatly superior to her sisters, with a most agreeable and intelligent countenance. . . . She has now eight children, and lives all the year in the country. . . . What a sour, snarling beast this Rogers is, and such a fellow for talking about the grandees he lives with—female as well as male, and the loves he has upon his hands. Sefton and I hold him a damned bore.

“Woolbeding, Aug. 16th.

“. . . This place is really exquisite—its history not amiss. This venerable, grave old man‖ and offspring of Blenheim purchased it 35 years ago with the money he won as keeper of the faro bank at Brooks’s, and he has made it what it is by his good taste in planting,

* The 12th Duke of Norfolk.

† The 3rd Duke of Richmond; died in 1806.

‡ The 5th Duke of Richmond.

§ Daughters of the 1st Marquess of Anglesey.

‖ Lord Robert Spencer, 3rd son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough.

&c. . . . There is only one fictitious ornament to the place, and ‘the Comical’ seems to have shown as much address in converting it into his property as he did in winning the estate. It is a fountain, by far the most perfect in taste, elegance and in everything else I ever saw. I am always going to it. It came from Cowdray, 3 miles off, Lord Mountague’s. When Cowdray was burnt down 30 years ago, this fountain, being in the middle of a court, was greatly defaced and neglected. Lord Mountague was drowned in the Rhine with Burdett’s brother at the precise time his house was burnt, and so never knew it; and as there was no one on the spot to look after the ruins, Bob thought it but a friendly office to give the fountain a retreat in his grounds, and as he himself told me, it cost him £100 to remove it and put it up here. It has some fame, because Horace Walpole in one of his letters says he had gone or was going to Cowdray to see Lord Mountague’s fountain; and its history is well known as being the production of Benvenuto Cellini,. . . who, they tell me, was a famous man. Look in the dictionary and tell me about him.”

“Petworth, Aug. 18th.

“. . . Nothing can be more imposing or magnificent than the effect of this house the moment you are within it, not from that appearance of comfort which strikes you so much at Goodwood, for it has none. . . . Every door of every room was wide open from one end to the other, and from the front to behind, whichever way you looked; and not a human being visible . . . but the magnitude of the space being seen all at once—the scale of every room, gallery, passage, &c., the infinity of pictures and statues throughout, made as agreeable an impression upon me as I ever witnessed. How we got into the house,* I don’t quite recollect, for I think there is no bell, but I know we were some time at the door, and when we were let in by a little footman, he disappeared de suite, and it was some time before we saw anybody else. At length a young lady appeared, and a very pretty one too, very nicely dressed and with very pretty manners. She proved

* Creevey had come there on a visit with the Seftons.

to be a Miss Wyndham, but, according to the custom of the family, not a legitimate Miss Wyndham, nor yet Lord Egremont’s own daughter, but his brother William Wyndham’s, who is dead. . . . We had been half an hour at this work [looking at the pictures] when in comes my Lord Egremont—as extraordinary a person, perhaps, as any in England; certainly the most so of his own caste or order. He is aged 77 and as fresh as may be, with a most incomparable and acute understanding, with much more knowledge upon all subjects than he chuses to pretend to, and which he never discloses but incidentally, and, as it were, by compulsion. Simplicity and sarcasm are his distinguishing characteristics. He has a fortune, I believe, of £100,000 a year, and never man could have used it with such liberality and profusion as he has done. Years and years ago he was understood to be £200,000 or £300,000 out of pocket for the extravagance of his brother Charles Wyndham, just now dead; he has given each of these natural daughters £40,000 upon their marriage; he has dealt in the same liberal scale with private friends, with artists, and, lastly, with by no means the least costly customers—with mistresses, of whom Lady Melbourne must have been the most distinguished leader in that way.

“He was very civil, and immediately said—‘What will you do?’ and upon Sefton expressing a wish to see his racing establishment, a carriage was ordered to the door, and another for the ladies to drive about the park. In the interval till they arrived, he slouched along the rooms with his hat on and his hands in his breeches pockets, making occasional observations upon the pictures and statues, which were always most agreeable and instructive, but so rambling and desultory, and walking on all the time, that it was quite provoking to pass so rapidly over such valuable materials. . . . [After spending a long afternoon inspecting the racing stud] I was much struck with Lord Egremont observing that he did not take much interest in the thing; that it had been an amusement to his brother, and on that account he had gone on with it. When I asked Sefton if he had not been struck with this, he said:—‘Yes; and the more struck and the more pleased because he did not say his poor brother.’

“. . . [At dinner] it fell to my lot to hand out Mrs. Wyndham, the Somerset filly,* and whatever you may say or think, she is really become damned handy and agreeable. . . . I retired to my bedroom, which, upon measurement, I found to be 30 feet by 20, and high in proportion. The bed would have held six people in a row without the slightest inconvenience to each other. . . . I had quantities of companions, but only two with names to them—‘Bloody Queen Mary and Sir Henry Sidney as large as life. . . .”

There follow many pages of description of the pictures in the house; and although the names of the painters are given in much detail, there is not a word of George Romney’s well-known works at Petworth, so completely had that artist, so much sought after now, fallen out of esteem.

Having lost his friend Lord Thanet, by whose favour he sat for the borough of Appleby, and not being acquainted with the new earl, Mr. Creevey was unprovided with a seat at the election of 1828. Lord Darlington, indeed, possessed, among others, the comfortable constituency of Winchelsea, boasting no less than eleven electors, and returning two members to Parliament. These two members happened to be Lord Howick and Mr. Brougham, the first of whom was standing for Northumberland, the second for Westmorland—neither of them with much prospect of winning his contest. Creevey had so completely won the favour of Lady Darlington that, aided by Mrs. Taylor, she persuaded Lord Darlington to promise the reversion of one of the Winchelsea seats to him, supposing Howick or Brougham, or both, to

* Daughter of Lord Charles Somerset, 2nd son of the 5th Duke of Beaufort. She married Mr. (afterwards General Sir Henry) Wyndham, brother of the 1st Lord Leconfield.

be successful in the north. Creevey had an interview with Lord Darlington on 5th June, and found that they were of one mind in politics, save on the Corn Laws, to the reform of which Darlington, as a great landowner, was distinctly opposed. However, explained Creevey, “any such discussion appeared to me unnecessary, because there was no principle I held more sacred than that, when one gentleman held a gratuitous seat in Parliament from another, and any difference arose in their politicks, the former was bound in honor to surrender it.”

He went down and acted for Lord Howick in the election for Winchelsea, but as both Brougham and Howick failed in the northern constituencies, Creevey found himself, for a second time, out in the cold. He treated his exclusion very philosophically, and presently we find him writing his accustomed despatches to Miss Ord.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Stoke, August 20th.

“. . . Old Salisbury* arrived yesterday . . . in her accustomed manner, in a phaeton drawn by four long-tail black Flanders mares—she driving the wheel horses, and a postilion on the leaders, with two outriders on corresponding long-tail blacks. Her man and maid were in her chaise behind; her groom and saddle horses arrived some time after her. It is impossible to do justice to the antiquity of her face. If, as alleged, she is only 74 years old, it is the most cracked, or rather furrowed piece of mosaic you ever saw; but her dress, in the colours of it at least, is absolutely infantine. . . . Sefton says she is very clever, and he ought to know. I wish you just saw her as I do now. She thinks she is alone, and I am

* The Dowager Marchioness, who was burnt to death with the west wing of Hatfield House in 1835.

writing at the end of the adjoining room, the folding doors being open. She is reclining on a sofa, reading the Edinbro’ Review, without spectacles or glass of any kind. Her dress is white muslin, properly loaded with garniture, and she has just put off a very large bonnet, profusely gifted with bright lilac ribbons, leaving on her head a very nice lace cap, not less adorned with the brightest yellow ribbon. . . .”

“Stoke, Aug. 26th.

“. . . Upon our return [from Egham races] our only company arrived was Wm. Lamb, alias Viscount Melbourne. I had a good walk with him and found him very pretty company indeed, and very instructive about Ireland. At about 8 we sat down to dinner—Prince and Princess Lieven, Lord and Lady Cowper, Lord Melbourne, [Sir George] Warrender, Montron, C. Greville, Frank Russell, Luttrell and Motteux, which with C. Grenville, Churchill and myself, and the worthy family themselves [the Seftons] made 19 or 20. To-day the party is to be added to by Prince d’Aremberg, Villa Real, Alvanley and our flash Tom Duncombe. . . .

“O’Connell’s election and Dawson’s speech at Derry* are conclusive proofs to me of some great approaching change in the fate of Ireland, and I wish to see that country before and during the operation of this crisis.”

* Vesey Fitzgerald, on accepting office, had been beaten by Dan O’Connell in standing his re-election for county Clare. O’Connell, as a Roman Catholic, could not take his seat in Parliament. The Clare election had a notable influence upon the question of Roman Catholic emancipation.

CHAPTER VII. 1828.

Although Mr. Creevey sometimes referred to Ireland as his native country, whence it is to be assumed that, although born in Liverpool, he reckoned himself of Irish descent, yet he was turned sixty before he ever visited that land. In the autumn of 1828 he made an expedition to Dublin, furnished with letters of introduction from Lord Melbourne, which stood him in excellent stead, as the following curiously deferential letter may serve to show:—

Mr. George Morris to Viscount Melbourne.

“27, Gardiner Place, Dublin, 6th Sept., 1828. “My dear Viscount Melbourne,

“I have been highly honored by receiving your Lordship’s most obliging Note of the 28th ultimo; and I continued to make daily enquiries for Mr. Creevy’s expected arrival at the Hotels your Lordship referred to, ‘till a letter came, under Lord Sefton’s Privilege, addressed to Mr. Creevy at Morrisson’s Hotel; when I secured there a comfortable Bed Room for your Lordship’s Friend, which proved to be fortunate, because, when Mr. Creevy came to Dublin on last Wednesday Evening, and before he made himself known at Morrisson’s, he was shewn, there, into the only vacant Bed Room, a small and objectionable apartment. But, on announcing His Name, He was shewn to a comfortable Room, ordered by Lt.-Col. Morris for Mr. Creevy, in obedience to your Lordship’s commands to me, and for which I remain most grateful to you.

“Mr. Creevy did me the Honor to dine with me here, on the Day after his Arrival in Dublin, when I was lucky enough to secure Mr. Blake, the Surgeon-General Crampton and Mr. Greville to meet Mr. Creevy at Dinner, and he was much pleased by meeting them.

“It occurred that I was asked to Dinner at Lord F. L Gower’s the next Day, yesterday, and as Mr. Creevy, also, received an Invitation, I had the Honor to call for him and to take him to Dinner to your Lordship’s late Residence in the Park,* and to bring him home safe to Morrisson’s. I am happy to assure you that Lord Francis L. Gower has, again, invited Mr. Creevy to Dinner for this Day, and I shall not fail to attend Mr. Creevy, to see all the public Institutions, and Lions of Dublin, finding he is so well pleased with our City, that He purposes, now, to remain here Eight or Ten Days.

“I moved our Friend Mr. James Corry to call on Mr. Creevy, as he could not meet him at my House, from a previous Engagement, and Corry is greatly pleased at his good Fortune, to be acquainted with so distinguished and so highly talented a Gentleman as your Lordship knows Mr. Creevy to be. Blake, who met him at the Duke of Norfolk’s, and Crampton here, are rejoiced now to have an opportunity of inviting Mr. Creevy to their Houses in Dublin.

“I remain, Ever your Lordship’s grateful obedient “George Morris.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Condover Hall, Sept. 1, 1828.

“. . . Our coach was full, but we dropt two at Oxford, and to my great delight we left the other filthy wretch at Birmingham at 6 in the morning. He had been eating prawns all night, and flinging the

* Lord Melbourne, as Mr. Lamb, had been Secretary for Ireland.

skins at the bottom of the coach. However, I changed coaches at Birmingham, so it was all mighty well. Having breakfasted then at that early hour, I came alone to Shrewsbury . . . and embarked in a chay for Condover Hall, just 5 miles from Salop. Altho’ the two Stoke young ladies . . . have always praised the house much to me, their praises have been much—very much—below its deserts. It is a charming and most incomparable house. . . . Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smythe Owen and I have lived in the most perfect harmony since 4 o’clock on Saturday afternoon, but other human being have I seen none, except the parson at church yesterday, whom I was in hopes to have seen more of. He is Mr. Leicester, nephew to the late Lord de Tabley. . . . Having known his father in the days of my youth at Cambridge as by far the most ultra and impertinent dandy of his day, I was curious to see the son. It was precisely the same thing over again. This beautiful youth (for such he is), aged 27, has been appointed by the Court of Chancery guardian to his nephew Lord de Tabley, aged 16. About 6 weeks ago, he was married to his aunt Lady de Tabley, who expects to be confined next month. I am sorry she is not [illegible] for this second marriage. On her part she forfeits £500 a year out of her jointure of £1500; and his diocesan, the Bishop of Lichfield, has given him notice he shall eject him from his living for marrying his aunt, which reduces his income to nothing. . . .”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Stoke, Sept. 7th, 1828. “My dear Creevey,

“My curiosity about the Irish road is quite satisfied by your enthusiastic description of it, and I quite feel I have seen it and the Menai Bridge. This is the way I like to make my tours. . . . I don’t believe the Beau has the slightest intention of doing the smallest thing for the Catholics, or that he ever thinks about them, any more than he does about the Russians, Turks or Greeks. When the time comes, he will send troops to Ireland. I believe he has no other nostrum for that or any other difficulty.”

Nothing impressed Mr. Creevey more favourably during his visit to Ireland than the management of the Bessborough estates, and the manner in which Lord and Lady Duncannon discharged the responsibilities of resident landowners.*

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Besborough (Paradise!), Monday, Sept. 15, 1828, 7½ A.M.

“. . . Well! what a charming day I had yesterday, during which I said to myself repeatedly—‘And can I really be in this savage, wretched Ireland, as I have always been taught to believe it was, and that it could be no otherwise?’ We went to the parish church yesterday, 2½ miles off. It is a living of £1200 a year in the gift of the Crown. The rector is a most liberal man, and acts hand in hand with Duncannon in everything. . . . The church is larger than yours at Rivenhall, and was literally full; every one being perfectly well dressed, and not a poor person in the aisle. As there are no poor rates in reland, the clergyman in finishing the Communion service says—‘Remember the poor!’ and a box is immediately brought round, into which, if my ears did not deceive me, I heard a chink from every pew.

“The service over, I repaired to my favorite spot, the chancel, to look at the founder of this family in marble, Sir John Ponsonby of Cumberland, a follower of Cromwell, who gave him this small mark of his favor in return—20,000 English acres of land, confiscated property of the Catholicks who opposed the Protector or Usurper, whichever you like to call him. I expressed my surprise to Duncannon at the number of Protestants, and he said a great portion were descendants of the English who had come over with the first Ponsonby from Cumberland. I asked about

* Lord Duncannon, the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough, was created Baron Duncannon in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1834, and succeeded his father as 4th Earl of Bessborough in 1844 in the peerage of Ireland. He married Lady Maria Fane, daughter of the 10th Earl of Westmorland.

the relative number of Catholics, and he said if I had been at their chapel at 10, I should have seen about three times as many. . . .

“Having refreshed nature by a cheerful slice of cold stewed beef, Duncannon and I sallied forth on foot, but with a couple of horses behind, in case we wanted them. He took me first through the village [Piltown]. . . . I ought to apologise for calling it a village, for indeed I believe it is a ‘town’; but be [it] what it may, it is perfect. I went into the school, where I found four of the Miss Ponsonbys sitting on one side of a school desk, in different, distinct parts of it, and with a little party of 5 or 6 or 7 little boys and girls sitting opposite to each of them, under examination as to their catechism, &c., &c. I never saw a more well-behaved, attentive, and yet more cheerful exhibition of tuition. Duncannon took me into the dispensary—an institution of course built by himself. Presiding over it was a most strikingly sharp, intelligent-looking woman, with four daughters—the eldest grown up—as straight as arrows, very well dressed, and with the best of manners.—‘That family,’ said Duncannon, as we left the house, ‘Lady Duncannon found living literally in a ditch, ill, too, of a fever, of which the father and two of the children died.’—This practice of living in ditches, with some thatchwork over them, was very common when Duncannon first came here, but Lady Duncannon has found out every family of the kind, and they are now all housed, and very nicely, too. The dispensary family of course have the house they live in for nothing. The mother’s salary is £2 a year; all the girls have been taught to work, and either make their own cloaths or make for others, or both: but the result is, the whole establishment appears most happy and cleanly, well cloathed and, I suppose, well fed. I need not say they are Catholics. . . .

“In leaving the village, we took a turn towards the more mountainous and, as you should suppose, less civilised parts; but, tho’ the country is very populous and, as you leave Piltown, more and more decidedly Catholic, yet we found in all the groups of people assembled about their chapels or cottages the same marked civility. . . . Upon the slope of a hill and in a very nice plantation Duncannon said:—‘The Catholic priest lives there; I should like to say a word to him. Would you mind going with me?’—‘Quite the reverse, my dear,’ says I; so through we went, and a rummish, dirty house we found. A slatternly kind of girl told us he was at home, and in we went and found him and his coadjutor just going to sit down to dinner. . . . The principal was a jolly-looking, pot-bellied, intelligent little fellow as you will see, tho’ somewhat snuffy and dirty, with as perfect [illegible] manners as you can find. He is quite at home with Duncannon, and comes and dines here. . . .

“I walked thro’ the village of Piltown with Duncannon, and I defy anything in the most civilised district of England to surpass it in neatness, comfort and really ornament—begun, of course, and mainly promoted by Lord and Lady Duncannon during the three years they have lived in Ireland, but zealously assisted and acted upon by all about of all descriptions. I never in any spot saw so marked a proof of a rapidly spreading civilisation; and yet this is only four miles from Carrick, one of the most lawless towns in Tipperary. . . . Oh! the English absentees from their Irish properties—what they might have done here by their influence and without Irish prejudices. But I am now becoming a bore. . . . Lady Duncannon shines here; she is devoted to the place, likes nothing so much as living here, and spends her time mostly in the village at her different institutions. Duncannon took me into one of her newly made publick works—a fives court, where a capital game was carrying on by the Irish boys of the village.”

From Bessborough Mr. Creevey went to Cork and Killarney, whence his letters to Miss Ord continued abundant as ever, but chiefly deal with descriptions of scenery. The following, written when on a visit to Lord Hutchinson, his friend of the old Regency days, gives a glimpse of a district less happy than that about Bessborough.

“Knocklofty, Oct. 1, 1828.

“Well, I got here yesterday about four and found Hutch really, I think, not altered a tittle. ‘Well, my dear Creevey, I’m delighted to see you. What a lucky fellow you are: I’ve got nine ladies to meet you.’ However, as it was, only four came—Lady Hawarden, two daughters and a sister. . . . Lady H. was lively and natural enough, but I had rather severe work with her sister and a daughter, between whom I sat. . . . After dinner you may be quite sure I stuck to Hutch like a leech for information and his opinion upon the present state of things. . . . What a difference in districts! At Besborough—only 17 Irish miles from here, Duncannon has not an apprehension, and during the rebellion of 1798 that part of Waterford took no part in the game of the Killarney district, tho’ so near Bantry Bay. Here we are in the heart of the most disaffected part of Ireland, and a man of any property has a language and a creed in conformity to it.

“‘My dear Creevey,’ said Hutchinson, ‘those rascals the Orange Protestants and the fools of Catholics who [illegible] the Association in Dublin, will bring us to blows. Lord Anglesey* is already acting upon it and calling in all the small bodies of 20 or 30 troops scattered up and down the country, because, in case of accident, they would be sure to be sacrificed.’—‘Well,’ says I, ‘what is your nostrum for settling all this? Would Catholic emancipation do it?’—‘I’ll tell you, my dear Creevey, what it would do. First, it is a most disgraceful thing that Irish contemptible nonsense should be made the foundation of such bad passions. It is only common justice that we should all be on one footing. In this country the Catholicks are 50 to 1: in property we are 20 to their 1. Let us start fair as to laws, and I have a just cause to embark in ‘and my mind is quite made up to fight

* Lord Anglesey, who lost a leg in command of the cavalry at Waterloo, was no coward, yet he wrote in this year to warn the Government that they were on the verge of civil war in Ireland, and advised concession. The Duke of Wellington, though he had made up his mind with Peel for Catholic emancipation, recalled Anglesey from the Lord Lieutenancy, and appointed in his place the Duke of Northumberland, a consistent opponent of emancipation.

them in defence of my property; but I don’t like fighting in an unjust cause. If we do come to blows, assisted by the English government I know we shall beat them, and all will be over in a month; but from that day no Protestant gentleman can live in his country house. He must live in a town for safety, and England must have 20,000 more troops here than she has at present, eh! My dear fellow, what a state of things for a nation at peace. What would it be in war?’

“He and Duncannon are both agreed about the Maynooth priests. This was a piece of Pitt’s handiwork, to have these chaps educated in a Catholic college at home, to escape foreign contagion; and they turn out the lowest and most perfidious villains going, whereas old Magra and a priest of £700 a year at Clonmel, whom Hutch praises most profusely, are of French education, and have all the good manners, at least, of that [illegible] nation. . . . Oh, I forgot, too, that Hutch gave me another good effect of Catholic emancipation: it would separate those of property in matters of the government.”

“Kilfane, 4 Oct., 1828.

“. . . We came over here yesterday in an open carriage, 20 miles over the mountains in torrents of rain. . . . Mrs. Power is poor old Grattan’s niece—his sister’s daughter. Besides this, she is cousin to the great Irish wit, Chief Justice Burke, whose estate and residence join hers; and who, if you come to that, has been over here to see me this morning. . . . You don’t know, perhaps, that no man has more reputation in Ireland as a wit and Liberal than this Chief Justice Burke; and yet old Hutch, when he found I was going to Kilfane, was pleased to say:—‘Then you will see my cousin Burke. He is a man of great wit; he knows no law, and is false as hell.’”

“Kilfane, Oct. 5.

“. . . Now I have seen a real Irish Protestant church. When I entered it, two parsons were sitting in a row at the reading desk—one, the rector and Archdeacon of Ossory—the other his curate. We were 15 company from the house and 4 from the Chief Justice’s. Duncannon and Lady Duncannon, man and maid were there, and, so help me God! not a soul else. The parish is a large and populous one, but without a single Protestant in it except these two families—nay, not even amongst their servants. Mr. Power’s steward or warder officiates as clerk. The living is £500 a year: the Catholic coadjutor or priest has £70! . .”

“Besborough, 5th Oct.

“Well, my visit to Hutch really was charming. Take him altogether—the very prominent parts he has filled in life, in all quarters and upon all subjects, coupled with the genuine simplicity and honesty with which he communicates his knowledge—he is by far the most interesting and agreeable man I know. . . . His position is very different from that of Duncannon. Here it is all quietness; he—Hutch—tho’ only 17 miles off, is in the very centre of disaffection. It is not surprising, under such circumstances, that he feels more strongly the present state of Ireland, and is less sanguine as to even Catholic emancipation setting it right. . . . His notion, however, is that having land at greatly reduced rents and no tythes is a feeling pervading the great Catholic body of the people, and encreasing daily. Education (he said) has done great harm, for it is turned to no useful purpose, and with a greatly overcharged population, and comparatively no occupation for it, it produces nothing but speculation upon their own condition and the means of amending it. The murder of his own tenant, a mile and a half only from his house, was well calculated to make a most unfavorable impression upon him against the Catholics. The particulars were these. A tenant of his was in arrear £700, and without any means of discharging it, except as far as his stock would go. Hutch said to him:—‘You are getting from bad to worse in this farm, and are evidently incapable of managing it. I excuse you your arrear: take all your stock with you to a smaller farm of mine, and see what you can make of that.’—He did so, and Hutch put into the larger farm a man out of the county of Cork—as respectable and humane a man as Ireland could produce. But that did not save him from being most cruelly murdered, certainly by the suggestion and consent of the outgoing tenant. This in a village, too, where the murder lasted two hours, was known to be going on, and no one would help the unfortunate victim. Hutch has now taken the farm into his own hands. . . .

“Still, with all these feelings and impressions of Lord Donoughmore, when we got Lord Anglesey’s proclamation at breakfast yesterday against these Catholic assemblages in towns, he said:—‘I am damned sorry, Creevey, for this measure of Anglesea. He wrote to me a fortnight ago, asking my advice upon the subject, and I gave it—to let them alone. I have since been in communication with the Catholic bishop of the diocese, and received his positive assurance last night that these meetings were at an end. These villains of Orangemen will now very naturally conclude that this is a measure and an avowed opinion of the Government against the Catholics, and will be more eager to begin the work of blood than ever.’ . . .

“Amongst the opinions with which Lord Hutchinson favored me whilst I was with him were the following—‘Who do you dine with at Dublin, Creevey, when you are there?’—‘Why,’ says I, ‘Blake, I think, is my particular patron.’—‘Ah,’ said he, ‘he is a very agreeable fellow, but take care of him. There is not a greater lyar in all Dublin, and he’s as hollow as a drum.’—‘Then,’ says I, ‘there’s Mr. Corry of Merrion Square, who is mighty attentive to me.’—‘Ah,’ says he, ‘Secretary to the Linen Board, and wants to intrigue himself into Gregory’s place as Under-secretary of State—he’s a very good comedian, that fellow; I don’t know any other merit he has.’”

“Kingstown, 7 Oct., 1828. “My dearest Bessy,

“Don’t I put you in mind of Mungo—‘Mungo’s here, Mungo’s there, Mungo’s everywhere.’ Well, before I say a single word about Molly Payne or anyone else, . . . I must enlighten you upon the immediate causes of the present crisis of this country. Remember, it is no vague theory of my own. Lord Donoughmore is my historian; he was a principal actor in what I am about to state, and, what is more, he is the only surviving one. . . . He was observing to me that the English government never took any measures respecting Ireland except when pushed into it; and then they always took the wrong one, as they did when the 40s. election franchise was granted.—‘Tell me,’ says I, ‘about that;’—and to the best of my belief he spoke as follows. . . . ‘In the year 1792 the Catholics of Ireland presented a petition to the Irish House of Commons, praying for a qualified franchise in the election of members of Parliament. Five or six days after it was presented, David Latouche moved that such petition should be taken off the table and out of the House, upon the avowed ground of the audacity of its prayer. The House divided—for Latouche’s motion 208—against it 25. Forbes and I were tellers. Forbes was as honest a fellow as ever lived, and Grattan was always a stout fellow to act with; so we three consulted together, and we summoned some of the leading Catholics of Dublin to meet us. Keogh, a silk mercer, and a very rich man, was our principal [illegible]. He was a damned clever fellow, and the only Catholic of courage I ever saw. We told them that, as Catholics, they had received an insult from the House of Commons; they ought never to submit to that; we, as their friends and advocates, felt ourselves in the same situation, and were determined not to put up with it. We said the thing to be done was for the Catholics of Ireland to send delegates to Dublin to agree with us and amongst themselves what step they meant to take next. But the Catholics we had summoned were all frightened, and said it would never do. Keogh alone stood firm with us, and we said it should do; and it was settled that letters should be sent into all the provinces summoning them to send their delegates to Dublin.

“‘During the autumn of this year I went to see La Fayette, and to look at the French armies. I desired my brother Donoughmore to act for me with the Catholics in my absence. When he took the business up, he was told by Keogh that the Catholics in Cork and other parts of Munster were very shy, and would not send any delegates; upon which my brother went down, and went round every chapel and saw every priest in Munster, and eventually 300 delegates made their appearance in Dublin. When they had assembled there, they were affraid of having any publick meetings, and told my brother they would be taken up; to which he said they should not—that he would stand between them and the government. They met, and agreed to present the same petition to the King that they had presented to the Irish Parliament.

“‘My brother waited upon Hobart, then Secretary for Ireland, and asked what he meant to do with the Catholic delegates now assembled in Dublin. Hobart said—“Put them down by force:”—to which my brother said—“You dare not! but if you have any conciliatory measure to propose to them, I offer myself as the channel:” and so they parted.

“‘A short time after, Hobart sent for my brother, and asked to see the petition. My brother said:—“You shall see the petition, but you shall not forward it to the King, because you are their enemy.” So they selected Lord French, Keogh, Burn, Bellew and Devereux as their delegates to go to London and present their petition to the King. Grattan and I met them there to keep them up to their mark, and to see that they did not betray their cause. We found that Pitt and Dundas, after two or three interviews with these delegates, said they should advise the prayer of their petition being granted, and that the qualification should be 40s.

“‘Upon this, Grattan and I asked to see Dundas, and we had different interviews with him, in which we stated that the Catholics, in asking for a qualified franchise, had never thought of less than £20 a year, and that they would be content even with £50. We urged again and again the impolicy of so low a franchise; and all we could get from Dundas was that it must be the same as it was in England. And so in 1793, the very same Parliament that the year before would not permit the Catholic petition, praying for a qualified franchise, to lie upon their table, now was made to give them the 40s. franchise.’

“Well, now for the modern priesthood.

“‘When Pitt established the college at Maynooth,’ said Lord Donoughmore, ‘he gave to Ireland a republican priesthood. Formerly it required some money to educate candidates for orders in foreign countries, so that they were necessarily Catholic gentlemen’s sons; and they returned from France, Spain or Portugal with the manners of gentlemen and strict monarchical principles. But from the time that these priests are educated at Dublin for nothing, people of any property no longer send their sons there, and the College is filled with people from the very ranks of the population—farmers’ sons, &c. The effect of this is visible to every one. A priest of the old school lives at Clonmel, whom I can trust or act with as I would with my brother; but none of the young ones from Maynooth will have anything to do with me; and these rascals are always caballing against the old set, and trying to get the nomination to bishopricks into their own hands.

“‘. . . Now, at last, Ireland is enjoying the blessings thus bestowed upon her by Pitt and Dundas—an ultra-popular franchise and a republican priesthood, given to the most bigoted nation in Europe, with a population of six to one against the Protestants. This Pitt is, forsooth, “the pilot that weathered the storm.” . . .

“‘You don’t know Spring-Rice,* alias Jack the Painter; he is the least-looking shrimp, and the lowest-looking one too, possible. . . . He does not look above five or six and twenty. He is very clever in conversation, tells his stories capitally, like a man of the world in great practice, without any vulgarity, and never overcharging them; but as for the interest he takes about Ireland—I am quite sure my old shoe feels as much. He did everything but say it, that to be a King’s Counsel was as much the right of a Catholic as a Protestant, and that he would goad Catholic Ireland into resistance till his object was accomplished.’

“I caught my friend Norman Macdonald’s eye whilst this harangue was going on . . . and in walking

* At that time Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer 1835-39; created Baron Monteagle in 1839; died 1866.

home together we both agreed that a more barefaced scoundrel had never been exhibited to us.”

“Dear Dublin, Oct. 12.

“. . . Yesterday I dined at that attached friend from my infancy—Mr. Corry of Merrion Square, and had the honor of making the acquaintance of Mr. Shiel. The others were Surgeon-General Philip Crampton, who is the Castle man-of-fashion in all Lord-Lieutenancies, and whom the good sense of Dublin has Xtened ‘Flourishing Phil,’ and there never was a happier name. . . .’

“Kingstown, Oct. 13.

“. . . My eye! the quantity of people I saw yesterday and the day before that I knew, who pressed me to come and see them, or to visit others they would write to. Certainly, there is nothing like this Irish civility and hospitality. To think of Lord Plunket coming up, shaking hands and apologising for not having called on me as he was only in town for a few hours to attend a Privy Council. . . . I’m very sorry I could not accept Grattan’s invitation for yesterday. . . . Then the Knight of Kerry, who franks this, has written to Lord Landaff, saying he has nearly persuaded me to visit him at Thomastown—the place described by Swift. . . .”

“Lyons, co. Kildare [Lord Cloncurry’s], 15th Oct., 1828.

“. . . I arrived here on Monday, and found Lord and Lady William Paget, Lord and Lady Erroll, Lord Forbes, and three or four other men. My eye! how Lady Erroll puts me in mind of her mother—Acting Nell or Miss Hoyden. We became kind of cronies from the very first minute. If you come to that—Lady William Paget and I were very fair too, to say nothing of the civilities to me of the young men their husbands. . . . The Angleseys did not come till yesterday. Greatly to my annoyance I sat next to her at dinner. The young men, Erroll and Co., made me do so, the Duke of Leinster not having arrived, as he always walks out to dinner, however distant. He did not arrive till it was at least half over. Our Lord-Lieutenant* was as gracious as possible—gave me his opinion about Ireland last night in the most unreserved manner . . . that it was his firm opinion that if the Irish people had but justice done them, they would be a happy and prosperous nation.”

“Kilfane, Oct . 23.

“. . . Lady Duncannon stated her intention of going to the meeting at Kilkenny, to my great surprise, and, as I thought, Duncannon would rather she ad not. However, in her quiet way I saw she was resolved; and accordingly she, Mr. Power, Mr. Tighe of Woodstock and myself embarked after breakfast in a decayed old family coach of Mr. Power’s, that is never used for any other purpose than that of conveying him and his brother foxhunters to cover. Duncannon rode, according to his custom. The meeting was in an immense Catholic chapel, which was crowded to excess. A great portion of its interior was covered with a platform for the speakers and the gentlemen interested in the business. It being known that Lady Duncannon was coming, we were met by a manager at the chapel door, who told her a place was reserved for her upon the platform. . . . There were women without end in the galleries. I was my lady’s bottle-holder and held her cloak for her the whole time; not that she wanted my assistance, for I never saw such pretty attentions as were shewn her all the day. . . . We knew, of course, that Duncannon was to be voted into the chair, and as he could not be so without making a speech, she was nervous to the greatest degree—publick speaking being quite out of his line. However, he acquitted himself to admiration and to the satisfaction of all; and upon my saying to her:—‘Come! we are in port now: nothing can be better than this,’—she said—‘How surprised I am how well he is speaking!’ and then, having shed some tears, she was quite comfortable and enjoyed everything extremely, till the meeting adjourned till the next day. . . . It was a prodigious day for Duncannon, for, with the exception of Power and Tighe, not one of

* The Marquess of Anglesey.

the Protestant gentry present gave Duncannon a vote at the last election, nor did they ever attend a Catholic meeting before, though always Liberal, but they went with the Ormonde family. . . . There was one speech made that in point of talent far surpassed all the rest. The speaker was a Protestant squire of large fortune from the county of Wexford, Boyce by name. . . . O’Connell is far too dramatic for my taste, and yet the nation is dramatic and likes it; and, if you come to that, even poor old Grattan was highly ornamental too. Then I became far more tolerant about O’Connell from what I saw of him on Tuesday at our dinner. He has a very good-humoured countenance and manner, and looks much more like a Kerry squire (which, in truth, he and his race are) than a Dublin lawyer. Then Burke told me on Monday that he [O’Connell] was at the head of the Bar, and deservedly so, and that if he (the Chief Justice) had a suit at law, he would certainly employ him. This, you know, makes a great case for your green-handkerchief-man. Then his face is such a contrast to that of the little spiteful, snarling Shiel.

“You can form no notion of the intense attention paid by the audience of all ages and of all degrees to what was going on; it seemed to be purely critical, without a particle of fanaticism. On the floor of the chapel, in front of the platform, the commonest people from the streets of Kilkenny were collected in great numbers; and if a publick speaker in the midst of his speech was at all at a loss for a word, I heard the proper word suggested from 5 or 6 different voices of this beggarly audience. . . . Yet a better behaved and more orderly audience could not possibly have been collected. . . .

“When the dinner was announced . . . there was a great body of as well-bred gentry as I ever saw collected together. . . . When I mention that the tickets were £1 155. each, and the company 200, you may imagine it was not bad company. . . . I never in my life saw a more agreeable, harmonious meeting—full of life, and yet no drunkenness, tho’ we sat without a single departure till one. . . . My friend Mr. Power appeared in a new character to me that night—I mean as a speaker, and a better one (for his situation) I never in my life heard. It has been justly said by someone that ‘no man has seen Ireland who has not seen John Power;’ and so say I. . . . I have had this letter in my pocket since Monday, as I could not draw upon Duncannon for franks in the midst of his constituents, who wanted them.”

Mrs. Taylor to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, 1st Nov.

“. . . We came here ten days ago, and shall remain two days longer. We found them all well, Ly. Grey looking better than I have ever seen her for some time, and he is, I think, grown younger and better looking than ever I saw him. But I am sorry to say that in my opinion Brougham will regain his old influence over him. He read me a letter from him about the Whigs and the King’s health, exactly as if no misunderstanding had ever existed. In short, if Lady Grey does not prevent it, everything will be forgotten; but she and I perfectly agree about him, and I hope her influence will prevail. Lord Grey really makes me angry, after the way he has been treated.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Woodstock, Kilkenny [Mr. Tighe’s], Nov. 3rd.

“. . . I really think a more worthy, amiable and obliging young person is not to be found than this Lady Louisa Tighe.* I had heard from every one before how much beloved she was by all around her, and I have no doubt it is so. She is quite in Lady Duncannon’s line as to her devotion to her poorer nibbers,† and quite as successful, but then I daresay Mrs. Tighe had done much, and there has always been a resident family here. . . She tells me her sister Lady

* Fifth daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond; married in 1825 the Right Hon. W. F. Tighe of Woodstock. It has often been told of this lady that she buckled the Duke of Wellington’s sword-belt when he left her mother’s ball-room on the morning of Quatre-Bras; but this she always emphatically denied. She died 2nd March, 1900.

† Neighbours.

Sarah* in America has 6 children and Lady Mary† at the Cape four. . . . She [Lady Louisa] has a plain face, but a most agreeable expression in it. She read [prayers] uncommonly well last night, which I was surprised at, as their education was never considered of the best. . . . We are to have the Lord knows who to-day in the way of company to stay in the house; amongst others, Fred Berkeley‡ and his wife, who is a sister of Lady Louisa’s. They come from Cork, where he has a ship.

“What think you of old Dowr. Richmond being here for 3 months, and never once during the time speaking to Tighe? Was there ever such impudence? He being, not only the most gentlemanlike, well-bred person possible, and evidently he and his wife the happiest [couple] with each other. All the nibbers, of which there are shoals, say his behaviour under this outrage was perfect. Do you know that this is the house from which those chiennes Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby,§ the heroines of Llangollen, escaped to that retreat they have occupied ever since. Lady Eleanor Butler,§ aunt to

* Second daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond; married in 1815 to General Sir Peregrine Maitland, G.C.B., and died in 1873.

† Eldest daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond; married Sir Charles Fitzroy, K.C.B., and died in 1847.

‡ Afterwards Admiral the Right Hon. Sir Maurice Frederick Berkeley, G.C.B., created Baron Fitzhardinge in 1861; married Lady Charlotte Lennox, 6th daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond, and died in 1867.

§ Youngest daughter of the 16th Earl of Ormonde [de jure]. Writing from Llangollen to his son on 24th August, 1829, Mr. John Murray has the following:—

“We had a great treat yesterday in being invited to introduce ourselves to the celebrated Miss Ponsonby, of whom you must have heard as becoming early tired of fashionable life, and having withdrawn, accompanied by a kindred friend, Lady Eleanor Butler, to a delightful, and at that period unfrequented, spot a quarter of a mile from Llangollen, overhanging the rapid and beautiful river Dee. Lady Eleanor died there a few months ago at the age of 91, after having lived with Miss Ponsonby in the same cottage upwards of 50 years. It is very singular that the ladies intending to retire from the world, absolutely brought all the world to visit them; for, after a few years of seclusion, their strange story was the universal subject of

the present Lord Ormonde, got over their castle wall that I have seen in the town of Kilkenny, broke her arm and was caught. When she escaped the second time, she and Miss Ponsonby found their way here. Tighe’s grandmother, Lady Betty Ponsonby (that had been) from Besborough, being then mistress of Woodstock, concealed the runaways till they and a faithful housemaid from the place got away in safety to their [illegible]. The said Miss Ponsonby has a brother living in the county now, having changed his name to Walker for a fortune of £15,000 a year. His wife seems to have been quite as neat an article as his sister or her friend Lady Eleanor Butler; for, as they were riding out on horseback one day, she pointed out a good stiff hurdle to him, and said—‘Now, go over that to please me.’ To which he replied—‘I thank you; but I am not going to break my neck for any such nonsense.’—‘Then, said she, ‘you are not the man for me, and if you won’t go over it, I will:’ and over it she flew. To this hour, he has never seen her face since: so Kilkenny’s the county for fun and fancy. . . .”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“London, 7th Nov.

“. . . Nothing has transpired as to the D[uke] of Wellington’s] intentions about Ireland, for a very good reason, I believe—viz., that he has no intentions whatever on the subject. The reports about the

conversation, and there has been no person of rank, talent and importance in any way who did not procure introduction to them. All that was passing in the world, they had it fresh as it arose, and in four hours’ conversation with Miss Ponsonby one day, and three the next, I found that she knew everything and everybody, and was, at the age of 80, or nearly so, a most inexhaustible fund of entertaining instruction and lively communication. The cottage is remarkable for the taste of its appropriate fitting up with ancient oak, presented by different friends, from old castles and monasteries, &c., none of it of less antiquity than 1200 years [!]. She declared to me that during the whole fifty years she never knew a moment that hung heavy upon her, and no sorrows, but from the loss of friends” [Smiles’s Memoirs of John Murray, ii. 304].

King’s health have no other origin than the mystery kept up about him. You will soon hear of him as well as ever. In the meantime he will attend to no business, nor sign anything. Among others, Berkeley* cannot get his commission signed. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Dear Dublin, Nov. 8th.

“Oh dear, oh dear! this Ireland is rather too hospitable: not that I was inebriated yesterday, but still it was rather severe. A better dinner I never saw than at our Guards mess, nor three and twenty more ornamental, well-bred young men, Jimmy Cameron included. I was more in love with the army than ever. We drunk a good deal of wine, but by no means too much, and drunk our coffee, when some young Hussars who were my neighbours (visitors like myself) withdrew, and two Guardsmen came up to me. The name of one was Fludyer, and they were evidently bent upon a jaw with me; so what could I do, you know, but take another glass of claret with them; which I did, and we parted the best of friends. . . . But this was by no means the end of the campaign; for, upon going into the great coffee-room of this hotel, as is my custom, there were three young Irishmen over their bottle, indulging in songs as well as wine, and nothing would serve them but my joining their party. Now upon my soul and body, I was not the least drunk when I did so, suspicious as it may seem; but there was something irresistibly droll in their appearance. Then they would know my name, and then they knew me both by name and fame; and they proved to me they did so. They sung songs and I sat with them till near two o’clock, and never fellow was more made of than I was by my unknown friends. Ah! Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thomas: you are a neat article when left to yourself. . . . Now let me say this once for all, and I do so from the bottom of my heart. I would rather trust myself with Irish people than with any other in the whole world—be they who they may, Betty. . . .”

* Lord Sefton’s 2nd son, the Hon. Berkeley Molyneux.

“Dublin, 15th Nov.

“. . . I trust you see our Dan O’Connell has denounced poor Barny, altho’ he is Duke of Norfolk, for presuming to say he would give any securities as the price of settling the Catholic question. A greater piece of folly was never committed than this of Barny—so uncalled for—and not to feel sure that O’Connell, in the present plenitude of his power over Catholic Ireland, would never submit to this question being settled by any one but himself, and especially by an English Catholic, who in truth is nobody. Then all this is the more extraordinary in the Duke, because he has told me again [and again] that the great point was for our government and the Pope to settle this question of securities without any of the Irish nation—clergy or laity—knowing a word of what was going on; for, if they did, they would defeat all such arrangements: and then the blockhead is the very man to put the whole matter in a flame by broaching the very subject that, according to himself, could only be settled in private.”

“Dublin, Nov. 21.

“. . . I was charmed with my day at my Lord Lieutenant’s, notwithstanding the settled gloom of Lady Anglesey and the forbidding frowns of the Lady Pagets. The party at dinner and their position was as follows. Berkeley Paget* at the top: on his right, Chief Justice Burke, Lord Plunket, a Lady Paget, Lord Anglesey, another Lady Paget, Lord Howth, Col. Thornhill. At the bottom—Burton, aide-de-camp and secretary, 3rd Lady Paget, Corry, 4th Lady Paget, Lord Francis Leveson,† Lady Anglesea, Lord Clanricarde, Mr. Creevey, and Mr. Solicitor-General Dogherty. I have left out somebody that I forget. Altho’ I had never been introduced to Clanricarde‡ I threw off directly with—‘The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, my lord, was at the Race ball at Chelmsford.’—‘Yes,’ said he, ‘and I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you there next year, too, for I

* Younger brother of the Marquess of Anglesey. Died in 1842.

† Created Earl of Ellesmere in 1846.

‡ Fourteenth Earl and 1st Marquess of Clanricarde. Died in 1874.

am steward, and I hope you’ll patronise me.’—So it was all mighty well to be launched thus easily, and we discussed Ireland, and were quite one in our opinions.

“I had no notion Lord Anglesey could have been so gay in manner: it was really quite agreeable to see him in such spirits. . . . During dinner, he said across the table to me:—‘Why, Mr. Creevey, you have quite taken root in Ireland.’—‘I have been very much delighted with it, my lord,’ I replied.—‘Have you seen Donoughmore lately?’—‘Not since I met your lordship at Lyons.’—‘Have you been in the North at all?’—‘No, my lord, I had not courage to go into that disturbed part of Ireland. I prefer the tranquillity of the South.’ Upon which the two Chief Justices were pleased to smile; so did my Lord Lieutenant, and keeping his eyes fixed upon me he concluded:—‘Will you drink a glass of wine with me, Mr. Creevey?’—‘With great pleasure, my lord;’ and I had the same favor shown me by the two Judges and Mr. Solicitor. So it was all mighty well, you know.

“After a perfectly easy, conversational dinner, we drank coffee, had the billiard room open, and people playing and others walking about and jawing, just as they liked. I can’t think now it was that, in talking of heat and cold in rooms, Lord Anglesey said he preferred the canopy of Heaven to any other covering, . . . to which I said I had been greatly surprised at a proof of that, when I saw him sitting out in the park at Brussells, 3 or 4 days after the battle of Waterloo.—‘Ah,’ said he, ‘did you see me? It was so certainly. I was at Madame [illegible]’s house, and very kind to me they were.’—‘I knew your house too at Waterloo,’ said I, ‘and well remember the trees in the garden.’—‘Why, do you know,’ said he, ‘the people of that house have made the Lord knows what by people coming to see the grave of my leg which was buried in the garden!’ and he said this in a manner as much as to say—‘What damned fools they must be!’

“I had a good deal of jaw in private with Plunket during the evening; and when I asked him his opinion as to anything being done in the approaching session about the Catholics, he gave a most decided one that there would; but upon examining him closely, it was quite clear he thought so only because it ought to be so; and I am convinced that neither he nor Lord Anglesey know one word from the Duke of Wellington as to what his opinion and intentions are upon this subject. . . . Betty, my dear, you were too hard upon me for my ingenuous folly in revealing my midnight revel here. I assure you I was not otherwise disgraced than as a silent observer of the 3 frolicksome Irishmen. . . .”

“Carton [The Duke of Leinster’s], 25th Nov.

“What a difference it makes when one has a room to write in with all one’s little comforts about one. I never, to my mind, had one so made for me as my present one. It is a fat, lofty, square, moderate-sized room on the ground floor—French to the backbone in its furniture, gilt on the roof, gilded looking-glasses in all directions, fancy landskapes and figures in pannells, a capital canopy bed, furniture—white ground with bouquets of roses of all colours, and the bouquets as large as a small hat. Armchairs ditto: chests of drawers, 2 quite new and might be from Paris. My own escritoire in a recess with paper lighters before me of all colours, and in another corner of the room another recess that shall be nameless, through a door, quite belonging to itself and to no other apartment; the whole to conclude with a charming fire which woke me by its crackling nearly an hour ago, whilst my maid thought, of course, she was making it without waking the gentleman. . . . I flew my kite at the Duke per Saturday’s post. . . . I left Dublin in my post-chaise about ½ past two—the distance 12 Irish miles, i.e. 15 English, and it was too dark when I arrived to see anything of the exterior. I was shown into a long, most comfortable library, with a door half open into a fat drawing-room, and was told his Grace should know I had come. Presently a gentleman and the Duke’s two fine boys came in, and I soon found that the former was the parlez-vous tutor to the others. After a certain time, the Duke appeared: he was all kindness and good humor, as he always is. . . . After a good deal of jaw, and telling me they dined at half-past six, he conducted me himself to my bedroom, and would not have minded brushing my coat if I had wanted it.

“All this time it appeared to me likely that I was the only stranger in the house: and what of that? Tant mieux. . . . However, upon returning to the drawing-room, there were men there, and the Duke said—‘Captain —— (I forget his name)—Mr. Creevey: my brother Augustus Stanhope,*—Mr. Creevey: my Napoleon Mr. Henry. . . . Do you know Lord Seymour,† Mr. Creevey? Do you know Lord Acheson‡?’ and in this way I was introduced to these youths. Augustus Stanhope is the one that was dismissed the army by court martial for doing Lord Yarmouth out of a large sum at play. . . . Then entered the Duchess, and from the prettyness of her manner it was quite impossible not to feel at home with her from that moment; but she is not nearly so pretty as I expected. . . . Well of course one of the quality lads handed her out: the others were on her other side, and I pitched my tent with my right ear to her,§ next Lord Seymour, and brought her into action in the first 3 minutes. She evidently was all for ‘de laugh,’ and two more demure, negative striplings could not well be than her neighbours appeared. . . . They seemed somewhat astonished at the free and easy position that I took up; however I took the lead and kept it till we all went to bed at 11½. . . .

“This morning, breakfast punctually at ½ past nine . . . the nobility sprigs still mute, and everything to be done by Mr. Thomas.

“After breakfast, I walked with the Duchess and her brother, and when the latter left us, she proposed showing me her cottage and flower-garden. . . . Whilst we were there, the Duke arrived with the lordlings, being on his way to show them Maynooth College,

* Eleventh son of the 3rd Earl of Harrington, and brother of the Duchess of Leinster.

† Eldest son of 11th Duke of Somerset: succeeded as 12th Duke on his father’s death in 1855.

‡ Succeeded his father in 1849 as 3rd Earl of Gosford.

§ Mr. Creevey was very deaf in the left ear.

about a mile and a half (Irish) further on: so he said—‘Would you like to see it, Mr. Creevey?’—‘Very much,’ said I, but then muttered something at our not having the Duchess.—‘O, a thousand thanks,’ said she; ‘I am a great walker, and will walk there too:’ and so she did, and pretty well bespattered she was when we returned just now.

“However, I have been thro’ the college, and seen a good many of these 380 precious blackguards that are now in college there, and of all the disgusting concerns for filth the Maynooth business stands preeminent. And yet these are the men that are to guide and controul the whole Catholic population of Ireland. Maynooth Castle in its ruins is an immense concern. It was the residence of this family [the Fitzgeralds] and joins the ground which was let by the late Duke for the college.

“In returning thro’ the town of Maynooth, which belongs to the Duke entirely, I was sorry to see how inferior it was in neatness to Piltown and Lady Louisa Tighe’s town; nor did the Duchess seem to know any of the people at their doors as we passed. I have no doubt that both he and she are excellent people, but somehow they don’t seem to have hit off the art of having a neat neighbourhood. And yet they both praise the Irish people extremely.”

“Kinmell, St. Asaph’s [Mr. Hughes’s], Nov. 29. “‘Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief; Taffy in stupidity exceeds all belief.’

Altho’ he is so well and warmly clothed, what an inferior article he is to poor, ragged, dirty, sprightly Pat. . . .”

CHAPTER VIII. 1829.

The successive stages in the conversion of the Tory Government to Roman Catholic Emancipation have been abundantly discussed without bringing home to the apprehension of most people that, in truth, there were no such stages. The circumstances have been obscured by the recall of the pro-Catholic Lord Lieutenant, Anglesey, and the appointment of the anti-Catholic Lieutenant, Northumberland, but that had really no bearing upon the question. Anglesey had acted in what his old chief, the Duke of Wellington, considered an insubordinate manner, and was treated as relentlessly as Norman Ramsay had been dealt with after Vittoria. There was no question of ministerial policy involved; the puzzle arises out of the Prime Minister acting with a total want of that ambiguity which usually envelopes ministerial acts. The victory of Daniel O’Connell and the Catholic Association over Vesey FitzGerald, appointed President of the Board of Trade, in the election for County Clare, had convinced Wellington that relief could no longer be withheld from the Catholics. The position held by the Government ever since the question had driven Pitt out of office in 1801 must be abandoned; but he was too old a campaigner to allow the enemy to know the hour and order of evacuation. Peel was to be converted and the King be forced to consent, before the orders should be issued which, he knew, would breed mutiny in his own ranks. No sign should betray his purpose till all was prepared: the accustomed guards should be mounted—the regular sentries posted—till the very last moment. The appointment of the Duke of Northumberland in succession to Lord Anglesey was in accord with the spirit of a General Order which had never been suspended or revoked—No indulgence to Roman Catholics. It is the secrecy and suddenness of Wellington’s movements which have perplexed historians, accustomed to the more tentative and tortuous ways of politicians.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Whitehall, Feby. 3, 1829.

“. . . Every one was up with the news of the day —that Wellington had decided to let the Catholics into Parliament. . . . I have always, you know, been convinced that the Beau must and would do something upon this subject, and what it is to be we now must very shortly know. . . .”

“5th.

“Our only visitor last night was Sefton, who arrived about 12, bringing with him the correspondence between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Anglesey, which the latter had lent to Sefton to be returned the next morning at 11. He read it to Mrs. Taylor and me, and it was ½ past one before he had done. The Beau, according to custom, writes atrociously, and his charges against Lord Anglesey are of the rummest kind, such as being too much addicted to popular courses, going to Lord Cloncurry’s, being too civil to Catholic leaders, not turning Mr. O’Gorman Mahon out of the commission of the peace, &c., &c. There are letters full of such stuff, and Lord Anglesey in his answers beats him easy in all ways. . . . The Whigs are quite as sore as the Brunswickers at this victory of the Beau over Prinney and his Catholic prejudices. They had arranged the most brilliant opposition for the approaching session, and this coup of the Duke’s has blown up the whole concern.

“At Brooks’s last night the deceased poet Rogers came up to beg I would meet Brougham at dinner at his house on Wednesday.”

“6th.

“. . . It does Wellington infinite honor; the only drawback to his fame on this occasion is his silence to Anglesey as to his intentions; but he has been jealous of his brother soldier playing the popular in Ireland, and so has sacrificed the man, while adopting his opinions.”

“7th.

“Here is little Twitch, alias Scroop, alias Premier Duke, Hereditary Earl Marshal, who is sitting by my side and who reckons himself sure of franking a letter for you before the session closes. The removal of Catholic disabilities would permit the Duke of Norfolk to take his seat in the Lords.”

“11th.

“. . . ‘Ra-ally,’ as Mrs. Taylor would say, Peel makes a great figure.* His physick for the [Catholic] Association is as mild as milk, and for a year only. It is such a new and important feature in this Tory Revolution to have no blackguarding or calling names of any one. There begins to be an alarm about the Lords, but I have no doubt without foundation. It is clear to me from the Duke of Rutland’s speech that he will ultimately support the Beau, and I have my doubts whether the Bishop of London† won’t do so likewise. . . . Lord Sefton has broke the bank at Crockford’s two nights following. He tells me he carried off £7000.”

* As Home Secretary, Peel was responsible for the government of Ireland, which was then administered from the Home Office.

† C. J. Blomfield.

“12th Feby., 1829.

“. . . Our party at the deceased poet’s [Rogers] last night was his brother and living poet and wit—Luttrell, Sefton, Lord Durham, Burdett, Lord Robert [Spencer], Brougham and the Duke of Norfolk, and we had a merry day enough. . . .”

“Brooks’s, Feb. 14.

“. . . There is nothing going forward except this reported visit of the Duke of . . . Are you aware that Captain Garth is the son of this Duke by Princess ——.* General Garth, at the suit of the old King, consented to pass for the father of this son. The latter, in every way worthy of his villainous father, has shown all the letters upon this occasion, including one of the King’s. The poor woman has always said that this business would be her death. Garth asks £30,000 for the letters, and, to enhance their value, shews the worst part of them.”

“18th.

“. . . The Whigs are as sore as be damned at Wellington distinguishing himself and at Lord Grey’s just panegyrick upon Peel the other night. A neat figure they [the Whigs] would have cut in such a storm; but, to do them justice, they would never have attempted it. . . .”

“March 2nd.

“Now I wonder if Ogg† is to be depended on. Our Whigs, who hate the Beau and Peel and Grey with all their hearts, and are mad to the last degree that the two former have taken the Catholick cause out of their own feeble and perfidious hands, and who are always croaking about the projected Bill as being sure to contain some conditions and provisions that will be quite inadmissible to the dear Liberals—the said Whigs are to-day more chopfallen than ever upon the visits that have been taking place the last two

* One should hesitate to withdraw the veil from this ugly affair, were it not that it has been freely discussed and made public property in the recently published letters of Madame de Lieven.

† Lord Kensington.

days by the Beau and Chancellor to Windsor, and then the Beau waiting upon the D. of Cumberland as soon as he came back. In short, it is settled amongst them that the Dutchess of Gloucester and D. of Cumberland have made such an impression upon Prinney against the Pope, that he is considered as quite certain to be upon the jib; and such is the supposed consternation of the Ministers, that Tommy Tyrrwhitt told me he had seen with his own eyes to-day Lord Ellenborough come into the Court of Chancery twice, go upon the Bench to the Chancellor, put his mouth close under his wig, and keep it there at least five minutes at a time.

“So, having just met old Ogg in the street in spectacles, he having lost an eye since I last saw him, and after hearing an account of the different calamities affecting his life, property and character, we got to this Windsor gossip. So says Ogg in his accustomed manner—‘Damme! I know exactly what it is all about, and if you promise never to mention my name, I’ll tell you.’ I need not observe that the condition he imposed upon me I should have gratuitously adopted, as the disclosure would, with most, destroy my story. However, he swore he knew the facts of his own knowledge, and they are these.

“Knight, a barrister of the Court of Chancery, has been advertising the Chancellor lately that on this day he should move for an injunction against Sir Herbert Taylor about Garth’s letters, which have been placed in his hands under some agreement with Garth, and which the latter or his creditors wish to make more favorable for themselves; £3000 a year for life and £10,000 in hand were the considerations, but it is sought to make it £16,000 in hand. Ogg adds that it is the fear of all this being made publick that has caused all these mutinies between the Beau and Prinney and Chancellor and D. of Cumberland. Ogg says, too, that he knows all the contents of these letters, and stated quite enough of them to account for all this Windsor hurry-scurry. . . .

“Well, I had a really charming dinner at old Sally’s* yesterday. Lady Sefton and her 2 eldest

* Sarah, Marchioness of Salisbury.

daughters, the young Lady Salisbury, Lord Arthur [Hill], Sefton, Henry [Molyneux], a Talbot, Hy. de loos, Montgomery and Sebright. . . . Upon my word I was wrong about Lady Lyndhurst. She has beautiful eyes and such a way of using them that quite shocked Lady Louisa and me. . . . Old Clare fairly rowed me last night, or affected to do so, for not coming to see her in Ireland. You know her son and his wife are parted, the latter giving as her reason for wishing it that she had only married him to please her mother, and that now she was dead there was no use in going on together. He has given her back every farthing of her fortune, which was £50,000 or £60,000.”

“3rd.

“. . . I saw a good deal of young Lady Emily Cowper,* who is the leading favorite of the town so far. She is very inferior to her fame for looks, but is very natural, lively, and appears a good-natured young person.”

“6th.

“Well, the Whig croaking must end now. The Beau is immortalised by his views and measures as detailed by Peel last night. I certainly, for one, think it an unjust thing to alter the election franchise from 40s. to £10; but considering the perfection of every other part and the difficulty there must have been in bringing Prinney up to this mark, I should, were I in Parliament, swallow the franchise thing without hesitation; and so I am happy to find a meeting of our Whigs at Burdett’s to-day have agreed to do. . . . Only think of the old notion of the Veto being just abandoned. . . .”

“10th.

“Well, our ‘very small and early party’ last night [at Lady Sefton’s] was quite as agreeable as ever; but I must be permitted to observe that, considering the rigid virtue of Lady Sefton and the profound darkness in which her daughters of from 30 to 40 are brought up as to even the existence of vice,

* Married in 1830 to the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, at that time Lord Ashley.

the party was as little calculated to protract the delusion of these innocents as any collection to be made in London could well be. There were Mrs. F—— L—— and Lord Chesterfield, who came together and sat together all night; Lady E—— and the Pole or Prussian or Austrian—whichever he is—whom they call ‘Cadland’ because he beat the Colonel (Anson).* Anything so impudent as she, or so barefaced as the whole thing, I never beheld; Princess Esterhazy and Lady ——, Lady —— and [Lord] Palmerston—in short, by far the most notorious and profligate women in London. . . . With respect to how Lord Grey and other people take the Catholic Bill or Pill, there is an increasing satisfaction in all the friends to the measure, and the ranks of the bigots are thinning. There is one damned thing, if it is persisted in, which is that O’Connell is not to be let into his present seat, but sent back to a new election under the new Bill. . . . When I was at Grey’s on Sunday, he told me Burdett had just been with him upon this subject, and had urged him to speak to the Duke of Wellington about it. Not amiss in O’Connell and Burdett, considering that they had never consulted Grey before on any of their Catholic cookery. However, his answer was that he should do no such thing, for that, altho’ there could be no doubt as to the abominable injustice of this case, yet as the Duke had never shown any disposition to communicate with him upon this measure, it was not for him—Lord Grey—to begin any such communication. So much for Sefton and others, who will have it that Lord Grey must and will come into office. . . . Wellington was blooded yesterday, but is out to-day, and gone to face Winchilsea in the Lords.”

“Sulby, March 18.

“Rather stiffish to-day, my dear; it can’t, of course, be age! but going four and twenty miles on a hard road at a kind of hand gallop is rather shaking, you know, to those not used to it. . . . The men we have had here are principally Pytchley, which, in dandyism, are very second-rate to the Quorn or Melton men. . . .

* The Duke of Rutland’s “Cadland” won the Derby in 1828, beating the King’s horse “The Colonel.”

Osbaldeston himself, tho’ only 5 feet high, and in features like a cub fox, is a very funny little chap; clever in his way, very good-humored and gay, and with very good manners. . . . I am very fond of all these lads being dressed in scarlet in the evening. It looks so gay.”

“19th.

“. . . Does your paper ever give you any light upon the old affair of Garth? Did it contain his affidavit? You see it is now established in proof in a suit in Chancery that Sir Herbert Taylor had agreed to give Garth £3000 a year for his life, and to pay his debts; and that, upon this being done, certain letters were to be given up to Taylor. In the meantime they were deposited in Snow’s bank in the joint holding of the said bankers and Mr. Westmacott, the editor of the Age newspaper. . . . There is quite enough in this—Taylor being the purchaser and the price so monstrous, to make it quite certain the letters must contain great scandal affecting very great parties. . . . General Garth is still alive, and it was when he was extremely ill and thought himself quite sure of dying, that he wrote to young Garth, telling him who he was, explaining the part he—the General—had been induced to act out of respect and deference to the royal family. . . . General Garth recovered unexpectedly, and applied to young Garth for the document; but, I thank you! they had been seen and read and deemed much too valuable to be given back again.”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Arlington St., . . . March 25th.

“. . . The King was delighted with the duel* and said he should have done the same—that gentlemen must not stand upon their privileges. . . .”

“Stoke, 11th April.

“. . . The King was very angry at the large majority [for the Catholic Relief bill] and did not

* Between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchelsea.

write the D. a line in answer to his express telling him of it. The Beau’s troubles are not over yet. The distress in the country is frightful. Millions are starving, and I defy him to do anything to relieve them.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Whitehall, May 28th.

“. . . I went to the Park, but the review was over, so we only learnt that the Beau had had a fall from his horse, but was not hurt; and in coming home here a little later who shd. I meet riding in a little back street near Coventry Street but the said Duke. So he stopt and shook hands. . . . I said:—‘Well, upon my soul, you are the first of mankind to have accomplished this Irish job as you have done, and I congratulate you upon it most sincerely. . . . You must ave had tough work to get thro’.’—‘Oh terrible, I assure you,’ said he, and so we parted.”

“June 1st.

“. . . It is a well known fact that Lord Durham is doing all he possibly can to make Lord Grey act a part that shall force him into the Government, meaning in that event to go snacks himself in the acquisition of power and profit; which, considering that he got his peerage by deserting Grey and by helping Canning to defeat Wellington, is consistent and modest enough! So after dinner [at Lord William Powlett’s] the levee being mentioned, Grey said in the most natural manner he would never go to another; upon which Lambton [Lord Durham] remonstrated with him most severely and pathetically, and George Lamb thought Grey was wrong; but Grey held out firm as a rock—said that it was quite against his own opinion going the last time, but that he had been quite persecuted into it—that this last personal insult from the King in never noticing him was only one of a series of the same kind, and that for the future he should please himself by avoiding a repetition of them. You may easily fancy the amiability of Lambton’s face at his avowal. . . . You see these impertinent and base renegade young Whigs have had their appetites for office if possible sharpened at present by Lord Rosslyn having just accepted the Privy Seal. . . . Rosslyn told me of it himself in the street on Saturday. . . . I know that he accepted with Lord Grey’s concurrence, but I am equally sure, from Lord Grey’s manner, that he thinks he ought not to have done so.”

“August 20th.

“. . . As you see only the Morning Post, I am afraid you are quite in the dark as to what is going on in France. . . . All are furious against the new Ministry, and with great reason. To think of making Bourmont the War Minister! He is the man who deserted from Bonaparte and came over to us the night before the battle of Waterloo.* General Gérard recommended him to Nap as a General of Division on that occasion, and said that he would pledge his life for his honor.† The deserter is now to be Minister for War, and will have to face Gérard as a member of the Chamber of Deputies! . . . Even the old Ultras think the experiment puts the throne of Charles Dix in danger.”

“Knowsley, 26th September.

“. . . I am half way thro’ the 3rd volume of Bourrienne. Although my interest about Nap is greatly lessened by his wholesale use and destruction of mankind—not for the sake or defence of France, but for some ‘lark’ of his own, to be like Cæsar or Alexander, and for his damned nonsensical posterity that he is always after—then again he comes over me again by his talents, and by a kind of simplicity, and even drollery, behind the curtain whilst he is so successfully bamboozling all the world without. Don’t suppose I am partial to him because when Bourrienne

* It was on the morning of the 15th June, three days before Waterloo, that Bourmont deserted; and he went to Blücher, not to Wellington.

† The expression Gérard used was that he would pledge his head: so when Gérard reported Bourmont’s treachery, the Emperor tapped Gérard playfully on the cheek, saying:—“Cette têtê, donc, e’est à moi, n’est ce pas?” adding more gravely, “mais j’en ai trop besoin.”

read poetry to him in Egypt he always fell asleep! or because that at school he never was a scholar, Bourrienne beating him easily in Latin and Greek, but in mathematics he was first; nor because no one spelt worse than he did, having always a professed contempt for that noble art. Yet his compositions are of the first order.”

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the promotion of which Creevey had so stoutly opposed in committee of the House of Commons, was nearly finished, and about to be opened for traffic.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Knowsley, Nov. 1st, 1829.

“. . . You have no doubt in your paper reports of Huskisson’s return to office. Allow me to mention a passage which Lord Derby read to me out of a letter to himself from Lady Jane Houston, who lives very near Huskisson. . . . ‘Houston saw Huskisson yesterday, who talked to him of his return to office as of a thing quite certain, and of Edward Stanley doing so too. Indeed he spoke of the latter as quite the Hope of the Nation!’ As the Hope of the Nation was present when this was read, it would not have been decent to laugh; but the little Earl gave me a look that was quite enough.”

“Croxteth, 7th.

“. . . I left little Derby devouring Bourrienne with the greatest delight, and he is particularly pleased with the exposure of the ignorance of ‘that damned fellow Sir Walter Scott.’ The Stanley and Hornby party were rather shocked at the great bard and novelist being called such names, but the peer said he was a ‘damned impertinent fellow’ for presuming to write the life of Bonaparte.”

“14th.

“. . . To-day we have had a lark of a very high order. Lady Wilton sent over yesterday from Knowsley to say that the Loco Motive machine was to be upon the railway at such a place at 12 o’clock for the Knowsley party to ride in if they liked, and inviting this house to be of the party. So of course we were at our post in 3 carriages and some horsemen at the hour appointed. I had the satisfaction, for I can’t call it pleasure, of taking a trip of five miles in it, which we did in just a quarter of an hour—that is, 20 miles an hour. As accuracy upon this subject was my great object, I held my watch in my hand at starting, and all the time; and as it has a second hand, I knew I could not be deceived; and it so turned out there was not the difference of a second between the coachee or conductor and myself. But observe, during these five miles, the machine was occasionally made to put itself out or go it; and then we went at the rate of 23 miles an hour, and just with the same ease as to motion or absence of friction as the other reduced pace. But the quickest motion is to me frightful: it is really flying, and it is impossible to divest yourself of the notion of instant death to all upon the least accident happening. It gave me a headache which has not left me yet. Sefton is convinced that some damnable thing must come of it; but he and I seem more struck with such apprehension than others. . . . The smoke is very inconsiderable indeed, but sparks of fire are abroad in some quantity: one burnt Miss de Ros’s cheek, another a hole in Lady Maria’s silk pelisse, and a third a hole in some one else’s gown. Altogether I am extremely glad indeed to have seen this miracle, and to have travelled in it. Had I thought worse of it than I do, I should have had the curiosity to try it; but, having done so, I am quite satisfied with my first achievement being my last.’

“Croxteth, Nov. 18th.

“. . . I am sure you would not wish me to miss Lady Foley. It is very nearly the direct road to London. Then to see a noble novel-writer, who has never been known in the midst of all their ruin to degrade herself by putting on either a pair of gloves or a ribbon a second time, and who has always 4 ponies ready saddled and bridled for any enterprise or excursion that may come into her head! To say nothing of Foley, who, without a halfp’orth of income keeps the best house and has planted more oak trees than any man in England, and by the influence of his name and popularity returns two members for Droitwich and one for the county. Then he is to get his next neighbour Lord Dudley to meet me, so we shall have Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit—Ward [Lord Dudley] being in a state of lingering existence under the frightful pressure of £120,000 a year.”

CHAPTER IX. 1830-1831.

Mr. Creevey’s correspondence during 1830 contains less of permanent interest than usual. It was an eventful year, for it witnessed the downfall of the Tory administration, the death of George IV., and the opening of the far-reaching drama of Reform. Brougham had busied himself for some time in promoting the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and acted as joint editor of its publications.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“Hill St. [1830].

“. . . I have sent for yourself the Library of Useful Knowledge, as far as published: with the Farmers’ Series and Maps. The Entertaining Knowledge Library is for the younkers (tho’ good and wholesome for all ages). . . . I believe we begin with 15,000 and print to above 20,000. Now pray, if any subject falling in with our plans occurs to you, suggest it. You will do us a real service. We profess to be able to prepare and put in circulation to a vast extent any work of useful tendency and sound principles. Of course we avoid direct part in Church and State, but we openly profess to preach peace, liberty and absolute toleration, and I take care, as the works pass through my hands, to keep out all that is against these principles, and to put in authoritatively what is wanting upon them. . . .”

“Brougham, 1830.

“. . . Our Lib. U. K. will get less abstruse now that the Mathematical subjects are all gone thro’, except Astronomy. But some of the treatises are extremely plain, and indeed entertaining, notwithstanding their titles have hard names—as for instance ‘Animal Physiology’—which really teaches anatomy to anyone who wishes to understand it, and never knew a word of it before. So the life of Galileo is very interesting, and that of Caxton. But one fault that series has which is quite incurable, as long as the tax on paper continues. I mean the small print . The undertaking was, to give for sixpence as much as is usually to be found in an octavo vol. of above 100 pages. If the tax on paper were repealed, I have no doubt we could give 48 pages instead of 32 for that price, and the print would be as easy to read as any needs to be.

“When I wrote last, I had been speaking for more than five hours on the intellectual state of a worthy tea-dealer, so I may have omitted a request I intended to make to you and the ladies—viz., to suggest subjects for books, if any occur, especially for the Entertaining Series. The other must take a regular course, but this is naturally without rule. Also, any book wanting for the common people in the country (which is another part of our plans).

“I shall take care about Bourrienne* next week when I return. I am anxious for its appearance myself, having read the other vols. with detestation—scorn of the villain; but I must say as you do—without much disbelief, which I was sorry for. . . .”

Less meritorious in Creevey’s eyes were Brougham’s proceedings in Parliament; and he is vociferous in complaint about his “perfidy,” &c. But Brougham was not the only one of his old “comrogues,” as he called them, who were behaving “basely.” Lord Cleveland, formerly Lord Darlington,

* Life of Napoleon.

declined to provide a seat for Creevey in Parliament, notwithstanding that he had received, or thought he had received, Lady Cleveland’s pledge for the first vacancy.

Henry Brougham, M.P., to Mr. Creevey.

“1830.

“Well—what do you say of the first day? Are you of those lunaticks who are angry that we did not go ding-dong at the Beau and turn his Govt. out? That is—displace him without an idea who would get in; or, in other words, put things in a state from which nobody but the Tories and King could have profited. I am clear that the said Beau cannot go on as he is. They can’t get people to vote, and there is a tendency of other people to join in voting against them. . . . Have you heard of G. Spencer* giving up his livings and turning R. Cath.? He wanted to convert an able priest, and it ended t’other way. Ld. Lansdowne brings in young Macaulay, which may be all very well as far as he is concerned, but it gives all of us who are Denman’s friends serious annoyance and regret. I suppose it is only as a locum tenens till Kerry† comes of age; but still, D. could have held it as well as another.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“London, Feby. 16th, 1830

“. . . In the jaw between Mrs. Taylor and me this morning she observed what a low, dirty fellow Lord Cleveland was not to offer me the seat after all that had passed; ‘Not that you would have accepted it,’ said she, ‘I feel sure of that; but as a gentleman he was bound to offer it to you.’ The Marchioness, it seems, has been here, and expressed the united rage

* The Hon. and Very Rev. George Spencer, 4th son of the 2nd Earl Spencer: became Superior of the Order of Passionists, and died in 1864.

† Lord Lansdowne’s eldest son.

of the Naffy* and herself at Brougham’s conduct. . . . Mrs. Taylor says that, being determined to bring my name in, she observed I was coming to town to see her, and she was sure I should do her more good than all the doctors; but the Pop was mum, and would not touch it; and, as Mrs. Taylor justly observes, they are two arrogant rogues, and not worth thinking about.”

“19th.

“. . . In Arlington Street I found two young Foley lads—the eldest the poor victim just come of age, and a nicer and more produceable young man I never saw. Lady Sefton and I deplored his hard fate extremely. It is supposed the deed is done—that is, cutting off the entail of the last remnant of the Foley property, so that his father and mother may see it all fairly out. Lady Sefton told me that Lady Foley† had ten new gowns for the party at Witley at Xmas, and that the only one that Lady Sefton saw must have cost 12 guineas. She has only 5 maids, with different occupations, for herself. . . . I never saw Lord Douro† before. His teeth are the only feature in which he resembles his father, and altogether he is very homely in his air. Do you know he is engaged to be married to a daughter of Hume, the Duke’s doctor. It seems she has stayed a good deal with the Duchess, which has led to the youth proposing to her. When it was told to the Duke, all he said was—‘Ah! rather young, Douro, are you not—to be married? Suppose you stay till the year is out, and if then you are in the same mind, it’s all very well.’”

“March 11th.

“. . . I was at Lord Holland’s yesterday. . . . They both looked very ill. They are evidently most sorely pinched—he in his land, and she still more in her sugar and rum. So when I gave it as my opinion that, if things went on as they did, paper must ooze

* The Marquess of Cleveland, formerly Earl of Darlington.

† Lady Cecilia Fitzgerald, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Leinster.

‡ Elder son of the Duke of Wellington.

out again by connivance or otherwise, she said she wished to God the time was come, or anything else to save them. He said he never would consent to the return of paper, but he thought the standard might be altered: i.e., a sovereign to be made by law worth one or two or three and twenty shillings.

“22nd.

“. . . A capital party at old Salisbury’s* last night—the best I ever saw there. I had a good deal of laugh and jaw with the Beau, who was in tip-top spirits and looked better in the face than I ever saw him. . . . Arthur Hill said to him:—‘Creevey is going to bring his pretty nieces here next Thursday.’—‘Oh,’ said the Beau, ‘the Miss Brandlings: I saw them at Doncaster. I think they are the prettiest girls I ever saw.’”

“Bansted, May 26th.

“. . . Sefton went down to the House to hear the two Royal Messages which it was known were coming—one to enable some one to sign poor Prinney’s name for him,† and the other to shew up Leopold for having jibbed at last as to taking Greece upon himself. To be sure, this jib of his has not been brought about by the King’s illness! I suppose Mrs. Kent thinks her daughter’s reign is coming on apace, and that her brother may be of use to her as versus Cumberland. . . . We were all on the course at Epsom yesterday and saw poor Prinney’s horse ‘The Colonel’ win the Craven Stakes. If ‘Captain Arthur’ should win [the Derby] next Thursday, all Lord Sefton would pocket in bets and stakes would be £12,500—that’s all!‡ Gully is quite sure his horse Red Rover will win;§ Chifney equally sure that Priam will‖ notwithstanding that Lord Ranelagh says he trusts in God that heathen god Priam can never win.”

* The Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury.

† George IV. was lying in his last illness.

‡ Captain Arthur started at 15 to 1, and was not placed.

§ It ran second, starting at 5 to 1.

‖ The favourite, Priam, won.

“London, 31st.

“. . . To call on Lady Grey, whom I found alone. She is all against Lord Grey becoming a politician again, and says she sees people getting round him whom she hates, and never can forgive for their past conduct to him, and whose only object now is to use him for their own interests. She mentioned Brougham in particular. . . .”

“Stoke, June 11th.

“. . . Sefton saw yesterday in Windsor O’Reilly the King’s apothecary. It had been his turn to sit up with him the preceding night, and he said his sufferings were extreme—that he might die any moment from his complaint, but that even from exhaustion, strong as he is, he must die in five or six days. He said to O’Reilly more than once:—‘I am going gradually.’ He is cheerful at times, and very fond of talking about horses. O’Reilly says that, in the course of his life, he never saw such strength, and that with common prudence he might have lived to a hundred.”

“Brooks’s, June 26th.

“. . . So poor Prinney is really dead—on a Saturday too, as was foretold. . . . I have just met our great Privy Councillors coming from the Palace (Warrender and Bob Adair included). I learnt from the former that the only observation he heard from the Sovereign was upon his going to write his name on parchment, when he said:—‘You have damned bad pens here!’* Here is Tankerville, who was at the Palace likewise. He says the difference in manner between the late and present sovereign upon the occasion of swearing in the Privy Council was very striking. Poor Prinney put on a dramatic, royal, distant dignity to all; Billy, who in addition to living out of the world, has become rather blind, was doing his best in a very natural way to make out the face of every Privy Councillor as each kneeled down to kiss his hand. In Tankerville’s own case, Billy put one

* Greville (ii. 3) and Croker (ii. 66) relate the same incident.

hand above his eyes and at last said in a most familiar tone:—‘Oh, Lord Tankerville, is it you? I am very glad to see you. How d’ye do?’ It seemed quite a restraint to him not to shake hands with people. He said to Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer—the cockeyed Goulbourne—‘D’ye know I’m grown so nearsighted that I can’t make out who you are. You must tell me your name, if you please.’ He read his declaration to the Council, which is said to be very favorable to the present Ministry; and it would be odd if it was not, as it was drawn up by the Beau. After reading this production of the Government, he treated the Council with a little impromptu of his own, and great was the fear of Wellington, as they say visibly expressed on his face, least Billy should take too excursive a view of things; instead of which it was merely a little natural and pretty funeral oration over Prinney, who, he said, had always been the best and most affectionate of brothers.”

“Stoke, August 20th.

“. . . I said to Lady Sefton just now—‘Where and when was it, Lady Sefton, that you knew the King [William] so well?’—‘Why, Mr. Creevey,’ says she, ‘I’m sure you will not accuse me of vanity when I tell you that, upon my first coming out,* he was pleased to be very much in love with me, or to say he was so; and my father became so frightened about it that he would not let me go where he was likely to be; for it was at the time the Prince of Wales was living with Mrs. Fitzherbert. He contrived, however, to send me a nosegay [illegible] from Kew, and to get me invited to all the gayest and finest balls and parties then going; and as I knew no one to begin with, you may suppose how charming it was. What his object was, I am sure I don’t know: my only one was to go wherever I was invited, and to enjoy my liberty and fun. However, he went soon after to sea, I believe; and not long after I was married, and I have scarcely seen him since. . . .’”

* As the Hon. Maria Craven, daughter of the 6th Lord Craven.

“Bangor, Sept. 19th.

“. . . Jack Calcraft has been at the opening of the Liverpool railroad, and was an eye-witness of Huskisson’s horrible death.* About nine or ten of the passengers in the Duke’s car had got out to look about them, whilst the car stopt. Calcraft was one, Huskisson another, Esterhazy, Billy Holmes, Birch and others. When the other locomotive was seen coming up to pass them, there was a general shout from those within the Duke’s car to those without it, to get in. Both Holmes and Birch were unable to get up in time, but they stuck fast to its sides, and the other engine did not touch them. Esterhazy, being light, was pulled in by force. Huskisson was feeble in his legs, and appears to have lost his head, as he did his life. Calcraft tells me that Huskisson’s long confinement in St. George’s Chapel at the King’s funeral brought on a complaint that Taylor is so afraid of, and that made some severe surgical operation necessary, the effect of which had been, according to what he told Calcraft, to paralyse, as it were, one leg and thigh. This, no doubt, must have increased, if it did not create, his danger and [caused him to] lose his life. He had written to say his health would not let him come, and his arrival was unexpected. Calcraft saw the meeting between him and the Duke [of Wellington], and saw them shake hands a very short time before Huskisson’s death. The latter event must be followed by important political consequences. The Canning faction has lost its corner stone, and the Duke’s Government one of its most formidable opponents. Huskisson, too, once out of the way, Palmerston, Melbourne, the Grants, &c., may make it up with the Beau.”

“The dear Plough, Cheltenham, Oct. 5th.

“. . . Well, here we are again, driven from that greatest of all humbugs, Leamington. The fame of the latter place is one of the many proofs to what an

* Mr. Huskisson, who probably had not met the Duke of Wellington since the Cabinet crisis caused by the resignation of the former, had left his car on purpose to shake hands with the Duke.

extent the folly of English people will club and support a thing; till by common consent it disappears, which some day or other this Leamington will do. The town is a half-built skeleton of a concern, and in point of population and convenience of all kinds, a perfect desert compared with this.”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Oct., 1830.

“. . . I suppose you have heard of Lord Chesterfield’s marriage to Anne Forester.* Charles Greville went express to London from Heaton (Wilton’s) to break it to Mrs. Fox Lane. George Anson marries Isabella:† money no object. . . . I don’t believe there will be a king in Europe in 2 years’ time, or that property of any kind is worth 5 years’ purchase. . . .”

“Thursday, Nov. 18th, 1830.

“. . . Everything except the Brougham business going on smoothly. That is, I assure you, very difficult, but must end in the Rolls. He is really in a state of insanity, complains to everybody that he is neglected and threatens to put an extinguisher on the new Govt. in a month. In the meantime he keeps swearing he will not take anything—that he ought to be offered the Seals, tho’ he wd. kick them out of the window rather than desert his Yorkshire friends by taking a peerage. All this, however, will subside in the Rolls, where, being lodged for life and quite beyond controul, I don’t envy the Govt. with such a chap ready to pounce upon them unexpectedly.”

“Friday, 19th.

“By God! Brougham is Chancellor. It is supposed he will be safer there, because, if he don’t behave well, he will be turned out at a moment’s notice, and he is then powerless. What a flattering reason for appointing him! . . . Grey speaks most

* Eldest daughter of the 1st Lord Forester: died 1885.

† Third daughter of the same.

kindly of you, and I am sure wd. be delighted to do something for you; but why the devil do you put yourself out of the way of everything?”

Upon Lord Grey taking office in November, 1830, he appointed his old friend Creevey to the office of Treasurer of the Ordnance, at a salary of £1200 a year. Ever since his wife’s death, Mr. Creevey had existed upon a very slender income—“£200 a year or less,” as Charles Greville says*—but he was the constant and welcome guest of the Seftons, the Taylors, and a host of other friends, and had few expenses to meet except for his clothes and travelling. Still, this permanent office must have come as a translation from penury to affluence. The Whigs, even purified as they had been by long years of opposition and the persistent efforts of Brougham, Creevey, and other reformers to put an end to jobbery, showed themselves far from diffident in the exercise of patronage. At the present day, when sixty has been fixed as the age for retiring from the Civil Service, it may seem an abuse of patronage to have invited a gentleman of sixty-two to enter it; but, according to the practice of pre-Reform times, nothing could be thought more natural. The Ordnance Office was established in the Tower of London, and Creevey’s letters express quite a boyish delight in his new quarters, and a naive wonder at the minuteness of the Ordnance survey maps then being engraved for the first time.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“The Tower, Jan. 31st, 1831.

“. . . I dined in Downing Street with Lady Grey . . . After dinner the private secretary to the Prime

* Greville Memoirs, i. 235.

Minister and myself being alone, I ascertained that, altho’ Lord Grey was gone to Brighton ostensibly to prick for Sheriffs for the year, his great object was to lay his plan of reform before the King, previous (if he approves) to its being proposed to the House of Commons. A ticklish operation, this! to propose to a Sovereign a plan for reducing his own power and patronage. However, there is the plan all cut and dry, and the Cabinet unanimous upon the subject. . . . Billy has been in perfect ecstacies with his Government ever since they arrested O’Connell. Wood says if the King gives his Government his real support upon this Reform question, without the slightest appearance of a jib, Grey is determined to fight it out to a dissolution of Parliament, if his plan is beat in the Commons. My eye, what a crisis!”

“Feb. 4th.

“. . . Grey says the King’s conduct was perfect—not in giving an unqualified assent, as a constitutional King might to any Minister who happened to be so at the time; but he bestowed much time and thought in going over every part of the plan, examined its bearings, asked most sensible questions, and, being quite satisfied with everything Grey urged in its support, pledged himself irrevocably to do the same. . . . Grey said, too, the Queen was evidently better with him. It seems that her manners to him at first were distant and reserved, so that he could not avoid concluding that the change of Government was a subject of regret to her. This was an appalling reflection for a reforming minister, but he satisfied himself that she has no influence over the King, and that, in fact, he never even mentions politicks to her, much less consults her—that her influence over him as to his manners has been very great and highly beneficial, but there it stops. . . . Well, you see the Government lost no time last night in giving their notices—Vaux* to reform the Court of Chancery—Melbourne to make new laws in favor of Ireland, and Althorp

* Brougham, as Lord Chancellor, had entered the House of Lords as Lord Brougham and Vaux, which gave his enemies the opportunity of declaring that he ought to have been “Vaux et prœterea nihil.”

his plan of reform, to be carried by Lord J. Russell. Anything like such fair and open downright dealing was never known in Parliament before. . . .

“Sefton had a good conversation with Lady Grey, and my lord too, last night. It seems the Dino* came there from Leach’s, and Sefton heard her entreating Lady Grey to use her influence with Lady Durham to let her boy, and I believe a little girl, to come to a child’s ball at the Dino’s on Monday next. So when Lord Grey was handing the Dino to her carriage, Sefton and Lady Grey being left alone, the latter said to him:—‘Was there ever anything like the absurdities of Lambton? He not only won’t be introduced to Mons. Talleyrand and Madame de Dino, but he chooses to be as rude as possible to them whenever he meets them.’—‘Good God!’ said Sefton, ‘what can that possibly mean?’—‘Why because he chooses to be affronted that they did not ask to be introduced to him before he was in office,† and now that he is so, he insists upon Louisa‡ having nothing to do with Madame de Dino. Just as Lady Grey was finishing, Grey returned, and she said—‘I was telling Lord Sefton of Lambton’s nonsense;’ and then they both joined in abusing him, as well they might. Did you ever, in the whole history of mankind, hear of such a presumptuous puppy? However, I hope he will go on offending Lord and Lady Grey, and be himself out of [illegible]. I declare I know of no event that would be more favorable to Lord Grey’s government. I am delighted at that other puppy Agar Ellis§ being obliged from ill health to give up the Woods and Forests, and still more delighted that the excellent Duncannon has got it. . . . You know that the Queen would not let old Mother St. Albans‖ come to her ball at the Pavilion, tho’ there were 830 people there!”

* Madame de Dino, Talleyrand’s niece.

† Lord Durham had been appointed Lord Privy Seal.

‡ Lady Durham.

§ Son of the 2nd and father of the 3rd Viscount Clifden.

‖ Second wife of the 9th Duke of St. Albans, and relict of Thomas Coutts the banker.

“Feb. 8th.

“. . . Talleyrand professes to Grey to be quite enchanted with the existing cordiality between France and England, and lays it down that such an union can set the whole world at defiance. . . . Those damned pension lists are a cursed millstone about the neck of the Government. Grey was almost crying when he talked to Sefton of the difficulty and misery of depriving so many people of their subsistence. . . .”

“Tower, 9th.

“. . . My dear, these damned pensioners are the devil’s own to carry thro’ with us, and there can be no crowing till the Civil List Bill is fairly past. There is such an universal demand to have them flung out of window that I don’t see how they are to escape. . . . Our Vaux is not so tender-hearted in his department. By his reform he is to spread desolation by wholesale amidst the profession. I know that the Beau said yesterday:—‘I am very glad that Brougham is Chancellor. He is the only man with courage and talent to reform that damned Court.’”

“Brooks’s, Feby. 12th.

“. . . There is old Basto [? Pascoe] Grenfell from the City, who says there is but one universal feeling of execration at poor Clunch’s* project of taxing the transfer of stock. In short, poor dear Whigs, it is sad work, gentlemen, sad work! . . .”

“15th.

“. . . Do you take any interest about Mrs. Heber, the widow of the Bishop of Calcutta? Because if you do, I can tell you something. On her return overland from India, she picked up a Greek at Milan and married him. Her attachment was, of course, to the sacred cause of his country. They immediately started for that classic land; but unfortunately, upon reaching Athens, it turned out that he was provided, not only with another wife, but with a large family.

* Lord Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose first budget was very badly received.

She arrived here a few days ago, without a husband and nearly without a sou.”

“Tower, 19th.

“. . . Lady Sefton, her three eldest daughters, Frances* and myself went after dinner last night to Lady Grey’s weekly. . . . Our Vaux was there with his daughter. I had some very good laughing with him, and he was in his accustomed overflowing glee. We had some very pretty amusement with Viscount Melbourne, who is very agreeable. . . . Grey was very loud to me in praise of Edward Stanley,† who, by common consent, has made two excellent speeches. He is quite ready for battle with O’Connell, and the greatest confidence is entertained that Edward will be too much for him.”

“Feb. 24th, 1831.

“. . . There has been a charming scene at the Drawing-room to-day. Lady Jersey went up to Lord Durham in the greatest fury and, in the presence of all the world, said:—‘Lord Durham, I beg you will call upon me to-morrow and bring a witness with you. I have been so shamefully calumniated, and I will have justice done me.’—Duncannon, who was present and heard this, was in some horror of Lord Durham’s reply. He turned as pale as death, and, after a little hesitation, said very calmly:—‘Lady Jersey, in all probability I shall never be in your house again.’”

“27th.

“. . . As I was the first who arrived in Arlington Street yesterday to dinner, Sefton took me out into the corner room and told me of a scene between him and Brougham. . . . The Arch-fiend asked him if he had seen the Times that morning.—‘No,’ said Sefton, ‘not to-day, but I have read it with great uneasiness the three or four preceding days, and I want of all things to talk to you about it.’—He then opened his case, stated the deliberate attack making upon Grey by that paper, coupled with its constant panegyrick

* Mrs. Taylor.

† Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby. He was Secretary for Ireland in Lord Grey’s administration.

upon Brougham, made it necessary for Brougham to summon the editor, and to insist upon these attacks upon Grey being discontinued. That otherwise, as Brougham’s influence over that paper was notorious to all, and as his brother William was known to write for it, it could not fail to beget suspicion that he—Brougham—had no objection to these attacks, and that Ld. Grey felt them most sensibly. That if he—Brougham—thought he would make a better Prime Minister than Grey, and was preparing the way for that event, that was matter for his own consideration; but if he really means the Government to go on as at present formed, Sefton conjured him to lose no time in imposing his most positive injunction on the Times newspaper to alter its course.

“Sefton says nothing could equal the artificial rage into which Vaux flung himself. He swore like a trooper that he had no influence over the Times—that he had never once seen Barnes the editor since he had been in office, and that William had never written a line for it. He then fell upon Lambton—said all this came from him—that he had behaved in the most impertinent manner to both his brothers upon this subject—that if he went on as he did he must break up the Government, and that he, for one, would never submit to his influence. This storm being over, Sefton collected from him distinctly that he had seen Barnes perhaps once or twice, and that brother William might perhaps—tho’ quite unknown to him—have written an article or two in this paper. In short, as our Earl observed, never culprit was more clearly proved guilty than he was out of his own mouth, and it ended by his affecting to doubt which would be the best channel for getting at Barnes—brother William or Vizard—but at all events he pledged himself to Sefton that it should be done. . . .”

“28th.

“. . . Well, the Times newspaper has evidently had its visitation in the course of yesterday. It has two leading and very powerful articles in favor of the Government. . . . If you come to that, your Morning Herald of to-day is not amiss in support of our Government. In short, we are recovering by gentle degrees from Althorp. He had very nearly killed us, poor fellow, honest as he is, but it must be admitted that he has been damned conceited.”

“Tower, March 3rd.

“Well, what think you of our Reform plan? My raptures with it encrease every hour, and my astonishment at its boldness. It was all very well for an historian like Thomas Creevey to lay down the law, as he did in his pamphlet, that all these rotten nomination boroughs were modern usurpations, and that the communities of all substantial boroughs were by law the real electors; but here is a little fellow not weighing above 8 stone—Lord John Russell by name—who, without talking of law or anything else, creates in fact a perfectly new House of Commons, quite in conformity to the original formation of that body. . . . What a coup it is! It is its boldness that makes its success so certain. . . . A week or ten days must elapse before the Bill is printed and ready for a 2nd reading; by that time the country will be in a flame from one end to the other in favor of the measure. . . . I saw the stately Buckingham going down to the Lords just now. I wonder how he likes the boroughs of Buckingham and St. Mawe’s being bowled out. He would never have been a duke without them, and can there be a better reason for their destruction?”

“Tower, 5th.

“. . . Well, our Reform rises in publick affection every instant. . . . To think of dear Aldborough and Orford, both belonging to Lord Hertford, and purchased at a great price, being clearly bowled out, without a word of with your leave or by your leave. Aye, and not only that such proprietors are destitute of all means of self-defence, but they are treated as criminals by the whole country for making any fight on their own behalf. . . . At Crocky’s, even the boroughmongers admitted that their representative, Croker, had made a damned rum figure. Poor Billy Holmes! Both he and Croker will have but a slender chance of being M.P.’s again under our restored constitution. In short, Bessy, there is no end to the fun and confusion that this measure scatters far and near into by far the most corrupt, insolent, shameless, profligate gang that this country contains. They are all dead men by this Bill, never to rise again, and their occupation is dead also. . . . To be sure the poor devils who stick to the wreck will have mobbing enough from out of doors before the business is over. . . . It is not 3 weeks since Sir John Shelley asked Lord Grey to make him a peer, who answered him by saying:—‘Indeed, my dear Shelley, to deal fairly with you, I don’t think you have any claims; and if you had, why did you not get your friend the Duke of Wellington to make you one?’—What you call a double-fisted go for the baronet, was it not?’

“Tower, March 12th.

“. . . I fear Vaux must go crazy. He is like Wolsey. I’ll give you a case in point. We had all heard how his coach had been stopt at the Horse Guards on the day of the Queen’s drawing-room, and that he had got into the greatest fury and called out to let any man at his peril stop the Lord Chancellor of England from going to the King; but your militaire has a knack of referring to an order, and a written one was produced, forbidding any carriage to pass thro’ that gate on days of the Queen’s drawing-rooms, except the Royal Family, Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker of the House of Commons. The officer upon guard most civilly explained the order and expressed his regret at being obliged to enforce it; but our Guy, little daunted or cajoled by all this, put his wig out of the other window and ordered his coachman to go on at all hazards; and so he did, carrying Horse Guards blue and red all clear before him. . . . My Lord Chancellor’s defence to Sefton was that, not only were the Speaker and the Archbishop down as privilege men, but Lord Shaftesbury who is chairman of the House of Lords—a kind of deputy to Brougham. ‘So,’ as the latter justly observed, ‘when I saw my own man—my actual boot-jack—had the privilege, and not me, it was more than flesh and blood could bear.’ . . . Sefton, who sees the actual insides of both Vaux and Grey, says there is a considerable dislike in each to the other. What an invaluable thing for both to have so sincere, so clever and so unintriguing a friend as Sefton, and how entertaining for us to see all thro’ him!”

“Tower, March 14th.

“. . . Sefton was still too unwell to dine at Ld. Grey’s, which was a terrible blow to us all; so Lady Sefton and Lady Maria called at Mrs. Durham’s* for me, and took me there. It was not a large party—the two female Seftons, Lord Durham, Morpeth.† Duncannon, Luttrell and myself, with the four Greys and Charles Greville. Grey was all alive o! quite overflowing, never ceasing in his little civilities to myself, wanting me to eat this or drink that:—‘Do, Creevey, I assure you it’s damned good; I know you will like it.’ Can’t you see him? . . . It was not amiss for a Prime Minister to call out at dinner:—‘Do you think, Creevey, we shall carry our Reform Bill in the Lords?’ . . . Lady Lyndhurst came at night, and very handsome she looked, tho’ very near a woman of colour. I did not know before that her first husband, Captn. Thomas, was killed in the battle of Waterloo. . . .”

“15th.

“. . . Lord Dacre said to me one day lately:—‘Do you know, Creevey, how Brougham came to take the title of Vaux? because, you know, it is my title; but as I don’t care about such things, I have never done or said anything about it. The title, however, is mine.’ . . . As Vaux has not enough upon his hands, he has opened his batteries in the Times of to-day against Lady Jersey in a longish and bitter article. She is mad in her rage against our Reform, and moves heaven and earth against it wherever she goes according to her powers; but those powers are by no means what they used to be. In short, she is like the rotten boroughs—going to the devil as fast as she can.”

* Creevey’s lodging in Bury Street.

† Afterwards 7th Earl of Carlisle.

“14th.

“. . . The King never ceases to impress upon Duncannon that all he and the Queen wish for is to be comfortable. He says that both he and the Queen find it inconvenient to be obliged to move all their books, papers, &c., out of their own sitting-rooms upon every Levee day and Drawing-room, because their rooms are wanted on such occasions; that as for removing to Buckingham House, he will do so if the Government wish it, tho’ he thinks it a most ill-contrived house; and if he goes there, he hopes it may be plain, and no gilding, for he dislikes it extremely. But what he would prefer to everything, would be living in Marlborough House, which is Crown land and the lease nearly out. . . . Billy says if he might have a passage made to unite this house with St. James’s, he thinks he and the Queen could live there very comfortably indeed. Now was there ever so innocent a Sovereign since the world was made?”

“Brooks’s, 21st.

“I saw Lord Bruffam chased by Lord Eldon in their carriages to the door of the House of Lords. There is going to be a pitched battle between them to-night upon one of Brougham’s Chancery legal reform bills. I’ll bet upon our Arch-fiend! . . . The enemy is in the most insolent crowing state possible to-day, perfectly certain, as they say, to defeat our Bill. Wetherell* told me last night he was as sure of their victory as of his own existence.”

“22nd.

“. . . The King and Queen were to have gone to the Opera to-night, but an account has arrived to-day of the death of Kennedy who married one of the Miss Fitzclarences, so they don’t go. Albemarle was to have dined there to-day, but the King said to him:—‘We have no dinner to-day, and don’t go to the opera, because that is pleasure; but we shall go on with the levee to-morrow, because that is duty.’ A very pretty distinction, I think, for a King to make.”

* Sir Charles Wetherell [1770-1846], Attorney-General.

“Brooks’s, March 23rd. Majority for our Bill ☞ 1 ☜

“Devilish near, was it not? Yesterday I was of opinion that to lose the question by one would have been the best thing for us; but I don’t think so now. . . . Everybody likes winning, and it keeps people’s spirits up. . . . I went into Crocky’s after the opera, being determined to wait the result, and there were quantities of people in the same mind, friends and foes, but we were all as amicable and merry as we could be. A little before five [a.m.] our minds were relieved by the arrival of members without end—friends and foes—and I must say (with the exception of young Jack Shelley) the same good temper and fun were visible on both sides.”

“Tower, 24th

“. . . You will see by your paper of to-day that Horace Seymour and Captn. Meynell are dismissed from the King’s household, their offence having been voting against the King’s Reform Bill. They were both of them Lord Hertford’s members. This is something like! Grey spoke about it to the King at the levee yesterday, and the job was done out of hand.”

“26th

“. . . I wish you could have been with me when I entered our Premier’s drawing-room last night. I was rather early, and he was standing alone with his back to a fire—the best dressed, the handsomest, and apparently the happiest man in all his royal master’s dominions. . . . Lady Grey was as proud of my lord’s speech as she ought to be, and she, too, looked as handsome and happy as ever she could be. . . . She said at least 3 times—‘Come and sit here, Mr. Creevey.’ You see the cause of this uniform kindness of Lady Grey to myself is her recollection that I was all for Lord Grey when many of his present worshippers were doing all they could against him. . . . Upon one of the duets between Lord Grey and me last night, who should be announced but Sir James Scarlett. He graciously put out a hand for each of us, but my lord received him so coldly, that he was off in an instant, and Grey said to me:—‘What an extraordinary thing his coming here! the more so, as I don’t believe he was invited.’ . . . Lady Grey said to me:—‘I really could not be such a hypocrite as to put out my hand to Sir James Scarlett;’ so he must have had a good night of it!”

“28th.

“. . . Our dinner at Sefton’s yesterday was very agreeable—the Cowpers, Edward and Mrs. Stanley, Duke of Argyll, Melbourne, Palmerston, Foley, Alava, Charles Greville and myself. Alava and I were there ten minutes before anybody else, and he was very instructive about France, where he has been living for the last 5 years. As he says of himself, he naturally hates a Frenchman, but he has the greatest opinion of Casimir. . . . When little Derby was going to kneel upon being sworn a Privy Councillor, the King said:—‘I beg you won’t kneel, Lord Derby; you have the gout.’—‘Your Majesty must allow me.’—‘I won’t hear of it!’ and he would not let him. Then he said:—‘How long have you been Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, my lord?’ and when he told him, the King said:—‘I have often heard my father say you was the best Lord Lieutenant in England, and so you are now!’”

“29th.

“. . . I think there ought to be a collection made from authority of all the sayings of our beloved Sovereign. Take for instance one that Albemarle told me, and which he himself heard at the Queen’s drawing-room. I don’t know whether you are aware that the King gives every lady two kisses, one on each cheek; but so it is. Well, on Thursday a lady was taking up her daughter to present her to the Queen, to do which they pass the King. It so happens, they live somewhere within reach of Bushey,* and used to visit there. The girl who was following her mother was so frightened that she took no notice of

* Where William IV. had lived as Duke of Clarence.

the King as she passed him; upon which he laid hold of her, and taking her by the hand, said:—‘Oh, oh! is this the way you treat your country friends?’ and then gave her two kisses.”

“16th April.

“. . . Now let me make a profound observation upon a decision the Speaker made known last night respecting Schedule A in the Reform Bill, viz. that a vote must be taken upon these boroughs one by one, and not in the lump. Permit me to say that, for us, this is perfectly invaluable; the list being alphabetical, the first two boroughs in the schedule are Aldborough in Yorkshire, belonging to the Duke of Newcastle, and the other Aldborough in Suffolk belonging to Lord Hertford—both the rottenest of the rotten. Well then—if the House votes for abolishing either Aldborough, the principle of abolition is admitted; if they vote against it and succeed, then we go to a dissolution upon one of the rottenest cases in the schedule. This is the object of all others for an appeal to the country upon.”

“18th.

“Sefton and I had Lord Chancellor Vaux to ourselves last night in Arlington Street. . . . I can’t conceal from you that, after he was gone, Sefton and I both agreed that a more unsatisfactory devil we had never beheld. Altho’ he was in the most loquacious, animated state, we could neither of us make out for the life of us what he would be at. The only thing we could agree upon was that he was an intriguing, perfidious rogue.’

“Tower, 21st.

“. . . This is a memorable day, and this a memorable hour of it, for our Sovereign has taken to this time to deliberate whether he accedes to Lord Grey’s application for a dissolution. . . . At all events the Reform Bill is to be abandoned in the House of Commons to-night upon the grounds that, in such a House of Commons, to carry it through is impossible. If the King runs true, a dissolution is to be announced at the same time; if he does not, the Ministers have to state that they have resigned.”

Ardent and uncompromising reformer and advocate of retrenchment as Creevey had always been, it is comical to see how he winced when the Committee, appointed by Lord Grey’s Government to revise the scale of salaries, trenched upon his own emoluments. “Have you seen,” he asks his step-daughter, “how that damned retrenching Committee have docked my office of £200 a year?” And again—“If Earl Grey does not get me back my £200 a year as Treasurer—I’ll eat him!” Most of the Treasurer’s correspondence at this time is taken up with the fluctuating prospects of the Reform Bill, and with various possibilities which presented themselves of his re-entering Parliament in order to give the measure his support. But, as usual, his letters are full of diverse incidents and gossip. Describing a royal night at the Opera, he observes:—“Billy 4th at the Opera was everything one could wish: a more Wapping air I defy a king to have—his hair five times as full of poudre as mine, and his seaman’s gold lace cock-and-pinch hat was charming. He slept most part of the Opera—never spoke to any one, or took the slightest interest in the concern. . . . I was sorry not to see more of Victoria: she was in a box with the Duchess of Kent, opposite and, of course, rather under us. When she looked over the box I saw her, and she looked a very nice little girl indeed.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“April 23rd.

“. . . Nothing could exceed the firmness and conduct altogether of our Sovereign yesterday. I know from Lord Grey that, when the latter stated the inconvenience that might arise from proroguing by commission, but added that it was quite out of the question to ask his Majesty to prorogue in person, the King replied:—‘My lord, I’ll go, if I go in a hackney coach!’”

On 4th May Thomas Creevey and James Brougham, brother of the Chancellor, were returned as members for Downton borough in the county of Wilts, by favour of the Earl of Radnor—the truculent Folkestone of Peninsular days. The affair was conducted in the good old style; neither of the candidates took the trouble to visit their constituents, who were exceedingly few and docile, quite content to be represented by anybody whom Lord Radnor chose to name to them.

“Brooks’s, May 11th.

“. . . Having been dressed by Mr. Durham, Mrs. Durham* and Sally her niece, it was agreed that never coat fitted so well or was so becoming, and off we went [to Court]. Would you believe it? in about ten minutes I was detected as being in the wrong livery. It is the Household only that wear red collars and cuffs; the official ones are black. This was rather a bore, but it made great fun, as Earl Grey happened to come into our room whilst we were in progress to the Presence Chamber. I caught hold of him and told him of my mistake, upon which I thought he would have burst, he was so entertained, and he swore the King would find me out directly. But pas du tout: when I had kissed his hand, he said in the most good-natured manner:—‘Oh, Creevey, how d’ye do? It is a long time since I had the pleasure of seeing you.’ Little Sussex was next to him, and when I retired from my Sovereign backing, he said out loud:—‘How gracefully he does it!’ and even Privy Seal† laughed out loud. So it was all mighty well, and Jemmy McDonald brought me back.”

* Who kept his lodgings in Bury Street.

† Lord Durham.

“12th.

“. . . It was in contemplation, by some of the Cabinet, to postpone the Reform Bill when [the new] Parliament met till autumn—a step that would have been madness, and perhaps ruin to them. That, however, is quite abandoned, and Lambton authorised them to state at the Middlesex election that it would come on the very first thing.”

“9th May.

“. . . I had a very good day yesterday at my dear and old friend Essex’s—Lords Sefton, Foley, Cowper, Ducie, and Du Cane, Ellice and Poodle Byng: then to Arlington Street [the Seftons]; then to Dow. Sally’s.* . . . I called yesterday on Niffy and the Pop.† but both were out.”

“16th.

“. . . Brougham said to Sefton yesterday:—‘I hear a batch of new peers is on the stocks; but I have never been consulted; which I think is pretty well, considering my situation. However, as they can’t be made without the Great Seal being put to their patents, I’ll be damned if I use it for such purpose till I am properly consulted and give my consent!’ . . . As I learnt from Lord Sefton that Brougham’s observations about me had been made at the Queen’s ball last Monday, I was prepared for some change of manner in him when we met at dinner at Mrs. Ferguson’s on Thursday; but it was quite otherwise. . . . We met again on Saturday at Hughes’s, and tho’ he was evidently out of sorts, it was not with me, for he confided to me before dinner that he never saw such a set of bores collected together—that the thing was damnable—and whenever he made any exertion at dinner, it was in addressing me at quite the other end of the table. As to bores, I don’t know that they were particularly so. Lady Augusta Milbank, and Ciss Underwood, with such a profusion of gold bijouterie in all parts that nothing was wanting but something

* Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury.

† Marquess and Marchioness of Cleveland.

hanging from her nose. Sir Harry and Lady Grey, little Sussex, Vaux, Lords Dundas and Uxbridge,* Denman, Col. J. Hughes, Councillor Whateley, Admiral Codrington (a real bore), Mr. Creevey, and some others I think. I sat next to Denman,† and never was more surprised than to find him a feeble punster and as commonplace a chap in conversation as I ever saw in my life. As Suss‡ took to smoking, and Vaux from ennui did the same, I availed myself of my remote situation near a door, and whipt off before they went to coffee.”

“Tower, May 18th, 1831.

“. . . I paid a visit to Lady Grey in her [opera] box. . . . She is always shy of giving political opinions except when alone; but upon my observing that, from what I heard, Brougham must be in his tantrums at present:—‘I believe,’ she said, ‘he is mad.’ As she and Lord Grey had been staying at Holland House, I asked how it had answered, and she said:—‘As well as it could, sitting down 15 at dinner each day to a table that holds only nine.’—Can’t you see her saying that? . . . Grey complains of giddiness, and no wonder, with all he eats and his little exercise.”

“27th.

“. . . While I was riding in the Park yesterday, I received rather a smartish spat on my shoulder from an unseen stick. When I turned round and saw my assailant in quite an ultra fit of laughing, who do you suppose it could be? No other than our Prime Minister. . . . When I said of his royal master that every new thing I heard of him raised him higher in my opinion, he said:—‘He is a prime fellow, is he not?’ . . . I heard part of the King’s letter to Lord Grey:—‘The King considers it as most important in the present crisis of affairs to give some decisive proof of his unqualified confidence in Lord Grey, and for such a purpose he trusts Lord Grey will no longer

* Afterwards 2nd Marquess of Anglesey.

† Afterwards Lord Chief Justice, created Lord Denman in 1834.

‡ H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex.

resist receiving from his hands the Order of the Garter, altho’ that Order is now full; Lord Grey to be an Extra Knight, and the Order to be reduced to its proper number upon the first vacancy.’”

“30th.

“. . . I had an opportunity of seeing our own new knight, and very severe we were upon him for wearing his Garter upon pantaloons or trowsers—he who always makes so distinguished a figure in shorts and buckles.”

“June 14th.

“. . . Well, Mull* tells me it is all settled about his father’s peerage—Baron Sefton of Croxteth.†—There are only four others—Kinnaird one, which is a charming blow by our Sovereign to the Scotch peers who would not elect him one of the 16 representative peers.”

“18th.

“. . . Rather sharp work this day 16 years ago at Waterloo and Brussels. . . . Lord Grey told Sefton that Lambton‡ made him both miserable and actually ill by his constant interference and persecution of him. . . . Charles Greville told me he was at Lady Jersey’s when Wellington was there, the subject of conversation being the cholera morbus. Lady Jersey said to the Duke:—‘You know what Lord Grey has done about it?’—‘No.’—‘He has given orders that all merchandise coming from the Baltic shall be instantly destroyed.’—‘Oh impossible!’—‘But I know it to be quite true.’ Just at that time she left the room and the Duke availed himself of her absence to observe to Greville—‘What damned nonsense Lady Jersey talks!’ . . .”

“20th.

“. . . Yesterday I dined in Portland Place and went in the evening to Downing Street, where I found Tommy Moore at the pianoforte, playing and singing his own melodies; and very much delighted I was with his performance.”

* Viscount Molyneux, afterwards 3rd Earl of Sefton.

† He was Earl of Sefton only in the peerage of Ireland.

‡ Lord Durham.

“25th.

“. . . I have been giving a curious receipt upon a curious subject. The Duke of Wellington and Sir Wm. Knighton have this day paid me £3,170 as executors of his late Majesty. The money is for tents erected upon that part of Windsor Park called the Virginia Water. The canvas composing the tents is from Ordnance stores, and as his Majesty was pleased to imagine that whenever he took the field, his Ordnance Department must supply him with tents, he never meant to pay for these articles. Tennyson, finding the amount of this job in his books, has demanded payment from the executors. . . . What think you of the payment of the artificers who put up these tents—four large and four small ones—being upwards of £2000 out of the £3,170? I think Knighton must have been one of these artificers. If such a sum can have been spent upon a few tents, what think you of the whole expenditure of the Virginia Water, Cottage, &c., &c.? Oh dear, oh dear! . . . Well our Reform Bill made its first appearance last night, and under most pacific circumstances. . . . Peel was very temperate.’

“30th.

“. . . Our Earl [Sefton] is confined with the influenza (la grippe), and sent all over the town for me yesterday. . . .’

“July 6th.

“. . . I went to Arlington Street yesterday and found Lady Sefton, and was half inclined to put off dining there in order to be present at the Honorable [House], but she said I really should be of use, as Lord Sefton was still very unwell and very low, and that as Lord Grey and Mr. and Lady Elizabeth Bulteel were the only company, she begged me to come and help the party; so what, you know, could I do? The two Earls looked shockingly, and were still labouring under the grippe, and were as low as could be to begin with; but altho’ I say it who should not, I never had a better benefit than I had in bringing them both about. It is not usual to amuse a Prime Minister by jokes upon members of his own Cabinet; but the ‘Siamese youths’ and the genteel comedy man Graham,* with imitations, stretched the veins in his forehead to their utmost, poor fellow. He said with the greatest innocence:—‘Everybody told me there was nothing to be done without the two Grants.† and they have never been worth a farthing!’”

“9th.

“. . . We had a rum go of it in the H. of Commons last night in our division and minority about issuing the Liverpool writ. I never saw such feeble devils as our young Cabinet Ministers. . . . Lord Sefton is again very unwell and confined to the house. Halford, who had seen him to-day, is himself very unwell with this grippe, and he says the way he is hunted after by a succession of invalids under the same complaint, is really beyond!”

“11th.

“. . . I dine on Friday at Lord Melbourne’s, Saturday at Lord Petre’s, Sunday at Dowr. Sally’s. . . . A card from Lady Jersey for Thursday—the first this season. Does she begin to think at last that she can’t turn the Government out? or is it in return for Grey’s civility in sending as he did to the Beau and Peel to beg their assistance at a Council about the intended Coronation. Charles Greville carried the message from Grey, and they both seemed much pleased, and said they would attend.”

“Stoke, August 22nd.

“. . . I am very fond of Melbourne. There is an absence of all humbug about him and a frankness and good-humour that, in a Secretary of State, are charming. What a contrast to the wretched, feeble, artificial Roscius!”‡

* Right Hon. Sir James Graham [1792-1861], First Lord of the Admiralty.

† One Grant was the Right Hon. Charles Grant [1778-1866], afterwards created Lord Glenelg. He held office in Lord Grey’s Cabinet as President of the Board of Controul. The other was Robert Grant, M.P., a Canningite, appointed Governor of Bombay in 1834.

‡ Marquess of Lansdowne.

The approaching Coronation caused the usual fierce competition and humiliating supplications for peerages, baronetcies, and such-like. The good offices of Creevey, as a member of the Government, were enlisted in many quarters. Here is a note from the Lord Chancellor referring to the claim of one of his friends who desired some genealogical particulars inserted in his patent of baronetcy.

Lord Brougham and Vaux to Mr. Creevey.

“Dear C.,

“I return the letter of Lady W[alsham]. The insertion is wholly impossible. It is making the Crown and Great Seal a party to an assertion of pedigree, &c., &c., without a shadow of evidence, except their own assertion. For aught I can tell, there may be half a dozen people who say they are heirs-at-law of the 1661 man.

“Yours ever, “H. B.

“H. Meux is grandson of an old baronet, and heir-at-law undeniably, and connected with the Blood Royal in two or three ways; but he has not the slightest allusion to it in his patent. Such things are never done for any of the idiots who think nothing so good as nick-names. I am sure Lady W. would have been far less pleased if her husband had made the best speech ever was made in Parlt., or her son had been Senior Wrangler. I hope the fools know it costs them above £1200. It is twice the price of a peerage.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Sept. 7th.

“. . . I returned to the Honorable, and was in at the death, thank God! of the Reform Bill Committee. . . . Western can’t be made a peer at present,* least Jack Tyrrell should supply his place in our house.”

“Sept. 16, 1831.

“. . . Our Reform Report past last night without a division, and the only remaining stage is the 3rd reading of the Bill on Monday next, which it is calculated will occupy two, if not three nights. I am happy to say that our Earl Grey is as stout as a lion as to the result of the Bill in the Lords. If it is defeated, his mind is quite made up to prorogue for six weeks or two months—make a new batch of peers in the interval that shall be quite sufficient in number to secure the measure, and then start fresh with it. As Holland said to me the other day—if this bill is rejected, the question will be, will you have revolution or will you have a larger House of Lords? and a very sensible man he is, with quite as warm an attachment to his office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as another person who shall be nameless to the Treasurership of the Ordnance!”

“Stoke, 20th.

“. . . Old Wickedshifts and I had a most agreeable duet to Stoke,† or at least within 3 miles of it, when he had fairly talked himself to sleep. . . . Sefton and I were more astonished at him than ever. By his conversation with old Talleyrand it appeared most clearly that Vaux had been intimately acquainted with every leading Frenchman in the Revolution, and indeed with every Frenchman and every French book that Tally mentioned. He always led in this conversation, as soon as Tally had started his subject. Our party altogether was a most agreeable one—Tally and the Dino, Esterhazy, M[illegible] his 2nd in command, Vaux, old Greville and Ly. Charlotte, Punch‡ and Henry, Alava, Luttrell and myself. . . . I got to the Honorable [House] before 12, when I found there had been a division; in short, the Bill read a 3rd time

* Mr. Western was made a peer in 1833.

† Brougham had taken Creevey down in his carriage from London.

‡ Charles Greville.

between 5 and 6 o’clock—a surprise, which did not serve the purpose which its wily authors intended!”

“House of Commons, 22nd.

“. . . Johnny has taken up his child in his arms, followed by a rare tribe of godfathers, and old Brougham approached us with proper dignity, and taking it into his arms carried it to his place and told their lordships the name given to it by the Commons. Then Lord Grey having moved it to be read the first time, which was done, moved the 2nd reading for Monday week 2nd October, which was agreed to—not a word said.”

“Brooks’s, Sept. 23rd.

“. . . Let me mention a thing which Sefton told me when I was at Stoke. I was expressing some surmise about this late jaw respecting the Duchess of Kent’s absence from the Coronation, and the cause of it, when, having according to custom bound me to secrecy, he said he would tell me all about it, having had it from Brougham. The offensive attack upon her for her absence, assigning pure pique as the cause of it, made its appearance in the Times newspaper, and this became food for all the others; upon which B. sent his secretary Le Marchant to Barnes, editor of the Times, insisting upon knowing whose article it was, knowing as he did that it was pure invention. Barnes said it came from an authority that he implicitly relied on, but that he could not and would not give him up. Le Marchant, when he brought this report to B., gave it as his opinion that, if B. himself took Barnes in hand, the latter would strike. He was, of course, summoned accordingly, and having yielded to the thundering or seducing arguments of our Vaux, the libeller turned out to be no other than Henry de Ros, as at present Lord de Ros. It seems he and Barnes have been lately mixed up a good deal together at Paris, and this is the use de Ros has chosen to make of the connection. It is barely possible that de Ros may have believed this to be true, upon the authority of his sister, who, you know, is Maid of Honor to the Queen. . . . The object, however, both of sister and brother was clearly to do the Duchess of Kent an injury, and by such means to please the King and Queen, particularly the latter, who is known to have somewhat adverse feelings to the Duchess. The thing, however, was utterly destitute of foundation, the Duchess of Kent having most respectfully asked the King for permission to absent herself on account of her child’s health, and the King, in the most gracious manner, having greatly extolled her conduct for the reasons assigned by her.

“The Duchess of Kent wrote to her adviser, Vaux, in a strain of the greatest distress and vexation, but she is now pacified, and he has informed her of his discovery of the slanderer, but that he humbly requests of her R. Highness that she will not command him to disclose the author. In the mean time, as no one knows better how to turn any little matter to account than our Vaux, and as he knows that de Ros is to be a thorough-stitch opposer of our Reform Bill in the Lords, he sends for the innocent Leinster, and he states to him with unaffected regret that Lord de Ros has unfortunately compromised himself and character in an affair of great publick importance, and is entirely in the hands of the Government. Under such circumstances, Vaux requests the Duke to urge his kinsman with all his might to use every possible caution against this matter being made publick. Now was there ever? Do you think de Ros’s vote will be withheld by this plot of Vaux’s?”

“Brooks’s, Oct. 6th.

“. . . What the result [of the division of the Lords] will be, no one knows, excepting this much, that their strength is in proxies, i.e., in those who are rejecting the Bill without hearing it.”

There is no mention in Creevey’s letters of the result which took place on the 8th October. The Lords divided at six in the morning, throwing out the Bill by 199 votes to 158. A few days earlier, Macaulay had spoken the memorable words:—“I know only two ways in which societies can be governed— by public opinion and by the sword;” and immediately the reality of the alternative became apparent in the country. An agitation of violence, unparalleled since the Civil War, raged in every part of the kingdom, and the forces of the Crown proved unequal to cope with those of the populace in Bristol, Nottingham, and other places. Creevey paid a visit to Dublin during the autumn, in which it is not necessary to follow him; observing, in passing, that his passage from Holyhead to Kingstown occupied “just sixteen hours, the average trip being six hours and a half.” He was back in time for the meeting of Parliament on 6th December, it having been prorogued on 20th October.

CHAPTER X. 1832-1833.

The year 1832 dawned upon a stricken field. The great battle for Reform seemed to have been fought and won. It is true that the forces upon each side were still in array upon their respective positions; the artillery of both was still discharging its thunder; but the majority of 162 by which the Bill had been carried before the Christmas adjournment had shattered the last hopes of the Opposition. Excursions and alarums continued when the House met again, but all men had made up their minds to the inevitable, and were casting about for some sure foothold under the new order of things. Nevertheless, the House of Lords, as it proved, were ready to renew the war.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Jany. 20th, 1832.

“. . . Oh dear! what a squeak we had last night. To come down to a majority of only 20. Sad work, gentlemen, sad work! However, it might have been worse, for the enemy to the last thought we were beat. We are bunglers when we quit the subject of Reform. . . . It is some comfort that in our other shop, the Lords, everything went well. Lord Grey had insisted on Lord Hill* voting against the Duke of Wellington, and he did so—looking very miserable.”

* As Commander-in-chief, and therefore a member of the Government.

“30th.

“. . . Durham told me Tennyson* is moving heaven and earth to get the name of his office changed from ‘clerk’ to that of ‘secretary’ or anything else, alleging gravely as a reason that a very advantageous marriage for his eldest daughter had gone off, solely from the lover not being able to stand the lady’s father being a clerk!”

“Feb. 13th.

“. . . Yesterday I dined in Arlington Street, with Talleyrand, the Dino, Lord and Lady Cowper, the Dukes of Devonshire and Argyll, Mulgrave and Charles Greville, and a very agreeable day we had, in spite of the total deafness of the D. of Devonshire.”

“21st.

“We had a great go of it last night: 53 boroughs fell in succession without a fight. But there is still great division in the Cabinet about making peers, altho’ Lord Grey has now the King’s permission under his own hand in writing to use his own discretion in making whatever addition to the Peerage he thinks necessary. Brougham’s illness seemed to affect his vigor of mind, and made him rather on the jib on this subject; but now he is himself again, and quite as vigorous as ever in his demand for new peers. Grey, Goderich, Holland and Lambton are on the same side, but there is a regular murrain in all the rest of the squad. . . . King Billy hates the peer-making, but as a point of honor to his ministers he gives them unlimited power.”

“March 13th (my birthday).

“We had a great party in Downing Street last night, the Tories being at least 3 to 1 to us Whigs. I had a most agreeable conversation with Lord Grey, quite at his ease in a corner, and I beg to record the substance of part of it, that we may see how his predictions correspond with the event. I asked him now he felt about this Bill of his—did he feel confident he could carry the 2nd reading?—‘Oh certainly.

* Clerk to the Board of Ordnance.

We shall be able to carry Schedule A—to give members to the great towns, and to carry the £10 qualification clause without any alteration. I said I trusted he was not too sanguine about it, for that I never could believe it till I saw it; but that, if he proved to be right, he need not care about the loss of Schedule B or anything else, because a new Parliament would soon settle everything. . . . That he is under delusion in his expectations, I cannot yet bring myself to doubt. . . . You know that Earl Grey is 68 this day, and his faithful Treasurer [Creevey] 64. I reckon it a great honor to have been born on the same day of the year with him.”

“22nd.

“. . . Our case stands thus. Wood, Lord Grey’s secretary, and Wharncliffe went over their lists of the H. of Lords yesterday, and they lay down as law that the 2nd reading will be carried by—12!”

“Tower, March 24th.

“. . . Well, the Reform Bill closed with us last night. . . . I have been drawing on the bank to-day in favor of Cox and Greenwood for upwards of £50,000. Is it your opinion they will ever get as much from me again? My opinion is they will not. However, if I lose my office, I shall give up Downton, retire into the country, and write memoirs.”

“Bury St., 26th.

“. . . The Cabinet met yesterday and were unanimous. Thursday week was to be proposed for the 2nd reading in the Lords, instead of this day week, because in the interval all the supplies for the year can be voted, and if, after that, the 2nd reading is rejected or outvoted—that very hour Parliament is to be prorogued, and peers created to any requisite amount.”

“27th.

“. . . I am in much better heart about the 2nd reading in the Lords. Altho’ Wharncliffe and Harrowby have few or no followers, yet it is so evidently fright of the consequences that a second rejection of this Bill may produce that influences them in their present course, that the same fright has very naturally found its way into other members of the Tory camp. . . . Howick told me his father [Lord Grey] had this very day received letters from six Tory peers expressing their intentions either to vote for the 2nd reading or to stay away, and thanking Lord Grey for not having carried this Bill by a new creation of Peers.”

“April 2nd.

“. . . I have a card to dine with Lord Dudley for this day week, tho’ it is said he is insane, and Halford told Sefton he was to be put under coercion this very day.”

“4th.

“Well, altho’ I say it who should not, I really think I was very great at the Earl and Countess Grey’s on Saturday. The party consisted of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who came together in the same carriage, and therefore their marriage could not be more distinctly announced;† Lord and Ly. Cleveland, Lord and Lady Morley, Lord and Lady Ponsonby, General and Lady Grey, Bulteel and Lady Churchill, Ellice, Sydney Smith and Mr. Creevey. As I opened the door for the ladies when they left the dining-room, Lady Cleveland said:—‘How agreeable you have been!’ When Lady Grey came last, she put out her hand and said:—‘Oh thank you! Mr. Creevey; how useful you have been.’ Lady Georgiana told me last night she had laughed out aloud in bed at one of my stories. . . . Such is my evidence of the success of a vain old man! . . . I don’t suppose there could be a stricter or more cordial friendship than between Lady Morley and myself. She has a great deal of natural waggery, with overflowing

* Lord Dudley died in the following year.

† The Duke of Sussex married Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the 4th Earl of Dunmore, in 1793, but the marriage was dissolved in 1794 as being contrary to the Royal Marriage Act. Lady Augusta died in 1830, when his Royal Highness declared his marriage with Lady Cecilia, ninth daughter of the Earl of Arran, and widow of Sir George Buggin.

spirits, but she is more of a noisy man than a polished countess.”

“17th.

“. . . Albemarle just tells me he has seen the King often since the event, and that nothing can equal his ecstacies. He justly observes ‘it is such a load off his mind.’ He never slept a wink, he says, on Friday night till he learnt the result. To be sure, he ought to be pretty grateful to the jockey who rode and won the race for him.”

The jubilation of the Reformers was brief indeed. The Bill, indeed, had passed the second reading in the Lords on 6th April by a majority of nine, but this was only by help of the Tory Lords Wharncliffe and Harrowby, and their slender following, who were known by the ominous title of the Waverers. Such a majority could scarcely impart sufficient momentum to the measure to carry it through committee; and, in effect, on the first evening after the Easter recess, the Government were beaten on Lord Lyndhurst’s motion to postpone the clauses disfranchising the rotten boroughs.

Thereupon, on 8th May, Lord Grey advised the King to create so many peers “as might ensure the success of the Bill in all its essential principles.” King William’s enthusiasm for the measure had greatly cooled since the second reading; he refused to take the step recommended; and Lord Grey and his colleagues resigned on 9th May. His Majesty then commissioned the Duke of Wellington to form an administration. The Duke undertook to do so, on the understanding that he should bring in an extensive measure of Reform; but he utterly failed in the attempt to get Peel, Baring, and others to face work so contrary to their principles and past professions. In the end, Lord Grey was induced to withdraw his resignation, and before the end of the month a fresh Whig Ministry was in office.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Bury Street, May 9th.

“. . . Ladies, I have lost my Tower! C’en est fait de nous! Dead as mutton, every man John of us, so help me Jingo! You see, after our defeat in the Lords on Monday, a Cabinet was summoned for that night and the next day. The result was Grey and Brougham going down to Windsor yesterday at 3 o’clock to ask the King to create a sufficient number of peers in order to recover their ground and so secure the Bill, or, if he would not do that, to accept their resignation. They did not return till eleven; but by means of my faithful and active enquirer, Sefton, who got to Crocky’s a little past one, I found it was all over. The King had not even preserved his usual civility, had shown strong reluctance to the proposition, and concluded by saying Lord Grey should have his answer on Thursday. He did not even offer the poor fellows any victuals, and they were obliged to put into port at the George posting-house at Hounslow, and so get some mutton chops. . . . Sefton was with Brougham a little after nine this morning, and during his stay a letter came from Grey to B. enclosing the King’s letter just received, in which his Majesty accepts their resignation. Let me not fail to add that Brougham, on having read it out aloud to Sefton, sprung from his chair and, rubbing his hands, declared that it was the happiest moment of his life! I daresay, from his late debility, that what he said he felt. . . . Our beloved Billy cuts a damnable figure in this business, because he is clearly influenced by our defeat on Monday. He permitted the Duke of Cumberland to tell his friends that he would make no peers, and then the rats were in their old ranks again at once. All that I have to hope upon this occasion is that there will be the same dawdling in making out my successor’s patent as there was in making out mine. I regret certainly the loss of position and of doing agreeable things to myself with my official resources; but it was quite an unexpected windfall to me, has lasted much longer than I expected, and the recollection of the manner in which it fell to my lot will always be most agreeable to me. And so there’s an end of the business, and it will never affect me more.”

“Tower, May 10th.

“. . . Our perfidious Billy was the outside of graciosity to Lord Grey at the levee yesterday, and said Geo. the 2nd could not have felt more bitterly at parting from Sir Robert Walpole, nor Geo. the 3rd at parting with Lord North, than he did at parting with Lord Grey. Damned easy said, was it not? As to our Bruffam, the King implored him three times over not to leave him, used every argument to convince him that he was not bound to go out, and that, by remaining, the greatest possible publick benefit would accrue to the country. Brougham, however, had no alternative but to tell him that it was most distressing to his feelings to be urged to separate himself from Lord Grey, with whose fate his own was irrevocably fix’d. The King tried his hand, too, upon the Duke of Richmond, who was equally firm. . . . Upon leaving the Palace on his return to Windsor, Billy got rather roughly treated by the people, both at his own door and at Hyde Park Corner and other places.”

“House of C., 18th.

“. . . To-night really all is right. If you doubt it, take Althorp’s communication to our House, viz.:—‘That the Government, having received securities for passing the Reform Bill, remain his Majesty’s Ministers during pleasure.’ This was followed by a most valuable declaration from Peel ‘that he never would have joined the late attempted administration of the Duke of Wellington.’ . . . Grey and Reform and the Tower for ever!’

“26th.

“One more day will finish the concern in the Lords, and that this should have been accomplished as it has against a great majority of peers, and without making a single new one, must always remain one of the greatest miracles in English history. The conqueror of Waterloo had great luck on that day; so he had when Marmont made a false move at Salamanca; but at last comes his own false move, which has destroyed himself and his Tory high-flying association for ever, which has passed the Reform Bill without opposition. That has saved the country from confusion, and perhaps the monarch and monarchy from destruction.”

“Tower, June 2nd.

“. . . In the House of Lords yesterday Grey, according to his custom, came and talked with me. It is really too much to see his happiness at its being all over and well over. He dwells upon the marvellous luck of Wellington’s false move—upon the eternal difficulties he (Grey) would have been involved in had the Opposition not brought it to a crisis when they did. Their blunder he conceives to have been their belief that he would not resign upon this defeat on an apparent question of form. Thank God! they did not know their man.”

“June 5th.

“. . . Thank God! I was in at the death of this Conservative plot, and the triumph of our Bill. This is the third great event of my life at which I have been present, and in each of which I have been to a certain extent mixed up—the battle of Waterloo, the battle of Queen Caroline, and the battle of Earl Grey and the English nation for the Reform Bill. If the Conservative press is aware that the Master-in-Chancery who carried this Bill from the Lords to the Commons was our Harry Martin, lineal descendant of Harry Martin the regicide, what a subject it will be for them tomorrow!”

“7th.

“. . . The Reform Bill passed by Commission—commissioners Lords Grey, Brougham, Durham, Holland and Wellesley.”

“18th.”

“. . . How do you think the Duke of Wellington has been treated on this anniversary of the battle of Waterloo? He went to call on Wetherell at Lincoln’s Inn on horseback, and, being recognised, so large a mob assembled there and shewed such very bad temper towards him, that he was obliged to send for the police to protect him home, and he did accordingly return in the centre of a very large body of police and a mob of about 2000 people, hooting him all the way.”*

“Tower, 27th.

“. . . Grey would not go to the Duke of Wellington’s last night, tho’ invited to meet the King; but he had an audience with the King during the day to apologise for so doing. Lady Grey, too, was at the Opera, instead of being with her King and Queen. How like them both! and yet I suppose it was wrong.”

“Buxton, Sept. 9th.

“. . . I have been so lucky in picking up a playfellow in Lady Wellesley. She sent me a message that she wished to renew her acquaintance with me; since which I have walked for an hour with her daily, and in my life I never found a more agreeable companion. She always asked me to come again the next day, and I franked all her letters for her. Miss Cator told me a very pleasant saying of King Billy about Lady Wellesley. When she was in waiting at Windsor, some one, in talking of Mrs. Trollope’s book, said:—‘Do you come from that part of America where they “guess” and where they “calculate”?—

* The facts were not exactly as reported to Mr. Creevey. The Duke was returning from the Mint when the mob assembled. Attempts were made in Fenchurch Street to drag him from his horse, and in Holborn there was some stone-throwing. Four policemen—two on each side of his horse’s head—escorted him to the end of Chancery Lane, down which the Duke turned and rode to Sir Charles Wetherell’s chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. The gate of New Street Square being closed behind him, the mob was kept at bay, while the Duke rode quietly out into Lincoln’s Inn Fields and so home to Apsley House.

King Billy said:—‘Lady Wellesley comes from where they fascinate!’”*

“Stoke, Nov. 4th.

“. . . Here are our Greys and Talleyrand and the Dino. . . . What an idiot I am never to have made myself a Frenchman. To think of having such a card as this old villain Talleyrand so often within one’s reach, and yet not to be able to make anything of it. I play my accustomed rubber of whist with him.”

Creevey’s retirement from Parliament was now imminent, for although Lord Radnor and other friends were anxious to find him a seat, and many proposals were made to him, things could not be so snugly arranged under the new order of things as had been possible in the good old days of pocket boroughs. Therefore, Lord Grey, Lord Sefton, and the rest of his many friends in the party now in power, concerned themselves to find him a comfortable billet outside Parliament.

“Brooks’s, Nov. 24th.

“. . . I got a bothering, long-winded letter from Wood, stating how very anxious both Lord Grey and Althorp were to have every official man in the House of Commons, and, in short, giving me a very intelligible jog or hint that my place would be more usefully filled by a House of Commons man; and then a place for life was offered me in return which has just become vacant. And what do you suppose this place was? It is Receiver-General of the Isle of Man—salary £500 a year—residence in the said romantic island nine months only out of the twelve. . . . I said the Isle of Man as a piece of humour was everything I could wish, and I could only treat it in that way; that if Lord Grey wanted my place for the purpose of strengthening his Government in the House of

* Lady Wellesley was a daughter of Mr. Caton of Philadelphia, U.S.A.

Commons, it was quite at his disposal, with great obligations on my part for his manner of having given it me, and without asking for any terms whatever.”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Nov. 24th. “Dear Creevey,

“I have been at work for you this morning, and am much satisfied with the result. Brougham says you cannot be left in the lurch, and laughs at the Isle of Man. Wood says, ‘Very well: things must remain as they are at present, and we must try and find something that will suit him.’ Ellis [? Ellice] was present: they both volunteered saying you had the first claim of anybody, and MUST be considered; that even if you had no place now, you wd. have irresistible claims both on party and private grounds. In short, you stand as well as possible, if you don’t take the romantic line, of which I know by experience you are quite capable.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Bury St., Nov. 28th.

“. . . Sefton said he did not wonder that I would not touch the Isle of Man, but it was the only thing they had then to offer, and that the applications for it were endless.”

“1st Dec.

“. . . Well, here goes for the last letter I shall ever frank; and what of that? We shall get others to frank for us, and Monday will be the last day I shall ever receive a letter free, except at the Tower.* Ah, Barry, my dear! there’s the rub—the Tower, the dear Tower; now long shall we have it?”

* Members of Parliament enjoyed the privilege, not only of franking letters, but of receiving them without paying the postage which ordinary recipients had to do to the tune of from 10d. to 1s. 6d. according to distance.

“Dec. 5th.

“. . . Lord Grey has lost that one front tooth which has so long upheld his upper lip; but his face, tho’ altered by it, is much less so than I should have expected; and his voice and manner of speaking not the least affected by it.”

Intense curiosity prevailed as to the appearance of the reformed Parliament, and all the political memoirs of that time abound with impressions thereof. On the whole, the outward change was much less than most people expected—at least, as to the class of members returned. The position of parties, indeed, was of startling significance. For the first time in the history of Parliament the voice of the people had obtained articulate utterance, and its accents were a stern condemnation and rejection of those who had resisted Reform. The new House of Commons contained but 149 Tories against 509 Whigs and Liberals; but some of the extreme men who were returned found their level, much to their own surprise and those of their friends, considerably lower than they had anticipated. Such is the mysterious but irresistible atmosphere of the House of Commons in all ages.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Feby. 2nd, 1833.

“. . . The start the other day was most favorable for the Government. Hume boasted beforehand that he was sure of 100 followers; so that 31 only was a woful falling off. It seems to be put beyond all doubt that Cobbett can do nothing. His voice and manner of speaking are tiresome, in addition to which his language is blackguard beyond anything one ever heard of. O’Connell, too, was disgustingly coarse.”

“9th.

“. . . It is made perfectly manifest by their first vote that the Reformed Parliament is not a Radical one, when Joe Hume and the Rt. Honble. Tennyson and all the O’Connells and all the Repealers, with Cobbett to boot, could only muster 40 against 400!”

“Tower, Feby. 28th, 1833.

“. . . What say you to the Duchesse de Berri’s approaching accouchement? Young Bourmont is said to be the lucky lover. What a termination to all her heroism to save the Crown of France for her son! It is really too ridiculous: just the event to close the career of the Carlists.”

“March 14.

“There has been most stormy work in the Cabinet for some time, and it has been with the greatest difficulty Grey and Althorp have submitted to Stanley’s obstinacy about Irish tithes. The more violent Lambton I dare say would not submit, and he retires with an earldom, to cure his headaches, of course. What pretty physic! How delighted his colleagues must be that he is gone, for there never was such a disagreeable, overbearing devil to bear with in a Cabinet. . . .”

“April 10th.

“How are you all as to Influenza? Here it spares no one—man, woman, or child, and it is a decided epidemic. I can scarcely see out of my eyes for it at this moment. . . .”

“April 15th.

“There is an unfavourable account of Charles Grenfell, who is laid up at Stoke with this influenza. My lord and my lady [Sefton] arrived between 9 and 10 from Stoke on purpose to see Taglioni dance, but she was in bed with this complaint. There are seventeen servants at Stoke laid up with it, not one of whom can do a stroke of work.”

“18th.

“. . . Sefton is seriously annoyed at the terrible state in which Lord Foley’s family have been left. They have been literally without bread of late. The present young lord, who is excellent, was induced by his father to make himself answerable for his father’s debts, and will not have a farthing left. She has a jointure of £2,500 a year, and the younger children (7 in number) have £30,000 amongst them. The family estate was £40,000 a year, all of which is either gone, or must go. Was there ever such wickedness?”

“May 20th.

“. . . There is the greatest fuss about the turn-out at Sefton’s to-day. I don’t know if you remember a picture of Charles X. in the dining-room, sent to the Sefton’s by the King himself. The Dino says it is absolutely impossible that the Duc d’Orleans can sit opposite that picture at dinner, and yet says that, in the situation of the Seftons, she would die rather than it should be taken away; so all she prays of them is that it may not be in the dining-room.”

“25th.

“. . . Would you believe it, that cursed Berkeley* has gone and married the woman he lived with, after his father behaving so beautifully as he did upon what he was led to consider their separation for ever. He settled £200 a year for life upon her, £100 upon the child, and all their debts paid; and yet, the day before yesterday, this colonel had the grace to announce to his father by letter from Gloucester that he is married, and that £600 is absolutely necessary to free him from fresh difficulties. Sefton told me he would have nothing to reproach himself for to the last, and he has sent him this £600. . . . I think for the purchase of the Lieut. Colonelcy of the 8th Hussars Sefton gave £11,000. I never could tell why, but he was certainly Sefton’s favorite son, and a charming return he has made him. . . . Yesterday I dined at Stanley’s. Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Gordon were the only performers after dinner, and two more noisy vulgar fellows I never saw. Fitzroy Somerset, Kempt, McDonald and I settled them between ourselves afterwards.”

* Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. George Berkeley Molyneux, 2nd son of the 2nd Earl of Sefton. In Burke’s Peerage Colonel Molyneux’s marriage with Mrs. Eliza Stuart is dated 1824.

“June 1st.

“. . . I had a great deal of Duncannon’s two eldest daughters [at Lady Grey’s party]. Lord Kerry was in close attendance upon the second, as it is said he always is, and I trust he will marry her.”*

“Tower, June 12.

“I begin here, not from having anything to write about, but from pure affection to the spot. As soon as I see my four turrets come in view when I turn into Tower Street, I think what agreeable companions they have been to me, and I always hope they may continue so for a little longer. “Here’s the bower, the darling Tower, The Tower that Rufus planted; Dear Norman King! ’twas just the thing— The thing that Creevey wanted.

“I’ll tell you one project I wish my Tower to carry into execution for me. I have set my heart upon our all going to the Menai Bridge in the autumn. My allowance for going to Ireland gives me one pair of horses, and my place will easily give the leaders. So think of it, ladies, and gratify me by saying it shall be done, and it shall be called ‘the Treat of the Tower.’ . . . Our dinner in Arlington Street was quite as gay as if Berkeley had not disgraced himself as he has done—the Manvers’s, George Ansons and de Ros’s, with the usual list of dandies and swindlers (D’Orsay included).”

“15th.

“. . . We had a capital assembly at Lady Grey’s, and I collected clearly that we are not going to resign, let the majority in the Lords against our Irish Church

* He did so within a year.

Reform Bill be what it may; so that is all as it should be. The great stumbling-block before us is—will the Lords consent to the future reduction of the Irish Bishops. It is a bitter pill for them to swallow: I don’t see how the English Bishops are to stand it; and yet I am perfectly convinced that if that bill is flung out in the Lords, the present House of Commons, either in this very session or the next, will commence operations for dislodging the Bishops from the H. of Lords altogether; and eventually they must succeed.”

“19th.

“. . . I met Brougham at dinner yesterday at Miss Berry’s, and a most agreeable dinner we had. In addition to Brougham—Sydney Smith, Ld. and Ly. Lyttelton, Ly. Charlotte Lindsay, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley (the member for Cheshire). She is a person greatly admired, a daughter of the late Lord Dillon. Ly. Lyttelton, you know, is a sister of Althorp’s, and seemed quite as worthy, and in her dress as homely as he, tho’ the Berry told me she was very highly accomplished. It was shortly after I came into Parliament that Ward* and Lyttelton† came into the H. of Commons, each with great academical fame and every prospect of being distinguished public men. Poor Ward, with all his acquirements and talents, made little of it, went mad and died. Lyttelton having married, and being very poor, could not afford to continue in Parliament; and tho’ he wanted little to enable him to do so, the meanness of Lord Spencer would not supply him with it, and he has been an exile almost ever since. Tho’ grown very grey for his age, he is as lively and charming a companion as the town can produce, and they are said to be the happiest couple in the world.”

“20th.

“. . . I have just heard from Tavistock, who is undoubted authority, that we have agreed to modify the clause in our Church Reform Bill which was so offensive to the Lords, with the understanding that

* Afterwards 1st Earl of Dudley.

† Third Lord Lyttelton.

they are not to oppose the Bill. The consequence of this must necessarily be that, when the fight does come (and come it must, sooner or later) the Government will have so much less sympathy and support because of this surrender. However, if the Tower does but float till next session of Parliament, it is much more than ever I expected!”

“July 6th.

“I met Lady Holland again on Thursday at Lord Sefton’s. She began by complaining of the slipperiness of the courtyard, and of the danger of her horses falling; to which Sefton replied that it should be gravelled the next time she did him the honor of dining there. She then began to sniff, and, turning her eyes to various pots filled with beautiful roses and all kinds of flowers, she said:—‘Lord Sefton, I must beg you to have those flowers taken out of the room, they are so much too powerful for me.’—Sefton and his valet Paoli actually carried the table and all its contents out of the room. Then poor dear little Ly. Sefton, who has always a posy as large as life at her breast when she is dressed, took it out in the humblest manner, and said:—‘Perhaps, Lady Holland, this nosegay may be too much for you.’—But the other was pleased to allow her to keep it, tho’ by no means in a very gracious manner. Then when candles were lighted at the close of dinner, she would have three of them put out, as being too much and too near her. Was there ever?”

“Denbies, 15th.

“. . . This spot is one of the most beautiful I know. . . . I am in the second volume of poor Roscoe’s Lorenzo de Medici. I read his Leo three or four years ago with great pleasure, and the present book with encreased delight. I can scarcely conceive a greater miracle than Roscoe’s history—that a man whose dialect was that of a barbarian, and from whom, in years of familiar intercourse, I never heard above an average observation, whose parents were servants (whom I well remember keeping a public house), whose profession was that of an attorney, who had never been out of England and scarcely out of Liverpool—that such a man should undertake to write the history of the 14th and 15th centuries, the revival of Greek and Roman learning and the formation of the Italian [illegible]—that such a history should be to the full as polished in style as that of Gibbon, and much more simple and perspicuous—that the facts of this history should be all substantiated by references to authorities in other languages, with frequent and beautiful translations from them by himself—is really too! Then the subject is to my mind the most captivating possible: one’s only regret is that poor Roscoe, after writing this beautiful history of his brother bankers the Medici, should not have imitated their prudence, and by such means have escaped appearing in that profane literary work, the Gazette! Oh dear! what a winding up for his fame at last!”

“17th.

“. . . You must know that for months past I have been firing into Ellice, and through him into Durham, for their joint patronage of Barnes, the editor of the Times newspaper; being convinced that the vindictive articles in that paper against Lord Grey were written or dictated by Durham. . . . On Sunday I found that Lambton and Ellice have recently become at daggers drawn, and Ellice told me he had received such a letter of abuse from him in the Isle of Wight as had never been penned. The subject was nothing less than that he—Lord Durham—was going to withdraw his proxy from the support of Ld. Grey and his Government. Ellice admitted the connection between Durham and Barnes, and that the communications between them had been carried on by Lord Dover, just deceased. The said Durham, according to Ellice, is now Prime Minister to the Duchess of Kent and Queen Victoria, and they are getting up all their arrangements together in the Isle of Wight for a new reign! You may remember that Durham was King Leopold’s* right hand man when he was going to be King of Greece—drew all his State papers for him, and has always been his bottle-holder ever since. So nothing is more

* King of the Belgians: brother of the Duchess of Kent.

likely than his becoming first favorite with the Duchess of Kent and Victoria in a new reign.”

“31st.

“Well, you see with what flying colours we finished our Irish Church Bill last night. A great body of the Tories are absolutely furious with the Beau—for what wd. you suppose? as two of them told me to my own self—for want of pluck!”*

“August 7th.

“. . . As I was walking in the streets, Lady Ciss, or Princess Ciss, passed me in her carriage, and immediately pulled up. She wished to know if I was disengaged, as the Duke [of Sussex] and she were going to dine quite alone, and they would be delighted if I would join them. Affable, was it not? in a royal dame.”

Many and scathing had been Creevey’s utterances and the expressions in his correspondence in derision of monarchs and monarchical institutions; but time and the sweets of office had done much to mitigate the democratic ardour of the former “Man of the Mountain.” The crowning touch to his reconciliation with the Head of the Constitution as it was, was put by the hand of King William himself.

“Brooks’s, August 9th.

“My dinner yesterday with my beloved Sovereign was everything I could wish, and more, indeed, than I had a right to expect. Jemmy Kempt, according to my request, sent his carriage for me after it had set him down at the Palace. My only very little doubt was whether I should not have gone in shorts and silk stockings instead of trowsers; and if I had, I should have been the only man in shorts in the room; so that, you know, was very well.

The Duke of Wellington disgusted his Tory followers by speaking and voting for the second reading of the Government’s Bill for regulating the Protestant Church of Ireland.

“Well, after our being all assembled near half an hour, the doors were flung open, and in entered Billy, accompanied by his household; and, having advanced singly into the middle of the room, the company formed a great circle around him. As I was not very anxious to attract his attention after all my sins against him,* I placed myself in the 2nd row of the circle. The first thing he did was to call Sir James Kempt† to him as his bottle-holder for the occasion. I then heard him say to him:—‘There are two officers in the room who have never been presented to me’ (then mentioning their names which I did not hear), ‘bring them here to me.’ So accordingly the two officers were conducted into the centre of the circle, dropt upon their marrow-bones, and kissed hands.

“Our beloved then said something else to Kempt which I could not hear; but the General immediately looked about with all his eyes for his man; and I am sure you will all partake of Nummy’s† surprise when Kempt, having discovered me, said:—‘Creevey, the King wishes to speak to you;’ and I was conducted likewise into the middle of the circle. Then the King, in the prettiest manner, said:—‘Mr. Creevey, how d’ye do? I hope you are quite well. It is a long time since I had the pleasure of seeing you. Where do you reside, Mr. Creevey?’ Now, would you believe it? this was the only thing of the kind that took place. After this he went a little round the circle, talking to officers. I heard him ask General Bingham where he had lost his arm, and such kind of things.

“My Scotch master, Jemmy,§ was so touched with the King’s civility to myself that he came afterwards to me and said:—‘Upon my soul, Creevey, after the King’s gracious behaviour to you to-day, you must come to the next levee; for you never do go, and he

* Creevey, as a Radical member, had not been accustomed to speak respectfully of the Duke of Clarence, and had voted steadily against the royal grants.

† General the Right Hon. Sir James Kempt [1764-1854], commanded the 8th Brigade at Waterloo.

‡ One of Creevey’s pet names in his family.

§ Speaker Abercromby.

has often asked me after you.’ Can you solve this behaviour to me? Was it a reproach for never doing my duty in waiting on my Sovereign? or does he think I have any scruples at coming near him after my behaviour to him and his brothers, and that he wishes to remove them? At all events, I consider it as most curious, and as long as my Royal Master lives, and I live to wear my present uniform coat, he shall never have to say that I absent myself from his levee, whether in or out of office. . . . I had a most agreeable dinner. To be sure, the King’s speeches, and the length of each, were beyond; but he is so totally unlike what we remember him—not a single joke or attempt at any merriment—as grave as a judge in everything he does, and as if he took a sincere interest in all he was saying—in short, he made himself a real pet of mine. . . . When I told Brougham, whom I sat next at Althorp’s at dinner on Saturday, of the King’s speech to me, he said it was the image of him as the best-natured and kindest-hearted man in the world, and that it was clearly meant to show me that he had no resentment or recollection, even, of any former personal hostilities from me, and that I had no occasion to avoid him. What the opinion of so sincere a creature as B. is worth is one thing; but I really think one can’t find out another meaning for Billy’s conduct. If it is the real one, never was a Sovereign so kind and condescending.”

“15th.

“The Earl [of Sefton] called and took me to the levee yesterday in his fat London coach, sitting with his back to the horses, and giving Mr. Treasurer the post of honor, and so home again to Mrs. Durham’s* great delight. My Sovereign only said:—‘How d’ye do, Mr. Creevey?’—I did not expect more. It was a very slender levee, but I had an agreeable playfellow in Lord Grosvenor, ci-devant Belgrave,† and Lord Grey came to me just after I had passed the King, saying in his prettiest manner:—‘Creevey, I have not seen you for an age!’”

* Creevey’s landlady.

† Afterwards 2nd Marquess of Westminster.

CHAPTER XI. 1833. Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Stoke, August 19th, 1833.

“Brougham, Plunket, Chas. Greville and Sefton have gone to town, and I am to entertain Lord John Russell who stays to dinner to-morrow. I am just going to ride with him and the ladies; and, by Sefton’s desire, to write my name at the Castle [Windsor]. Next Wednesday is the King’s birthday, when there is a great dinner there. The Seftons have got their invitation; so we shall see if I am equally successful in my meanness. Don’t you think I am become too great a toady of Royalty?”

“Tower, 31st.

“. . . I am reading the newly published correspondence between Horace Walpole and Sir Horace Mann, his earliest friend and Minister at Florence. Considering who the writer was, and his position, the book can’t fail of being interesting—very—but he is a trifling chap after all. . . .”

Lady Louisa Molyneux to Mr. Creevey.

“Stoke, Sept. 3, 1833.

“. . . We do not hear much of cholera in this neighbourhood, but all the sherry in the cellar is drunk, and Reeves has been obliged to ask for a fresh supply; he cannot get people to drink his French wines, entirely from fear of cholera. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Stoke, Sept. 5th.

“. . . I have for the first time boarded an omnibus, and it is really charming. I quite long to go back in one to Piccadilly. . . . Monday brought all Europe under our humble roof at Stoke—at least the great powers of it by their representatives. There was England well represented by Earl Grey, with my lady, Ly. Georgiana and Charles; France by Talleyrand and the Dino; Russia by the Prince and Princess Lieven; Austria by Esterhazy, with the addition of Weissenberg, the Austrian delegate to the Conference; and Prussia by Bulow. But the female Lieven and the Dino were the people for sport. They are both professional talkers—artists quite, in that department, and the Dino jealous to a degree of the other. We had them both quite at their ease, and perpetually at work with each other; but the Lieven for my money! She has more dignity and the other more grimace. . . . The Greys had just come from Windsor Castle. Lady Grey, in her own distressed manner, said she was really more dead than alive. She said all the boring she had ever endured before was literally nothing compared with her misery of the two preceding nights. She hoped she never should see a mahogany table again, she was so tired with the one that the Queen and the King, the Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Augusta, Madame Lieven and herself had sat round for hours—the Queen knitting or netting a purse—the King sleeping, and occasionally waking for the purpose of saying:—‘Exactly so, ma’am!’ and then sleeping again. The Queen was cold as ice to Lady Grey, till the moment she came away, when she could afford to be a little civil at getting quit of her. . . .

“We asked Lord Grey how he had passed his evening: ‘I played at whist,’ said he, ‘and what is more, I won £2, which I never did before. Then I had very good fun at Sir Henry Halford’s expense. You know he is the damnedest conceited fellow in the world, and prides himself above all upon his scholarship—upon being what you call an elegant scholar; so he would repeat to me a very long train of Greek verses; and, not content with that, he would give me a translation of them into Latin verses by himself. So when he had done, I said that, as to the first, my Greek was too far gone for me to form a judgment of them, but according to my own notion the Latin verses were very good.’ “But,” said I, “there is a much better judge than myself to appeal to,” pointing to Goodall, the Provost of Eton. “Let us call him in.” So we did, and the puppy repeated his own production with more conceit than ever, till he reached the last line, when the old pedagogue reel’d back as if he had been shot, exclaiming:—“That word is long, and you have made it short!’—Halford turned absolutely scarlet at this detection of his false quantity. “You ought to be whipped, Sir Henry,” said Goodall, “you ought to be whipped for such a mistake.’” . . . At dinner Lady Grey sat between Talleyrand and Esterhazy. I, at some little distance, commanded a full view of her face, and was sure of her thoughts; for, as you know, she hates Talleyrand, and he was making the cursedest nasty noises in his throat.”

Lady Louisa Molyneux to Mr. Creevey [in Ireland].

“Stoke, Oct. 30th.

“. . . There never was such weather; we are sitting with open windows, blinds down, and old Lady Salisbury is reading out of doors as if it was the middle of July. She is more youthful than ever, and leaves us to-morrow to be at the Berkhampstead ball, which she attends annually. She had better go to Portugal and assist Miguel, for she makes a better fight for him than any of his adherents. . . . Poor Alava writes in great uneasiness about his patrie, but does not forget to finish his letter with mille choses à toute la famille et à Creevey. . . . Olivia de Ros’s marriage* was a grand ceremony, the chapel† hung with crimson velvet, the bride dressed by the Queen, the parish register signed by the King, the Queen and Duke of Wellington; quantities of royal presents, &c.

* To the Hon. Henry Wellesley, who succeeded his father as Lord Cowley, and was created Earl Cowley.

† St. George’s, Windsor.

. . . The Stanleys have been here for a day. He* made himself tolerably agreeable, except in his extreme flippancy to Lord Melbourne.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Besborough, Nov. 3rd.

“. . . I wish to record a point or two of political history not generally known. When Lord Grey determined upon beginning his administration by a reform in Parliament, he named Lord Durham, Lord John Russell, Lord Duncannon and Sir James Graham as the persons to prepare a bill for that purpose; and they did prepare the bill, of which Lord Grey knew not one syllable till it was presented to him all ready, cut and dry. When he had read it, he shrugged up his shoulders, and gave it as his opinion that the King would never stand it. However, upon his taking it to Brighton the King showed no decided hostility to it; and, as we know, Lord Grey’s measure of Reform was ultimately carried. It was towards the conclusion of the labors of this committee of four that Ld. Durham’s anger became first excited. Lord Grey, to please the Duke of Richmond, added him to the four other committee-men; a step that in itself gave great umbrage to Durham. From that day forth, he and the Duke fought like cat and dog. The next thorn in Durham’s side was Stanley. They were always opposed to each other upon Church matters; and when the Church Bill of the latter was brought forward last session, Durham addressed to the Cabinet his strictures thereon (and very able and severe they were) accompanied by a complaint that he—Durham—had not been consulted. These the Cabinet forwarded to Stanley without observations (was there ever such child’s play?). Stanley was equally fierce in reply. . . . At a Cabinet dinner shortly after, this hitherto latent fire came to a blaze between these worthies. Poor Grey attempted at least to assuage it; but, as he unfortunately rather leaned to Stanley, upon the ground of Durham never coming to the Cabinet,

* Afterwards 14th Earl of Derby [Prime Minister].

Durham fell upon him with all his fury, said that he was the last of men that ought to have made that charge, knowing as he did that the cause of his absence was devotion to his dying child, and then went on to say that Grey had actually been the cause of the boy’s death. . . . Poor Althorp put his head between his hands and never took them away for half an hour. It was this frightful scene that produced the resignation of Durham, tho’ he had been long brooding over it.

“Let me give you another specimen of the manner in which our great men govern us. Lord Anglesey said to Duncannon at Dublin:—‘Mr. Stanley and I do very well together as companions, but we differ so totally about Ireland that I never mention the subject to him!’* Anglesey then showed Duncannon a written statement of his views respecting Ireland, which he said he had sent to Lord Grey. Duncannon says nothing could be better, and he asked him why he had not addressed it to the Cabinet.—‘Oh,’ said Lord Anglesey, ‘I consider myself as owing my appointment exclusively to Lord Grey, and don’t wish to communicate with any one else.’ When Duncannon talked to Grey on the same subject, Ld. G. said he was apprehensive of offending Stanley by laying these opinions of Anglesey’s before him. Now which do you think of all these gentlemen deserves the severest flogging. Duncannon says that both Grey and Althorp entirely agree with him in opposition to Stanley about Irish matters, and that both one and the other avoid touching upon the subject to Stanley, least they should offend him.

“One more point of private political history. Brougham has again and again in my presence taken merit to himself for his firmness in insisting upon the dissolution of Parliament when the Government was beat upon Gascoigne’s motion in 1831.† The facts of that case are as follows. On the day after that division, Duncannon dined at Durham’s with

* Lord Anglesey was for the second time Lord Lieutenant (1830-33), and Stanley was Secretary for Ireland under the Home Office.

† When Ministers were left in a minority of 22 on General Gascoyne’s motion to reduce the Ordnance Vote.

Lord Grey and others. Durham was furious for dissolution; Grey and the others became of the same opinion, and that it must take place the very next day. Grey sent a messenger out of hand to Windsor, begging the King to be in town next day at eleven. He then sat down to write the King’s speech for the occasion, and begg’d Duncannon to get a coach, and to go and bring the Clerk of the Council and Brougham there directly. When Duncannon arrived at Brougham’s house, the servant said my lord was going to bed and could not be seen. However, as you may suppose, Duncannon forced his way up; but Brougham, when informed of what was passing, said he would be no party to the proceeding—that he entirely disapproved of it, and should go to bed directly, adding that he had never been consulted. However, I need not say that he went, and that he made up for the affront of never being consulted by giving out that it was his own act and deed.”

“Bury St., Saturday, Nov. 16th.

“I am only just this instant (5 o’clock) arrived in the same cloathes in which I wrote to you from Dublin on Thursday. Barry, my dear, if any sensible, well-informed man shall ever tell you that a new channel is discovered from the Irish Sea to the Mersey, thro’ which Irish steamboats of all dimensions may always pass, let the state of the tide be what it will—tell such a philosopher that he lies, and that the truth is not in him; for, having had the most charming and successful and swiftest passage of the season up to 4 o’clock yesterday morning, so as to expect to be in by 5, it was discovered there was not water enough for us to proceed. We were shifted at that pleasant hour into another steamer drawing less water, and even for this we soon found there was not enough, and so had to undergo the agreeable ceremony of lying at anchor for upwards of 3 hours, and did not reach Liverpool till ½ past 9, too late for the early coaches.”

“19th.

“Amongst the many instances one has known of London gossip, jaw and gullibility, my Irish fame is no bad specimen. When I went to Whitehall on Saturday, poor Mrs. Taylor began:—‘And so, Mr. Creevey, there is no living in the Castle at Dublin without you; so, I assure you, General Ellice writes to every one.’—When I saw Sefton the same night he said:—‘Grey has a letter from Wellesley* in which he says you are the most agreeable fellow he has seen for ages, and that your visit to them has been most valuable.’—Col. Shaw, a belonging of Wellesley’s in India of 30 years’ standing, whom I saw for the first time in Dublin, writes word that ‘Mr. Creevey by agreeableness has greatly contributed to Ld. Wellesley’s happiness, and to his years!’ . . . A note from Lady Grey yesterday says:—‘Pray, pray! dear Mr. Creevey, dine here on Friday.’ In the course of the morning Esterhazy came after me to dine with him yesterday, and Kempt has been here this morning to invite me for Thursday. Sefton had a letter from Brougham and Vaux from Brighton, begging him to secure Creevey for dinner to-day.”

“Tower, Nov. 23.

“. . . I never was so much struck with the agreeableness of Lord Holland. I don’t suppose there is any Englishman living who covers so much ground as he does—biographical, historical and anecdotical. I had heard from him before of the volumes upon volumes he still has in his possession of Horace Walpole’s, entrusted to him by Lord Waldegrave, which Lord Holland advises the latter never to allow to be published, from the abusive nature of them; but I was happy to hear him add that there was no saying what circumstances might induce a man to do; so it is quite clear that, with Lord Waldegrave’s wonted [illegible], the abuse will some day see the light. I never knew before that Horace was not the son of Sir Robert Walpole, but of a Lord Hervey, and that Sir Robert knew it and shewed that he did.

“My lady [Holland] was very complaining, and eating like a horse. Lord Holland quite well, and yet his legs quite gone, and for ever—carried in

* Lord Wellesley had succeeded Lord Anglesey as Lord Lieutenant.

and out of the carriage, and up and down stairs, and wheeled about the house. . . . You mentioned seeing Berkeley Molyneux* and his Pop. The other day, his sisters told me that when he was at Croxteth lately on a visit to Mull,† old Heywood took him into a corner of the room and put £500 into his hand, and I have no doubt will leave him a handsome fortune. He was always his favorite, and he must have a fellow feeling for him, for he himself adopted a London Pop imported into Liverpool by an old fellow I well remember, and when he died old Arthur took her and was married to her many years before her death. As she was a remarkably good kind of woman, he may perhaps think that Berkeley’s tit may be the same.”

“Brooks’s, Nov. 24th.

“. . . Yesterday at the Hollands we had Lord Grey and Lord J. Russell, Charles Fox and Lady Mary, Henry and his little bride,‡ Sidney Smith, John Ponsonby (Duncannon’s eldest son)§ and Ellice the elder. Lady Holland introduced me to Henry’s wife in a very pretty manner as one of Henry’s oldest and kindest friends. The said Lady Augusta I consider as decidedly under three feet in height—the very nicest little doll or plaything I ever saw. She is a most lively little thing apparently, very pretty, and I dare say up to anything, as all Coventrys are, or at least have been. . . . I can scarcely believe the story of Lady Jersey and Palmerston, tho’ it was very current that, when Lady Cowper went abroad, Palmerston transferred his allegiance to Lady Jersey.”¶

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Croxteth, Nov. 26th. “Dear Creevey,

“Pray write everything you hear. What do you think of the rumours of changes? Somehow or

* Second son of the 2nd Earl of Sefton.

† Lord Molyneux, his elder brother.

‡ Henry Fox, afterwards 4th Lord Holland, married in 1833 Lady Mary Augusta, daughter of the 8th Earl of Coventry.

§ Afterwards 5th Earl of Bessborough.

¶ Lord Palmerston married the Countess Cowper in 1839.

another I feel that things are not quite right and that Grey’s long absence was injurious. He certainly seemed rather bitter about Palmerston’s intimacy with Ly. J[ersey], and I think with reason. Thank God she is gone, and that she was reduced to take [Sir Robert] Wilson as an escort. . . . Stanley has had several fainting fits, but is much better. They say it is stomach. If anything was to happen to him, what would become of us in the H. of C.?”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“28th.

“. . . I dined at Essex’s again yesterday—company, Spring Rice, Chas. Grant, Sydney Smith, another and myself. Sydney thanked me in the name of mankind for the successful resistance I had made to Old Madagascar* at dinner on Sunday. He said he had never seen Ld. Grey laugh more heartily in his life, and then he told the whole story to Essex and Co.”

“Dec. 7th.

“At Essex’s yesterday we had Lord Grey, Melbourne and Palmerston; and of the minor poets—Spring Rice, Poulet Thomson, Luttrell and myself. Althorp was prevented coming by the gout. . . . Ld. Grey seems to have changed his opinion all at once about Talleyrand and the Dino. He said he had no doubt they were both against him and in favor of Wellington, which is the entire reverse of the opinion I had heard him uniformly express on the same subject.”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Croxteth, Dec. 14th.

“. . . What you say about Ld. Grey’s change of tone towards Talleyrand is quite intelligible to me. I trace it entirely to Lady Keith, who has great influence over the whole Grey family, and is in constant correspondence with them. She is in great habits of intimacy with the D. of Orleans—has the ear

* Lady Holland.

of the Court, and hates Talleyrand. Her object is to get him recalled, and to replace him by her husband [illegible]. She thinks making him and Ld. Grey ill together would drive Talleyrand to resign. I can tell you, in corroboration of this, that Monsr. de Bacourt told me that nothing wd. contribute more to decide T. to return here than Ld. Grey’s shewing a decided anxiety for it, and at his suggestion I got G. to write a most kind and pressing letter to T., representing the importance he attached to his coming back, both with a view to keeping up the friendship between the two countries, and to the settlement of the Dutch business. . . . Ly. Jersey is now living in great intimacy with Louis Philippe and the D. of Orleans, so if these two* don’t do mischief, it will not be for want of pains.”

“22nd.

“. . . I must just give you an extract from a letter of Mme. de Dino’s this moment arrived:—‘Sans une tres excellente lettre de Ld. Grey, je ne crois pas que M. de Talleyrand se serait décidé à retourner dans votre chère Angleterre.’ She has no idea that I was the cause of that letter, and never will. Bacourt will keep it to himself. The whole effect would be spoiled by their knowing it.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Richmond, Dec. 24, 1833.

“I dined at Essex’s on Saturday. The feature of the day was Parks,† a Birmingham attorney of whom I had heard much, but had never seen before. He is, in truth, a very remarkable man in every respect. He is mix’d up with all classes—Church, Chapels and State; and as well, or better, calculated for utility than any man I know or have heard of. He is Secretary to the Corporation Commission, and all the beneficial results of that most judicious and successful measure are attributable to him. He has great influence in the Trade Unions; he is a prime leader of the Dissenters.

* Lady Jersey and Lady Keith.

† Joseph Parkes [1796-1865], who acted as go-between with Whigs and Radicals; an energetic organiser and demagogue.

It was a curious thing to hear a provincial attorney observe that the Liturgy of the Church had not been altered for 200 years, and that he was perfectly convinced that a very slight alteration in it would let in all the leading Dissenting establishments. He is most decidedly for this union. . . . I did nothing but fire into Lord Grey all dinner-time on Sunday about this said Parks; and, to say the truth, I found the soil quite ready for a strong impression. He said that, from all he had heard of him, he had formed a great opinion of him, with a strong desire to see him; and then he got on to say that he would know him; upon which our dear Lady Grey, in a tone and manner quite her own, said:—‘I hope there is no Mrs. Parks!—Is it not the image of her?

“. . . We expect to hear to-day of James Brougham’s death. There is much speculation abroad whether the event will drive the Chancellor mad. It is quite true that his brother’s influence over him was as unbounded as it was miraculous, for no one ever discovered the slightest particle of talent in James of any kind. That he was his secret instrument, spy or anything else upon every occasion, I am quite sure.”

Earl of Sefton to Mr. Creevey.

“Croxteth, Dec. 30th, 1833.

“I cannot resist sending you another extract from a letter from Me. de Dino received yesterday. I particularly wished to know if she had seen the Flahauts at Paris. Now you must know that nothing could exceed Talleyrand’s kindness to Flahaut all his life. He has been his patron and protector—in short, a father to him.* Thus she writes:—‘Je n’ai rien vu du tout des Flahaut. Le mari n’a pas même mis une carte chez M. de T. Il les a recontré aux Tuileries, ou Monsr. de Flahaut n’a pas même salué. Cela a fait dire un très joli mot à Monsr. de Talleyrand, à qui on demandait l’explication de l’impolitesse de Monsr. de Flahaut. “C’est que je l’ai apparemment mal élevé!”’ Nothing could be neater.”

* People said he was literally his father.

CHAPTER XII. 1834.

Creevey was no longer in Parliament, but he had a heartwhole devotion to Lord Grey, whose fortunes he followed with intense solicitude and pride. Fierce, then, was his wrath against those who brought about his retirement, especially against Brougham, for whom he could find no more fitting sobriquet than “Beelzebub.” Retrenchment was marching hand in hand with Reform, and among the doomed offices was Creevey’s comfortable department of Treasurer of the Ordnance. It is amusing to find him who had so vehemently clamoured in Opposition for the suppression of patent places, now denouncing as vehemently the action of the Commission then sitting for carrying out that very policy.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, Feb. 12th.

“I dined at the Hollands on Saturday, where I suppose the party was meant to be wits and men of letters, with the exception of Essex, who is neither. Rogers and sister, Tommy Moore, Luttrell, Hallam the historian and Creevey the pamphleteer. When Lord Holland was wheeled in after dinner, he was lodged on my right side, and was as agreeable as ever he could be. I have been quite surprised of late at the endless variety of his conversational matter.”

“Feby. 14th.

“I was walking through St. James’s Park to-day and seeing Lord John Russell mounting his horse at the Paymaster’s door, I went up merely to have a word with him about Graham’s ridiculous conduct in the House last night.* He put out his hand saying:—‘Ah! Treasurer, how d’ye do?’ to which I replied:—‘Ah! Treasurer for how long?’ He laughed and said nothing. Now, as he never called me treasurer before, and he must know if the place is to live only a few weeks longer, he surely could not have addressed me in this way as a joke.”

“May 3rd.

“. . . Poor old Lady Grey† little thought what would become of her money. She left all she had to Lady Hannah,† and she again left it to her son, the young Bear. He, being a very aspiring young man of fashion, has formed a connection with Duvernay the opera dancer, to whom he has paid £2000 down, and has contracted to pay her £800 a year! The dear young creatures were seen going down in a chaise and four to Richmond. Capt. Gronow, the M.P. and duellist, negociated the affair for the young Bear§ with the dancer’s parents.”

“May 7th.

“. . . I thought the Beau looked horridly at the levee; but his uniform of the Blues plays the devil with him. He should be always in red. You will see by your paper that there was a split last night in our Cabinet, between Stanley and Lord John Russell—the latter, of course, declaring for more popular and

* Sir James Graham, Mr. Stanley, Lord Ripon, and the Duke of Richmond had resigned office owing to disapproval of the Irish Church Bill.

† Wife of the 1st earl, died in 1822.

‡ Her youngest daughter, married 1st to Captain Bettesworth, R.N., 2nd to the Right Hon. Edward Ellice, M.P. She died in 1832.

§ Edward Ellice, afterwards of Invergarry and M.P., married in 1834 Miss Katherine Balfour of Balbirnie, who died in 1864. In 1867 he married the widow of Alexander Speirs of Elderslie, and died in 1880.

healing measures towards Ireland. . . . Tavistock* told me he had long seen this split would come, but that he did not think the crisis was come for absolute separation between the different parties in the Cabinet, tho’ he thought it must come if Stanley and others did not relax. I am for having Stanley severely whipped: it would do him a power of good. . . .

“When I was at Sefton’s to-day he said:—‘I have a proposition to make to you, old fellow, which is that you dine here every day that you are not engaged elsewhere.’ To which I was pleased to accede, and behaved very handsomely by declaring that I did not consider the contract as binding for any year after the present one, without a renewal on his part of the proposal.”

“8th.

“Our Government was in the greatest danger all yesterday. John Russell’s gratuitous opinion and declaration of secession in the House of Commons the night before, if the revenues arising from the Irish Tithes Bill were not left to the appropriation of Parliament, roused all the fire of those in the Cabinet who contend that such revenues are to be applied exclusively to ecclesiastical purposes. The indignation of the latter party was the greater, because it was understood, and John Russell had particularly stipulated not to raise that question. Stanley actually resigned yesterday, and his bottle-holders are Pighead Richmond and Canting Graham. . . . However, at a Cabinet meeting, Lord Grey having announced his fixed intention of retiring at once from publick life if the whole was not instantly made up, and old Wickedshifts having made some very judicious threats of opposing and exposing with all his might any Government but the present one in its present formation, the thing was at last settled in peace and harmony, and nothing more is to be said about appropriation, till there is something to appropriate, which can’t be for a year at least. . . . Grey told them that the conduct of the King had been so uniformly kind and gracious

* Afterwards 7th Duke of Bedford, eldest brother of Lord John Russell.

to him, and Grey knew so well the difficulties he [the King] would have to encounter in forming a new Cabinet, that he thought it would be very dishonorable to desert him, if it could be avoided. . . . Brougham said to Sefton:—‘I followed Grey, and I observed that I was very differently situated from my friend Lord Grey—that, while he considered his political life as closing, I considered my own as only just beginning—that I never felt younger or more vigorous—that, from the moment the present Government was broken up, all my occupation and resources should be devoted to destroying any other one—that there was nothing I would not undertake to accomplish that object—that I would attend all political meetings out of Parliament, publick and private, and that from the present temper of the publick, which I well knew, I was as sure as I was of my existence that no Government but an ultra-Liberal one, both in Church and State affairs, would be endured for a week. . . . Of course,’ he continued, ‘you will see my object was to frighten the damned idiots Stanley and Co. from attempting by themselves, or be coalescing with Peel and Co., to set up a Church government; and I think I did so.’ . . . Was there ever such a chap in the world as Wickedshifts? Who do you think dined with him yesterday?—The Duke of Gloucester, and no other man!”

“Stoke, 18th.

“. . . I hope never again to assist at such a blue dinner as at Rogers’s on Friday. Bobus Smith and old Sharpe* were really too—not a moment’s intermission—not even little John Russell could get in his little observations, much less his brother William, whom I would willingly have examined as to affairs in Portugal, where he has so long resided, and latterly as our ambassador. I never was so sick of learning as Bobus and the Hatter made me that day. . . . Our Earl and Countess [of Sefton] have left about an hour ago in a gig, on a visit to the Duke and Duchess of Bedford at Woburn, 38 miles off; having two horses stationed on the road besides the one they started with. Since they went, it has rained cats and dogs,

* Probably Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.

and they in a gig without a head! This, as I say to Lady Louisa, is ennui in fine people tired of being at the top of the tree, and wanting to see what is at the bottom. How the servants must grin!”

“27th.

“. . . Since I last wrote, our Government has been in a state of dissolution, and altho’ my mind was perfectly prepared to lose my Tower, and I should have borne the loss better than many a richer man, still it was not a very agreeable state of things to write about. Now, however, I believe I may say all danger for the present is over. Stanley, Graham and the Duke of Richmond have resigned to-day. The difficulty has been to make Lord Grey go on with the Government, and to a late hour last night I saw letters under his own hand saying nothing should induce him to do it; but our Billy has forced him to go on, whether he will or no.”

“Brooks’s, May 29th (King Charles’s Restoration and Minister Charles’s aussi).

“I dined yesterday at Stanley’s, with Johnny Russell by his side, and it was all very well. . . . All the offices were to be filled to-day. Think of young Cole* Secretary of State for the Colonies! Abercromby vice Stanley! Oh dear, oh dear! . . . I continue to dine out daily according to custom. We had a great day on Sunday at ‘dear Eddard’s,’ with our Chancellor in the character of lover to Mrs. Petre, tho’ Lady Grey tells me this lover is dead-beat by Palmerston. Was there ever? I dine with Fergy to-day to meet the Cokes and Abercromby, but not as Secretary of State for the Colonies, for all is settled, and no mention of young Cole. Auckland first Lord of the Admiralty!!! Was there ever? Spring Rice the Colonies! Ld. Carlisle Privy Seal; Mulgrave, it is probable, the Post Office, Ellice in the Cabinet with his present office. I am very glad of this last arrangement, because he is the most courageous bottle-holder Lord Grey could have. I dine to-morrow

* The Right Hon. James Abercromby.

at Sefton’s with Brougham only; next day at Praise-God Barebones Fitzwilliam’s.”

“May 30th.

“. . . Very agreeable party at Lady Lichfield’s last night—Duchess of Kent everything I could wish . . . and plenty of ‘comrogues,’ male and female. Well, tho’ our places are all filled, there is no end of tantrums. Durham is furious at not being in the Cabinet. He asked Lord Grey the cause of it, to which the latter only replied it was ‘quite impossible.’ Durham asked who it was that objected, but asked in vain; the fact being that Brougham told Lord Grey he would not sit in the same Cabinet with Durham, and that Grey must make his choice between them. Brougham has been to the greatest degree indignant with Grey at his appointment of Auckland to the Admiralty, the more so as the appointment was made at the suit of Lansdowne. So, according to custom, the said Vaux has saluted Grey and Lansdowne with a literary philippic apiece. However, Sefton says he is dulcified since last night. All the old and new set were at Anson’s last night, and Brougham said to me:—‘Auckland’s is a neat appointment, is it not?’ twisting about his nose in its happiest forms. To be sure, my opinion would be that the hand of death was on Lord Grey when he could place on his side in this Cabinet such a notorious and so useless a jobber as Auckland, at the dictation of such a perfect old woman as Lansdowne.”

“Bury St., June 2nd.

“. . . I dined at Fitzwilliam’s* on Saturday with the ugliest and most dismal race I ever beheld, and yet there is a card from them for a party this day week, with ‘Dancing’ in the corner. They cut the worst figure by contrast with the young Lady Milton.† who has the merriest and most sweet-tempered face I ever

* The 5th Earl Fitzwilliam, who, as Viscount Milton, had sat and acted with Creevey in the House of Commons.

† Lady Selina Jenkinson, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Liverpool. Lord Milton died in 1835. His widow married in 1845 Mr. Savile Foljambe of Osberton, and died in 1883.

beheld—or nearly so. A Jenkinson, too, and they are not over lively. . . . You can form no notion of the obloquy that Auckland’s appointment has brought upon the Government, or of the terms in which he himself is talked of. . . . I was called out of Brooks’s yesterday by Wm. Brandling, who said there was an acquaintance of mine round the corner, who would be glad to see me; and who should it be but the sweet Fanny, looking much more beautiful than ever. We had a long walk, and I was quite enchanted with her. I dare say her gown had not cost a pound, but in looks altogether she beat all London. . . .”

“6th.

“. . . Well, here is Ld. Carlisle Privy Seal after all, but only as a makeshift, he himself having the greatest possible objection to it. When Sefton told me that either Radnor or Dacre was to have it, and asked me what I thought of the appointment, I said that, as far as I was concerned, I would not trust either of them with half a crown; not from any distrust of their honesty, but from their being a couple of wrongheaded fellows you could never be safe with. Witness, in Radnor’s case, the mess he got into with Mrs. Clarke, and his letters to her in the Duke of York’s case. His having identified himself to the extent he has done with Cobbett, and his childish consultation with me about bringing him into Parliament, &c., &c. Then Dacre is a conceited prig—a generalising, soi-disant German philosopher. Do you remember Mrs. Sheridan asking me how he spoke, and how Sheridan enjoyed it when I said ‘like a Druid from the top of Snowdon.’ Radnor would give a more Radical character to the Government, and Dacre a Presbyterian one, having a very strong personal resemblance to that community. . . . Well; the Government having elected Radnor of the two as their Privy Seal, with much importunity from Brougham, on Wednesday night he accepted; but yesterday morning brought his stipulation, without which being acceded to he was off—‘an equitable adjustment, the duration of Parliament shortened, and the repeal of the Corn Laws!’ What a modest estimate a man must have of his own importance to prescribe such conditions! Of course the Government had done with him out of hand, and there was not time to sound Dacre before the levee; but Lord Grey told Sefton he was going to offer it to him last night. Lord Grey was full of his miseries to Sefton—said he had no sleep at night, that he was harass’d to death, and was quite aware he shd. die if not shortly relieved of the labours and anxieties of office. Of this I feel quite sure, that, this season over, he will never meet another as Prime Minister. . . . He will go out, when he does go, covered with glory, and I see no chance of his equal being found in the present circle of mankind.”*

“7th.

“. . . Dacre, instead of being Privy Seal, had a stroke of apoplexy last night, and fell down. . . .”

“9th.

“. . . We had all the corps diplomatique last night in Downing Street. The Dino and the Lievens are gone to Oxford to-day to take their degrees. Wellington† communicated to old Talleyrand that the University would not stand him, and advised him to keep away. What a blow upon Talley to be rejected by the Monks!”

“ 13th.

“. . . Your nephew, young William Ord, dares not vacate his seat as M.P. for a seat at the Treasury Board. The young gambler Byng is to have it. Ld. Conyingham Post Master! Abercromby has the Mint, without a salary, and a seat in the Cabinet. What accessions to the Government!”

“23rd.

“. . . As I arrived first to dinner at Paul Methuen’s,‡ and Brougham arrived second, I had him

* Creevey’s forecast was fulfilled by Lord Grey’s resignation in July following.

† As Chancellor of the University.

‡ Created Lord Methuen in 1838.

out on a balcony to myself in no time. I stated William Roscoe’s case as one that he was actually bound to attend to—that he professed to be the patron of literary merit—that Roscoe’s father’s fame in that department was unrivalled [? unquestioned]—that, moreover, he was his friend, and had boasted to me of corresponding with him to his dying day—that he [Roscoe] had been his principal supporter in our Liverpool contest, and in short that, after a most meritorious life, he had been reduced by misfortune to nearly beggary. Brougham admitted all this, but said he had nothing to give worth Wm. Roscoe’s acceptance. In a short time afterwards he took me out on the balcony again, and said:—‘I have been thinking Wm. Roscoe’s case over, and I have a place that would suit him. They will have it that I must have an Accountant-General for my new Bankruptcy Court, and Wm. Roscoe shall have it. It will be £1200 a year for life.’—Now was there ever? I take it for granted he will jib and fling over both William and myself; mais nous verrons! It will be curious to see what invention he will resort to in order to defeat this gratuitous offer.

“We had a most jolly day and very good company. Mrs. Methuen is a sister of Ly. Radnor, and a great improvement upon her—I don’t mean in morals; I know nothing upon that subject, except that the parent female stock, who was there in the evening, has been somewhat slippery in her day.”

“Bury St., July 5th.

“. . . I am full of the impression left upon me by the sight of that unrivall’d library left by Pepys to Magdalene College [Cambridge]. I believe the exquisite charms that are to be found in it are, to this day, almost unknown to the world. You remember Pepys’s memoirs (published by Ld. Braybrooke, who is Hereditary Visitor and appoints the Master of this college), the manuscript of which I had in my hand; but these are almost trash compared to other contents of this library. There are 5 folio volumes of prints, almost from the origin of printing, being the portraits of every royal or public man, woman or child down to Pepys’s own time. I could scarce tear myself away from them, and even these are nothing compared to all the other curiosities. . . . Well, you see a new quarter has begun,* and our Government is still in, and I believe quite safe now until Parliament meets again, notwithstanding the spiteful speech of Stanley last night. All reasonable men think it most disgraceful of him.”

“July 8th.

“It is my constant practice to spend two pence a day in the hire of a chair, or rather two chairs, one on each side of the water in the new and beautiful enclosure in St. James’s Park. So when the enclosed note came after me to-day, with the name ‘Grey’ in the corner and ‘Immediate’ on the top, Mrs. Durham, who knows all my ways, immediately despatched Durham to ransack the said enclosure, and he found me as nearly asleep as possible, on the side nearest to Downing Street. So there I went; and Lord Grey, in the prettiest manner, told me that Lord Auckland’s place in Greenwich was vacant, and asked me if it would be agreeable to me to have it. He said it was not nearly as good as my present place, and that I should have some work, as I had to take care of the Northumberland estates, &c.† He said he had been very desirous that I should have the house, as it was a very nice one, with a very nice garden, &c., but that Tierney had a right to it in his turn as Commissioner. . . . As to the income, it is quite sure to be enough for me, and the respectability of the office, and the way in which it is given me by Lord Grey’s own unsolicited good will, gives the most agreeable finishing touch to my political life. . . . Sefton is to find out from Auckland in the Lords to-night the real value of the office, and I shall know it at the opera.

“I never saw Lord Grey apparently more oppressed with care than he was this morning. He said he had meant for some time past to offer me this office; but that things were now looking so distracted, there was no answering for the continuance of the

* Creevey means that his quarter’s salary is safe.

† The estates of Greenwich Hospital in Northumberland.

Government, and on that account he was for having my appointment done out of hand. He complained bitterly of Stanley and Graham, as well he might. It seems these two wretches left the House last night, rather than vote against O’Connell.”

“9th.

“‘Ah, thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,’—‘don’t count your chickens before they are hatch’d’—various are the accidents between the cup and the lip. And now, if you want an illustration of the wisdom of all these admonitions, read the enclosed note from Grey which I received about 12 o’clock to-day. . . . It now turns out that Althorp sent in his resignation to Lord Grey yesterday morning; and Lord Grey, in forwarding it immediately to the King at Windsor, accompanied it with his own resignation; so that he was actually out when I had my conversation with him yesterday. A messenger from Windsor arrived in Downing Street between nine and ten last night with the acceptance of the resignations of Lord Grey and Althorp; and either the same messenger or another this morning brought a letter from the King to Lord Melbourne, begging to see him before the levee to-day. . . . Grey and Althorp being out, I defy Melbourne or Brougham, or all the Whigs united, to patch up any more Whig Governments. . . . I have not felt any depression yet, and I dare say I never shall; tho’ I admit it is very tantalising to have been so near a post, and then to be stranded after all. . . .”

“6.30 p.m.

“Althorp has been stating in the House of Commons that the Cabinet being divided on the Coercion Bill was the cause of its being broken up. Neat articles they must be to bring in a Bill they were not agreed about!”

“10th.

“. . . Our poor Earl Grey was so deeply affected last night as not to be able to utter for some time, and was obliged to sit down to collect himself. When he did get under weigh, however, he almost affected others as much as he had been affected himself. All agree that it was the most beautiful speech ever delivered by man. Clunch,* too, in the other House, distinguished himself greatly for his native simplicity and integrity. . . . I hope you see Wicked-Shifts’s† declaration that he has not resigned, and never will. He has not seen the King, I mean—to have an audience with him, but he favored him with one of his letters yesterday. . . . The salary at Greenwich is £600 a year, with coals, candles, &c.”

The hitch in Creevey’s appointment to Greenwich arose from Lord Auckland’s unwillingness to resign. This was got over by Brougham, who forced Auckland’s hand, thereby clearing the road for Lord Grey’s old friend.

“12th August.

“. . . I asked Sefton just now how Lord Grey was last night—whether he was in the same depressed state of mind he had been in the two or three preceding days.—‘Why,’ said Sefton, ‘I’ll tell you a story of him last night, and you may judge. He was talking of Taglioni, and, after going over all the dancers of his own time by name, and swearing that not one of them came within a hundred miles of her, he concluded by saying in the most animated strain:—“What would I give to dance as well as her!” This sudden ebullition of ambition, in so new a field for a fallen Minister of State, produced a very natural convulsion of laughter from the few persons present, and from no one more than Lady Grey, who, as soon as she recovered, said:—“This passion in Lord Grey is not new to me, for I well remember that, on the only day he ever was tipsy in my presence, when he returned from dining with the Prince of Wales, nothing would serve him but dressing himself in a red turban and trying to dance like Paripol!”’ . . .

“Melbourne and our William are going on corresponding about a Government, and he is to go down

* Lord Althorp. † Lord Brougham.

to the King at Windsor to-morrow at two. . . . The King’s first proposal to Melbourne was to make a comprehensive administration, and he named the Duke of Wellington, Peel and Stanley as necessary parties to such a Government. Melbourne wrote his reasons at length and in detail why he thought it quite impossible that such a mixture with the late Government could ever take place. He communicated, however, the King’s proposal to the Duke, Peel and Stanley, accompanying each with his own letter. Stanley, in his answer, adopts every one of Melbourne’s arguments against such a coalition, professes his unqualified adherence to Lord Grey and his principles, and avows his fixed determination never to make a part of a Tory Government. The Beau and Peel, in their answers, merely state they have received Melbourne’s letter, and that they don’t feel themselves commanded by the King to say more. Melbourne has written to them again by the King’s command to ask what they think of his proposal and what they mean to do, and the King begs them to send their answers thro’ Lord Melbourne. This is treating the great men (that used to be) rather scurvily, I think. . . . I dine at Althorp’s to-day, and to-morrow at Lord Grey’s.”

“14th.

“. . . Melbourne returned from Windsor to-day with carte blanche to form a Government. They have been at work all morning trying to put the old ship afloat again, with some alteration in the crew. . . . Althorp certainly remains in.”

“16th.

“. . . Our poor Taylor is dead.* . . . I had really a charming day at Holland House yesterday. Dear Lord Grey was one of the party, as amiable as ever he could be. Lady Holland followed me out when I came away to ask me to come again on Sunday next, which I promised to do. . . . Melbourne has

* The Right Hon. Michael Angelo Taylor, M.P., a gentleman of small stature and moderate sagacity, but greatly assisted to some distinction by his clever and ambitious wife.

been kissing hands at the levee to-day as Prime Minister, and he is succeeded in the Home Department by Duncannon, who goes up to the House of Lords. Duncannon is succeeded in the Woods and Forests by Hobhouse, with a seat in the Cabinet.”

“19th.

“. . . Besides Duncannon yesterday at Essex’s, we had Rogers and Miss Rogers, Lord and Lady William Russell and another or two. I have never seen a woman that I hate so much as Lady William Russell,* without knowing her or ever having exchanged a word with her. There is a pretension, presumption and a laying down the law about her that are quite insufferable. Then her base ingratitude to those who formerly fed and cloathed her—Fanny Brandling, the Fawkes’s and others—sink her still lower in my hatred of her. . . .”

“August 4th.

“. . . I am all ashamed to say that I dined at Brougham’s on Saturday, because I am as sure as I am of my existence that it was he who drove Lord Grey from the Government by his perfidious correspondence with Lord Wellesley respecting the Coercion Bill; and moreover, I am equally certain that the driving Lord Grey from the Government has long been the object nearest Brougham’s heart. How then can one dine at Brougham’s one day with all the rubbish of Lord Grey’s Government, with Beelzebub himself in roaring spirits (his servants in silk stockings and waiting in gloves), and then dine at Lord Grey’s yesterday, with him quite knocked down and poor Lady Grey actually speechless—both feeling that he has been the victim of the basest perfidy? Poor Lady Grey! you must remember how often she told me at the formation of the Government, and with her uniform horror of Brougham, how completely she had got him in a cage by having him in the House of Lords. They were both quite sure he could do

* She was a daughter of the Hon. John Rawdon (brother of the 1st Marquess of Hastings), and died in 1874.

no harm, tho’ they well knew his dispositions. . . . Where do you think I dine to-day? With our poet Rogers, to meet Anacreon Moore and that melodious dicky-bird Miss Stephens.* Can you imagine a greater contrast to the two preceding dinners? . . . Miss Stephens has realised £30,000 by her voice, and brought up and supported with it a very large family of her kindred. . . . Only think of the Beau’s flirt, Mrs. Arbuthnot, being dead!”

“7th.

“. . . The dicky-bird failed me at Rogers’s—a cold in her pipe kept her at home; so we had only Essex, his daughter, Mrs. Ford, Miss Rogers and Tommy Moore, of whose melodies I had rather more than enough.”

“Stoke, 11th.

“. . . Lord Grey and his family were at Windsor from Monday last till Wednesday, during which the King took him into his own room and had a conversation of two hours’ duration with him, in the course of which he was pleased to say that he was actually miserable since he had lost his services, and he did not see how or when he was to be otherwise. He spoke of Ld. Melbourne as liking him, but that he had no position either at home or abroad to be compared with Lord Grey, and that as to the rest of the Government, they were nobody. When our Billy said Ld. Melbourne was nobody at home or abroad, compared with Lord Grey, he touched the real thing, which these presumptuous puppies will feel before they are much older. Palmerston never signed a dispatch that had not been seen and altered by Lord Grey. Do you suppose he will ever submit to this from Melbourne? or, if he did, what does Melbourne know of it? . . . I wish Grey may let to-night pass without giving way to any vindictive feelings, which I learn from Sefton are gaining upon him hourly. Sefton dined at Talleyrand’s on Friday with Grey;

* Catherine Stephens [1794-1882], vocalist and actress, whose marriage with Lord Essex took place a few weeks after Creevey’s death in 1838.

and by some mistake about the day, Brougham came in late to dinner; but Lord Grey would not speak to him. Having taken leave of the Government in the generous way he did in the House of Lords, I can’t bear his showing any subsequent resentment. . . . Brougham already chuckles to Sefton at the influence he has got over Melbourne, compared with what he had over Grey; but our Earl [Sefton] is in a mighty combustible state upon these matters, and will, to all appearance, on some early day burst out upon Beelzebub. He considers Grey as having been basely sacrificed by a low-lived crew, not worthy to wipe his shoes, and that the Arch-fiend Brougham has been all along the mover of this plot for his own base and ambitious, selfish purposes.”

The Countess Grey to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, 18th Sept.

“. . . I have a little changed my mind about this same Achitophel.* I begin to believe that he really did not at that time mean to turn Lord G. out. I believe so, because it was not essential to his interest to do so, not that I suspect him of any scruples. I am inclined to think his own version of it is true. He expected to bully Lord G. and to shorten the session. He afterwards got into a mess, and it cost him nothing to tell a thousand lies. . . . But enough of our triumphs and our feuds. Thank God! as you say, Lord G.’s political life has ended gloriously. . . . We are now settled here for ever.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Stoke Farm, 24th Sept.

“. . . Melbourne came here for dinner on Sunday, and was off early in the morning. . . . He told Sefton that his real belief was that Brougham never intended to force Ld. Grey out of the Government, and I beg your attention to Brougham’s defence of himself, as made to the innocent Melbourne.—‘It is true,’ says

* Lord Brougham.

Brougham, ‘that I did write to Lord Wellesley begging him to withdraw his support of those clauses in the Coercion Bill which have since been withdrawn: it is true that I made Littleton* write to the same effect, and my sole intention in this was to shorten the session, that I might have time to go to the Rhine’ (of course with Mrs. Petre!). Now, from the creation of the world, was there ever such a defence—be it a lie or be it true? And then the villain says it never entered his imagination that it could lead to the result it did. Melbourne states his decided opinion that he is mad, and that he will one day, in sacrificing everything for his own personal whim, be sacrificed himself.”

“Brooks’s, 17th Oct.

“. . . Sefton came up to-day on purpose to see the smoking remains of the two Houses of Parliament. What an event! I saw the poor old House of Commons smoking as I came over Westminster Bridge just now. The fire burst out again to-day, and burnt furiously for two hours.”

“Stoke Farm, 20th Oct.

“. . . Our party here have been the little Russian ambassador; D’Orsay, the ultra dandy of Paris and London, and as ultra a villain as either city can produce (you know he married Lord Blessington’s daughter, a beautiful young woman whom he has turned upon the wide world, and he lives openly and entirely with her mother, Lady Blessington. His mother, Madame Craufurd, aware of his profligacy, has left the best part of her property to her sister, Madame de Guiche’s, children); Lord Tullamore, who is justly entitled to the prize as by far the greatest bore the world can produce (he married a daughter of Lady Charlotte Campbell—a very handsome woman and somewhat loose, but as she is dying of a consumption we will spare her); Lord Allen, a penniless lord and Irish pensioner, well behaved and not encumbered with too much principle; Tommy Duncombe, who lost £600 here the two last nights at

* Created Lord Hatherton in 1835.

whist to Lord Sefton, and who, if he was in possession of his father’s estate to-morrow, would not have a surplus of eightpence after paying his debts. Charming company we keep, don’t we? Then we have Col. Armstrong of old masquerade fame, and now equerry, or some such thing, to the King—a very good-natured man, and [illegible] than all the others put together, which, you’ll say, is not saying much for him. . . . Lord Fitzroy Somerset* told me that Wyatt says he can make Ragland† habitable for £10,000 and completely restore it for £50,000.”

“Brooks’s, Oct. 22.

“. . . Now for Lord Durham and our Brougham and Vaux. You saw the origin of this storm—the scratch Durham gave Vaux at Edinburgh, and the kick Vaux gave Durham in return from Salisbury. They are now got to closer quarters. Vaux has taken the field against him in an article in the Edinburgh Review, which you ought to read. Durham is attacked by name, whilst his assailant is anonymous, tho’ known to all the world. Durham replies publickly in his own name that, if the writer of this article is a member of the Government, he is a liar, or words to that effect. Now my own deliberate opinion is that Vaux is at last caught, and will be ruined; and very likely the Government will fall with him. His going to Scotland at all with the purpose he did—to rob Lord Grey of his fame—was an act of insanity, and the disease has increased since. . . .”

“24th.

“. . . Allow me to mention to you a curious pint. On Wednesday evening as I was going up to Crocky’s to dine, little Freeman accosted me in the dark, and turned about with me, asking me how I was. I said my only complaint was that I could not warm my feet for love or money. He said that was wrong—the circulation must be defective, &c. ‘Of course,’ said he, ‘you wear woollen stockings.’—‘No,’ said I, ‘I have never done so in my life.’—‘Then get some directly,’ said he. So yesterday I bought 6 pair for

* Created Lord Raglan in 1852. † Raglan Castle.

morning, and three do. thinner to wear under silk in the evening. I am in them now, and such an immediate change I never witnessed. I have been as warm as a toast from the moment I put them on.”

“Brooks’s, Oct. 29, 1834.

“. . . At Stoke we had the Russian again,* an English merchant from Riga, Younger by name, the Duc de Richelieu, Tom Duncombe, Col. Armstrong, Poodle Byng and myself. Whilst at dinner on Sunday the two Colonels arrived, Berkeley and Henry,† with Charles Grenfell, all from Croxteth. . . . Essex is very pathetic about himself, is he not? and very tender about the Greys. It is just seven years since he was all for Canning’s Government, and, like Sefton, all gall against Lord Grey. When Grey came into office this month four years ago, Essex was one of his earliest and most constant toadies, and Lady Grey used to treat him like a dog; so much so that one day when I was there, after he had left the room, Lord Grey said:—‘Upon my life, Mary, you are too bad in your rude manner of treating Essex, and I am sure he sees and feels it.’ To which our Countess replied:—‘I mean that he should see it, because I can never forget the shameful conduct of himself and others to you.—‘Oh,’ said Grey, ‘that is gone by, Mary, and we must forget it.’ She used, at that time, to treat Sefton exactly in the same way, and for the same reason; but lords and M.R’s have great rewards for perseverance in toadying.”

Earl of Essex to Mr. Creevey.

“Belgrave Square, Nov. 1, 1834. “My dear Creevey,

“How I envy you your visit to Howick; but alas! the 19th of this month I turn 76,‡ and must

* Princess Lieven.

† Lord Sefton’s sons.

‡ According to Burke’s Peerage the 5th Earl of Essex was born 13th November, 1757, which would make him a year older than he reckoned.

remain in my chimney corner. Say all that is most kind and affectionate from me to them all. I think the Glasgow meeting has ended well: Lambton* has only supported his original principles, and Grey’s letter, like everything he says and does, is sure to be just and dignified and kind to Lambton. The operatives, also, deserve great credit for their moderation in all their sentiments and opinions. Upon the whole I think Grey will be satisfied, or at least think no harm has been done. Whether there may not be some individuals in the country not quite satisfied at all that is passed, is neither your business nor mine. Those who make their own beds must sleep upon them. I hope you and others of your party will do all you can to encourage Grey to come up to the meeting. He must not remain out at grass, but show his high-mettled crest and shining coat to throw the Tories into dismay at the very look of him.

“Yours ever, “Essex.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“York, Nov. 2, 1834.

“Oh! Barry, my dear,† your mail is the genuine mode of travelling for us single people, provided it is not that stupid heavy Gloucester one. We were the last mail out of Post Office Yard last night—½ past 8, and such a load of letters, too, and bags as I never beheld—nevertheless I was here, 198 miles, by a quarter before five this evening, was dressed by six, and have just finished my excellent boiled fowl and bacon.‡ . . . I am so enamoured of mail travelling that

* The Earl of Durham.

† Mr. Creevey usually addressed Miss Ord as Bessy, but sometimes as Barry.

‡ Nimrod writes of this Edinburgh mail as the ne plus ultra of road work at any time. “It runs the distance, 400 miles, in a little over 40 hours, and we may set our watches by it any point of her journey. Stoppages included, this approaches eleven miles in the hour, and much the greater part of it by lamplight.” The time of the Flying Scotsman on the Great Northern Railway for this journey is now 8 hours and 25 minutes; and she keeps it.

I mean to stay here to-morrow, to play with the Minister, to have an early dinner and be off with the Edinbro mail of to-morrow about five, and so get to Alnwick about six on Tuesday morning. . . . I have been thinking much of the belligerents Lambton and Brougham on my way down, and I think the former has completely cut his own throat by his speech at the Glasgow dinner, and has given Beelzebub a horse to ride which, with his jockeyship, will carry him thro’. It is not a year since this hair-brained Lambton claimed for himself at his Gateshead dinner the exclusive merit of originating the general Reform Bill; and now, forsooth, he pledges himself to his new allies, the Glasgow operatives, and to all other operatives, that he will have nothing short of household suffrage, &c., &c., which is, of course, a repeal of the present Reform Act, of which six months ago he was so proud. Beelzebub may say now, when he is accused of his gratuitous declaration against going on too quickly with Reform:—‘Why, I knew at the time more than you all put together. I knew that a daring measure was concocting to destroy all our labours, and put the people en masse against the property of the country, and I knew that Lord Durham was to lead this crew. With this conviction on my mind, could I do less than put the country on its guard against the new-fangled reform?’ . . . Durham’s is a truly daring measure, and he has nothing left but to pit the strength of the Radicals—himself at their head—against the property and good sense of the country; and I presume (for there is no telling till one sees) that he will be beat dead hollow.”

“Howick, Nov. 4th.

“A nicer little dinner and a happier one I never had—the ex-Prime Minister and lady, two boys (Frederick and Harry), Lady Georgiana and Nummy* all the company, with dumb waiters. Only think of Downing Street! . . . Last July two and thirty years ago was the first time I ever was in this house. I had just then become M.P. for the first time, and was here early enough from my own election to be present at

* Creevey himself.

Lord Grey’s for this county. I well remember going with him to the county meeting at Alnwick—a very crowded one in the Town Hall. After Lord Grey* had proceeded some way in his address, he said there was one subject on which they would naturally be anxious to know whether his former opinions had undergone any change—namely, Parliamentary Reform. I never shall forget the excitement which this question produced in the audience; still less can I ever forget that thunder of applause and delight when he announced that the result of his experience had been to convince him more than ever of the indispensable necessity of that great measure. Well then, here he is, and this great measure carried: aye, and carried exclusively by himself; for without his character and talents, no man or men could have done, or even attempted it; nor would any Sovereign have trusted any other man to do it. . . . And yet, here he is after all—stranded, compelled by the conduct of his own Government to abandon the concern, and to retire into private life. As far as he is concerned—the prolongation of his life and the enjoyment of the remaining part of it, no one who sees him and has known him before, can doubt his good fortune in being placed in this situation. . . . No continuance in power could add an atom to his fame. He stands the only ex-Minister, certainly in this country and perhaps in any other, entirely spotless. . . . You remember as well as myself the natural anxiety and desponding character of his disposition. Now that he has closed his political life, that early fever has not a trace of it left, and a more perfect picture of contentment and even playfulness I defy the world to produce.”

The remainder of this letter deals with Brougham’s part in recent events, and describes the correspondence that had passed between him and Lord Grey in relation to them. Enough, perhaps too much, has been quoted already to show the bitter

* He was then the Hon. Charles Grey.

feelings against Brougham which prevailed among Lord Grey’s friends. There are mountains of letters on the subject, and it avails little further to reopen forgotten sores.

“9th.

“Where did I leave off yesterday? At poor Lord and Lady Grey’s believing that Brougham, in his intrigues unknown to Lord Grey about the Coercion Bill, did not mean to get Lord Grey out of office. Why, then he must be an idiot, or something much worse! because he must have been quite sure that when this plot became known to Lord Grey, the latter, as a man of honor, could not remain a moment longer with such perfidious scamps. . . . I cannot help thinking (tho’ I may be wrong) that Lord Grey is not sorry Durham has taken the real Radical line at last, and think it relieves him from any further political connection with him, which has been one constant source of torment to Lord Grey from Lambton’s unreasonable and shameful conduct to him. . . . Lord Grey told me yesterday that the applications made to him for peerages had been over three hundred, and for baronetages absolutely endless. He says he is in great disgrace with Col. Grey of Morrick for not making him one—that his wife came to Downing Street in tears absolutely to implore this favor from him, but he would not. . . . Lord Grey told me that it was one of the first acts of his Government to offer Coke a peerage—absolutely an earldom—and Coke had chosen for a title ‘Castleacre,’ an estate purchased by the Lord Chief Justice Coke, joining Holkham; but just before our William came to the throne, Coke, at a dinner given him at Lynn, had made a most violent speech against George the Third, pointing to his picture which was in the room, and calling him ‘that wretch covered with blood’ (meaning, of course, from the American and French wars), an insufferable speech, particularly of a dead man; so that all the Royal Family were in arms about it. The King put it to Lord Grey whether, after such an attack upon his father, he could confer this signal mark of favor upon him, and Grey thought not.”*

“12th.

“So Lord Spencer is dead by this time! Just in time to save Althorp from that horrible position in the House of Commons which his late folly put him into. But what comes of the House of Commons itself? Who is to lead that precious assembly? . . . Stanley would be the only man if he had only common sense and common manners; but I think Spring Rice must be the man. . . . Talking of Lady Howick,† Lady Grey said:—‘I never liked her, and I do so now less than ever. I believe she is clever and has been agreeable; her natural character is to be saucy and pert, but with me is artificial and guarded in the extreme; curious and inquisitive to the greatest degree, and sending to her sister in Yorkshire everything she picks up;‡ which somehow or other comes to me on its return from Yorkshire. Then, if I deny having said it in part or in whole, I am told it must be so, for “Maria took it down in her journal at the time!” which is not very pleasant you know. But Henry is quite devoted to her, and she has supreme influence over him.’ . . . Just as I was in the midst of writing the last sentence, Lord Grey stalked into the great library, his spectacles aloft upon his forehead, and I saw at once he was for jaw, so I abandoned my letter to you and joined him. . . . He had received a letter from Lord John Russell to-day, and I saw in a minute both Holland and Lord John were making offers to Lord Howick of a berth in the Government (in the Cabinet, of course) thro’ Lord Grey; and then we began to talk on that subject in good earnest. I gave my own decided opinion that the Government could not last; that I had always thought so before the late insanity of Brougham and Durham’s scrape, even if Lord Spencer had lived; and that the Government would have broken down in the House of Lords,

* Mr. Coke was created Earl of Leicester immediately after King William’s death in 1837.

† Creevey’s old correspondent, Miss Maria Copley.

‡ Much as Creevey himself sent everything to his step-daughter.

Melbourne, with all his merits, being utterly incapable of sustaining it; but that now it would go to the devil at once in both Houses. On that account, I would have Lord Howick extremely cautious in taking office without more daylight, the design in having him being obvious—to pass for having Lord Grey’s support. Lord Grey was quite with me that the Government must go, Althorp being gone, and he thinks it could not have weathered the session had he remained; but he has an evident hankering for Howick being in office, and evidently has a most false estimate of his talents, and of every other property belonging to him. . . . I will stop here, as every day must bring us new speculations as to the result of Althorp’s political demise.”

“15th.

“. . . Lord Grey had a letter from Lord John Russell yesterday, stating that he had consented to be leader of the House of Commons. Can anything be more condescending? Was there ever such luck for Lord Grey as being out of office before Althorp was off, and Johnny Russell leader? We are both agreed that such an arrangement is horrible, if not fatal. We both agree that he has an overweening conceit of himself, is very obstinate, very pert, and can be very rude—charming properties for the leader of such a House of Commons! . . . Lord Grey says Mulgrave’s pretensions are beyond all bearing, that he never found Grant worth a single farthing, and that Abercromby is a perfect humbug.”

When King William dismissed Melbourne and his colleagues in November, 1834, he laid his commands on the Duke of Wellington. The Duke recommended that Sir Robert Peel should form a Government; but as Peel was absent in Rome, the Duke consented to conduct affairs until his return, declining, however, to fill any offices during Peel’s absence. Therefore until Peel returned on 9th December, the Duke was virtually First Lord of the Treasury, Home, Foreign, Colonial, and War Minister; an arrangement which gave mighty umbrage to the Opposition.

“16th.

“Here’s a go for you! The Whigs turned out and Wellington sent for. A letter from Lord Melbourne to Lord Grey, written at Brighton, announces this fact . . . . Now, will this convince Beelzebub that honesty is the best policy after all? It was his perfidy to Lord Grey about the Coercion Bill that destroyed the Government. . . . Then the conceited puppy Johnny Russell, who gave the first blow to the Government by disclosing the Cabinet differences about the Church, thereby making Stanley and the Duke of Richmond resign, that he, having lost Lord Grey and Lord Althorp too, should be fool enough to think that he could lead the House of Commons! Next to these two benefactors, Brougham and Lord John, the Tories are under everlasting obligations to Lord Durham and his Glasgow dinner. . . . When I was here five and twenty years ago, a King’s messenger arrived bringing an invitation from Perceval to Lord Grey to unite with him in making a Government, Castlereagh and Canning having quarrelled, fought and gone out of office. I presume no messenger will come now on a similar errand from Wellington. (After dinner) Duke of Bedford mentions a fact Lord Grey and I were not aware of; viz. that Peel is in Italy. Wellington can form no Government without his concurrence.”

“17th.

“. . . Melbourne writes that his conversation with the King was a very long one, and that his mind was quite made up that the Government, such as it was reduced to, could never stand. . . .”

“19th.

“Brougham describes in his letter to Sefton (who has arrived here) his interview with the King at the Council on Monday. After referring to the letter of advice he wrote to the King, and applying a profusion of butter to him and his family, Brougham said he hoped he never should be placed in the painful situation of acting with any hostility to his Majesty or any part of his family;* but as the leader of a popular [party] in this country, he could not conceal from himself that he might, to a certain extent, be controll’d by the measures of such a party: in short—a regular threat, at which Beelzebub says the King seem’d much annoy’d (as well he might), very grave, but very civil (which I doubt!). Brougham writes:—‘I dined with Lyndhurst to-day, and he says he’ll be damned if he’ll be Chancellor without some security. In the meantime he gives up the Exchequer to Scarlett, who is Lord Chief Baron and goes to the House of Lords.’”†

“20th.

“. . . Brougham continues to write daily to Sefton letters of a perfect Bedlamite. He says the excitement in London becomes more universal and intense every day; whilst Lord Grey’s letters from Melbourne and others state that there never was more perfect apathy amongst all classes.”

“22nd.

“. . . Lord Grey and I are of opinion that Wellington’s difficulties appear greater every day. His assuming all the offices of State into his own hands, without knowing if he can ever fill them, is a most offensive and wanton act of power. For instance, he has dismissed from their offices in the most insulting manner Palmerston and Rice, without naming any successors, when, according to established usage, they might have held the seals of their offices till such successors had been found. . . . It is clear that this move of the King’s was not anticipated by the Tories, or Peel would have been on the spot. This vesting, or rather assuming, of all the power by one man, and him a soldier and with such known opinions, for a whole fortnight or perhaps three weeks, is giving opportunities for every species of criticism upon such conduct. The Whigs might have died a natural death, as they shortly would, had they been let alone;

* Referring to Queen Adelaide’s overt antipathy to the Whigs.

† As Lord Abinger.

but it is quite another thing to have them kick’d out of the world by this soldier, and to see him stand single-handed on their grave, claiming the whole power of the nation as his own.”

“23rd.

“. . . It seems the offer to Stanley which I mentioned has not actually been made yet.* Peel is to be home on the spot, before a single fixed appointment is made. Great homage to him this! . . . I am more and more struck every day with Lord Grey’s happy appearance, and I can’t help making in my own mind the contrast between him and Sefton. In my estimation, Sefton is by no means inferior to the other in natural talents. In conversation he has much more fancy and a much greater variety of talent; and had his mind taken the same direction earlier and received the same cultivation as the other, he, too, would have been a most powerful speaker, tho’ not as eloquent. But this want of early cultivation now ruins him. Lord Grey spends a good part of every day with his book, which Sefton, from want of habit, can’t do, and he is compell’d, therefore, to exist a great part of his time upon excitement from play, cookery, &c., &c. It would do you good to see me send Lord Grey to bed every night at half after eleven o’clock, which is half an hour beyond his usual time. This I do regularly, and it amuses him much. He looks about for his book, calls his dog Viper, and out they go, he having been all day as gay as possible, and not an atom of that gall he was subject to in earlier life. To be sure, when he read a letter this morning at breakfast, stating that the Duke of Gloucester was dangerously ill, he did say:—‘Well, if he dies, all I can say is, he won’t leave a greater fool behind him than himself!’ But how feeble and gentle this compared with the energy of earlier days, when he told

* Stanley was offered office in Peel’s cabinet as soon as Peel returned from Rome. He declined it, on the ground that, however possible he might have found it to serve with Peel, the fact that the Duke of Wellington had first received the King’s commands “must stamp upon the administration about to be formed the impress of his name and principles.”

Dick Wilson that ‘nothing in life would give him so much pleasure as to see Eldon hanged in his robes.’”

“25th.

“. . . Sefton and I had a long conversation with Howick* when everybody else was gone to bed. It is quite impossible that any one could cut a better figure, either for good sense or for good and honorable principles. The Rump of his father’s Government would have applied to him in vain to take office with such rubbish, after their treatment of Lord Grey. . . . Lord and Lady Frederick FitzClarence went away yesterday. . . . He is much the best looking of the King’s sons.† . . . The little wife, Lady Augusta,‡ tho’ about the shyest person I ever saw, disclosed symptoms both of sense and character. She has seen a great deal of the Queen, whom she pronounces to be both sensible and good-natured, but that, after living fourteen years in England, she has not a single English notion. The Queen’s fix’d impression is that an English revolution is rapidly approaching, and that her own fate is to be that of Marie Antoinette, and she trusts she shall be able to act her part with more courage. She only approves of the Duke of Wellington, as being the only man to stem the revolutionary current, having an old grudge against him and having very often abused him in Lady Augusta’s presence, for having turn’d them out of the Admiralty, for his uncourteous manner of doing it,§ and for the disrespectful way in which he always treated the King when he was Duke of Clarence. . . . Brougham, in his letter to Sefton yesterday, let off a madder prank than ever: viz.—that he had written to Lyndhurst offering to be Chief Baron for nothing, by which £7000 a year would be saved to the nation, he being quite

* Afterwards 3rd Earl Grey: died 1894.

† By Mrs. Jordan. The eldest was created Earl of Munster; the remainder received the rank of the sons and daughters of a marquess.

‡ Daughter of the 4th Earl of Glasgow.

§ During Wellington’s premiership he had been obliged to take grave exception to certain proceedings of the Duke of Clarence in his office of Lord High Admiral. First he reprimanded him very sharply, and finally he removed His Royal Highness from office altogether.

contented with his pension as ex-Chancellor of £5000 a year. . . . Whether this is pure spite to Scarlett, or pure, unadulterated insanity I know not; but I do know how so ridiculous a proposition will be treated. . . . Lyndhurst is civil and dry in his answer (a copy of which Grey has shown me), and says that the Duke and himself will call the earliest attention of Peel to the proposal when he returns. Ld. Grey did not tell me who sent him the copies of these letters, but I take for granted it was Lord Holland, and that Brougham had purposely selected Holland as the repository of these confidential letters, and under the most positive injunctions of secrecy, well knowing it was the best chance for publicity!”

“Dec. 3.

“Well, the curtain is about to drop upon my four weeks’ visit to an ex-Prime Minister. As yesterday was a blank day for London letters, Sefton at different times expressed his delight at the prospect of this morning and the news it would bring—very like an indication of ennui, you’ll say. . . . Lord Grey only smiled and said:—‘I don’t expect any news, and I don’t want any.’ At the accustomed hour of ten this morning, there stood a pile of letters on his plate, making, I should think, his legal number—fifteen.* So, having been some time employed in opening them and circulating their enclosures, either by flinging them or sending them on plates to their proper owners, he said at last:—‘It’s funny enough, of all these letters, there is not one for myself!’ A very good picture, this, for politicians to study, and a very pretty portrait of a retired one. The same tranquillity and cheerfulness, amounting almost to playfulness, instead of subsiding have rather encreased during my stay, and have never been interrupted by a single moment of thoughtfulness or gloom. He could not have felt more pleasure from carrying the Reform Bill, than he does apparently when he picks up half-a-crown from me at cribbage. A curious stranger would discover no out-of-the-way

* I.e. the number which, as a peer, he was entitled to receive free of postage in one day.

talent in him, no powers of conversation; a clever man in discussion, certainly, but with no fancy, and no judgment (or very little) in works either of fancy or art. A most natural, unaffected, upright man, hospitable and domestic; far surpassing any man one nows in his noble appearance and beautiful simplicity of manners, and equally surpassing all his contemporaries as a splendid publick speaker. Take him all in all, I never saw his fellow; nor can I see any imitation of him on the stocks. . . .

“I never mentioned to you a specimen of Lady Grey’s moral creed as given me by herself. It was just after Lady T—— had left us; so, being alone, she said to me:—‘I like Lady T——: she is always good-humoured, and she amuses me; and as she never says anything to offend me or those belonging to me, I don’t feel I have anything to do with Mr. Thompson or any other of the lovers which she has had. The same with Madame de Dino and the Duchess of B——; they are always very good-humoured and are very agreeable company; and as they never say anything to offend me, I have nothing to do with all the different lovers they are said to have had. I take no credit to myself for being different from them: mine is a very lucky case. Had I, in the accident of marriages, been married to a man for whom I found I had no respect, I might have done like them, for what I know. I consider mine as a case of luck.’

“Droll, wasn’t it?”

“Tower, Dec. 20.

“. . . Lyndhurst said to some one yesterday:—‘D’ye know where Peel’s letter was concocted?’—‘No,’ said the other.—‘At Brooks’s!’ said Lyndhurst. What a wag. I should say it would do for the present, and until the Irish Church comes upon the stage, or any other similar puzzler. I don’t feel any wish to disturb such a government as long as they keep to such a text. How Goulburn, Knatchbull, &c., are to swallow such Liberalism I neither know nor care. However, our people are all up in arms against what they call the humbug of Jenny.”*

* Peel.

“Greenwich Hospital, Dec. 23rd.

“Our party at dinner on Sunday at Lord Holland’s was the Duchess of Bedford, Duke of Devonshire, Mulgrave, B. Thompson, Bickersteth and some one else I forget. I never was acquainted with the Duchess of Bedford, and since I delivered her of her London Bedford House in 1808, have always been glad not to come in her way. However, on Sunday she began before dinner, . . . and when there was an opening after dinner she said—‘Well, tho’ I have never had a house in London fit to live in since that disappointment, I quite forgive you; and I hope you will come and see me at Woburn at any time you like.’ . . . I dine at the Hollands again on Xmas day—again to meet that lively man, the Duke of Devonshire! But we shall have no want of vivacity on that jolly day, as the Duke of Norfolk dines there likewise. . . . I had two conversations yesterday, each with a Hume—the first, ‘Joe’—the second, Wellington’s doctor whom you will remember. The first was quite positive that Peel could not number 200 supporters. My other friend, to my surprise, turned about with me, and expressed to me his fixed conviction that every attempt of the Duke and Peel to procure a favorable House of Commons would fail.”

CHAPTER XIII. 1835-1836

In the remaining years of Creevey’s life he continued comfortably withdrawn from active political strife, though he continued to take a keen interest in all that was passing. He lived chiefly with the Seftons; but, despite his deafness, continued in great request as a diner-out. Repeated attacks of influenza, treated by cupping, which he mentions as a notable improvement upon the old lancet bleeding, made him subject to long periods of feebleness; but his pen continued almost as busy as ever.

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, April 29th, 1835.

“. . . We have an affair going on between Alvanley and O’Connell. Alvanley challenged him directly when he called him a ‘bloated buffoon.’ Damer Dawson is Alvanley’s bottle-holder, and as Dan had returned no answer to the demand upon him yesterday, which was supposed ample time, Dawson fired a second shot into him. I think Alvanley quite wrong in this, but Sefton is quite of a contrary opinion.”

“May 5th.

“. . . About this nonsense of Alvanley’s, I consider every part of Alvanley’s conduct as faulty. His first movement against O’Connell was political; it was to create disunion between O’Connell and his tail and the Whigs. Then I know that this arose from spite, Alvanley having been lately refused a place in the Household which he asked for. Then the publicity he has given to his challenge of O’Connell is against all rule. However, he has been at last accommodated by one of the O’Connell family, who had 3 shots at him last night in a duel, and no harm done to either party. . . . Alas, alas, the Widow’s Mite (you know that is the name that has been given by some wag to Johnny Russell)* has been beaten black and blue in Devonshire. . . .

“As I was walking just now, according to my constant custom, in the enclosure in St. James’s Park, who should I meet but Bessy Holyoake, alias Goodrick, all alone, having dismissed her footman at the gate, and we had a charming walk quite round the whole, in the course of which we met, first Rogers and Mrs. Norton arm in arm; then Goodrick, the Duke of Richmond and Graham, ditto; then Lord Durham and his 3 children.”

“Brooks’s, 16th.

“. . . After our signal triumph in Yorkshire, which was quite invaluable if our blockheads would have left it alone, they must make that marplot Littleton a peer,† and so open Staffordshire, as if the puppy had not done mischief enough last year when, by his intrigues with O’Connell, he forced Lord Grey out of the Government. Three days ago in my favorite resort in St. James’s Park I met Brougham walking. . . . He joined me—my first time of seeing him since the explosion; and a more unsatisfactory, rambling discourse I never had dealt out to me—very, very long and, as far as he dared, abusing everybody. I was heartily glad when this mass of insincere jaw came to a close by his going to the House of Lords. Figure to yourself at this moment, O’Connell and myself seated at the same table writing, very near each other, and no one else in the room, and yet no intercourse between us, tho’ formerly we always spoke. This is

* Lord John Russell, who was of very diminutive stature, had just married the widow of the 2nd Lord Ribblesdale.

† Lord Hatherton.

no matter of choice with me, nor do I like it, but after his abuse of Lord Grey, I made up my mind never to speak to him again.”

“May 20th.

“. . . Lord Essex told me on Sunday morning here that Lady Grey was very anxious I should not fail her that day, as she relied upon my protection of her against Sir Joseph Copley, of whom she was horribly afraid. However, when I arrived there I found there was not much danger of her being overpowered by Copley. It is true he was there, as were his daughters ‘Coppy’ and Lady Howick;* but there were likewise Lord and Lady Morley, Lord and Lady Granville and Col. Carradock (as the puppy calls himself instead of Cradock), with whiskers quite enough to deter Copley from any personal attack on Lady Grey, besides her own private body-guard of Howick, Charles and Frederic, with Ladies Elizabeth and Georgiana. ‘Coppy’ fell to my lot, and I did all I could to be agreeable to her at dinner; but both she and Maria, from the manner in which they shook hands with me at first, gave me a kind of formal notice not to presume upon it or be too familiar with them. I dare say, in fact, that, knowing my intimacy with the Greys, and feeling their own artificial situation in the same quarter, they consider me rather an enemy. To be sure, they had no great reason to be set up with the attentions of either my lord or my lady. They know that they both think Ly. Howick infernally impertinent, as most assuredly she is.†

“In the evening we had a truly select addition to our dinner party, consisting of the Dow. Duchess of Sutherland, who, as Lady Elizabeth Bulteel and I agreed, has all the appearance of a wicked old woman. Her son and the young Duchess too—a daughter of Lord Carlisle’s, and a cousin, pretty enough and amiable and good, I dare say, but with such nonsensical ruffs and lappets and tippets about

* Sir Joseph’s daughter Maria had been married to Lord Howick in 1832.

† Lady Howick had been brought up in a family of Tories, which no doubt affected Creevey’s opinion of her, though they had been the best of friends before her marriage.

her neck and throat that, coupled with her brother Morpeth’s constant grin, gives you a strong suspicion of her being a Cousin Betty.

“My ears were much gratified by hearing the names ‘Lord and Lady John Russell’ announced; and in came the little things, as merry looking as they well could be, but really much more calculated, from their size, to show off on a chimney-piece than to mix and be trod upon in company. To think of her having had four children* is really beyond! when she might pass for 14 or 15 with anybody. Everybody praises her vivacity, agreeableness and good nature very much, so it is all very well. . . . We had rather an interesting sprinkling of foreigners too—first and foremost my own well-beloved and honest Alava, then the ingenuous Pozzo [di Borgo], with his niece Madame Pozzo—a very pretty, nice, merry looking young woman. . . . It was a great treat to me, too, to see at our party for the first time in my life Sebastiani, with his wife, sister to Lady Tankerville.† . . . Let me not omit to mention that this corps diplomatique was closed by the arrival of our Mandeville,‡ who now turns his eyes from me as if he loathed me, probably attributing Lord Grey’s altered manner to him to my having shown him up as he deserves. I beg Cupid Palmerston’s pardon! he, too, was there, as also was Lady Cowper, if you come to that . . . . Well, Barry, as for our Buckingham Palace yesterday—never was there such a specimen of wicked, vulgar profusion. It has cost a million of money, and there is not a fault that has not been committed in it. You may be sure there are rooms enough, and large enough, for the money; but for staircases, passages, &c., I observed that instead of being called Buckingham Palace, it should be the ‘Brunswick Hotel.’ The costly ornaments of the state rooms exceed all belief in their bad taste and every species of infirmity. Raspberry-coloured pillars without end, that quite turn you sick to look at; but the Queen’s paper for her own apartments far exceed everything else in their ugliness and

* By her first husband, Lord Ribblesdale.

† A daughter of Antoine, Duc de Grammont.

‡ Afterwards 6th Duke of Manchester.

vulgarity. . . . The marble single arch in front of the Palace cost £100,000* and the gateway in Piccadilly† cost £40,000. Can one be surprised at people becoming Radical with such specimens of royal prodigality before their eyes? to say nothing of the characters of such royalties themselves.”

“Stoke, August 23.

“. . . There was a prodigious to-do at the Castle here the day before yesterday, it being Billy’s seventieth birthday—a dinner to 150 and tea party to as many more; in short, to all the nibberhood, always excepting poor Stoke, the residence of Maria Craven, Billy’s first love.‡ Oh perfidious Billy! but as Sefton told me, this omission was quite a matter of course, the family not having written their names at the Castle this year. . . . You will be glad to know that amongst the visitors at the Castle, the Lord Mayor had the honor to be one, and not only to dine, but to stay all night. This said Lord Mayor, Winchester, is a stationer; and having been employed by a Tory Government for supply of the Treasury, was formally dismissed by the same Government, by regular Treasury minute, for cheating—that was all. Another favored guest, both for bed and board, was Walter, M.P. for Berkshire, formerly proprietor and editor of the Times newspaper.”

“17, St. James St., 29 January, 1836.

“. . . There never was such a coup as this Municipal Reform Bill has turned out to be. It marshals all the middle classes in all the towns of England in the ranks of Reform; aye, and gives them monstrous power too. I consider it a much greater blow to Toryism than the Reform Bill itself; tho’ I admit it could never have been effected without the latter passing first. It is a curious thing to be obliged to admit, but it is perfectly true, that Melbourne and

* Now the Marble Arch in Hyde Park.

† Now at the entrance to Constitution Hill.

‡ The Countess of Sefton. See vol. ii. p. 212.

the leavings of Lord Grey’s Government are much stronger than Lord Grey’s Government was when it was at its best. Altho’, as old Talleyrand observed, Melbourne may be trop camarade for a Prime Minister in some things, yet it is this very familiar, unguarded manner, when it is backed by perfect integrity and quite sufficient talent, that makes him perfectly invaluable and invulnerable.”

“Brooks’s, Feb. 15th.

“. . . The great object of my curiosity at present is to see and get hold of our Ellice,* who is just fresh from Paris, after a residence of some time there. He has had two very distinguished playfellows there, with whom he has almost entirely lived—the first, Madame Lieven—the other, no less than Philippe, who could scarcely bear to have him out of his sight. Madame Lieven’s attachment to him was intelligible enough. She knows her man, and would be quite sure to know everything that he knows of Lord Durham and his mission—every secret (if they have any) of the present Government, and every opinion entertained by Lord Grey. What is the bond of union between the Bear† and the King of the French I am yet to learn. . . . Ellice is very vain (and who is not?); he is a sieve, and so much the more agreeable for those who squeeze him. . . . What say you to our own Stanley? was there ever such a case of suicide? I really think if I saw him in the street I should try to avoid him to save his blushes; yet perhaps such things are unknown to him.”

“March 19th.

“. . . I never dined with Lady Holland after all, but sent an excuse on account of my gout. I really can’t stand the artificial bother and crowded table of her house. I admit that no one can sail thro’ such difficulties better than myself; but still, her presumption is not to be endured. How different from the affable demeanour of Marianne Abercromby with whom and Mr. Speaker I am to have the honor of

* The Right Hon. Edward Ellice, M.P. † Ellice.

dining this day;* and our Duke Barney† is to take me there.”

“22nd.

“. . . The town at present is kept in perpetual motion by the Duchess of Kent, everybody going to her fêtes at Kensington to see the young King of Portugal, her nephew. Lady Louisa [Molyneux] tells me that he is an innocent looking lad of 20, and that he never seems happy but when talking to his cousin Victoria, and that then they seem both supremely so. What wd. I give to hear of their elopement in a cab! . . . I declare I have not read anything for ages that has interested me so much as the Duke of Wellington’s examination and evidence before the Flogging Commission in the Times of to-day. It is the image of him in his best and most natural state, and very entertaining and instructive.”

“28th.

“. . . My sister used to reproach me for letting so many of my companions ‘get before me’ in life, and used to instance Scarlett being a lord and Western too; but her best case would have been Abercromby, who was a suitor to me thirty years ago for any office that would secure him food; and here he is—Speaker of the House of Commons! entertaining me in one of the finest houses in London, and with the finest company. We had a great turn out at dinner there on Saturday—the Dukes of Norfolk and Devonshire, Lord and Lady Seymour, Lord and Lady Howick, the young Bear and Mrs. Ellice, Charles Fox and Lady Mary, Lords Palmerston, Strafford and Ebrington, &c., &c.”

“Stoke, April 8.

“. . . Our family here [the Seftons] was put rather in a fuss yesterday by receiving a letter from Lady Craven, informing Lady Sefton officially and at some length that her daughter’s intended marriage with

* The Right Hon. James Abercromby was Speaker from 1835 to 1839.

† The Duke of Norfolk.

Tom Brand* was broken off by the young lady herself, who found out at last (for the wedding day was very near) that she really could not like him enough to marry him. Her principal objection against him is that he never opens his mouth and that he proscribes any connection with a book. A lively, interesting companion, it must be admitted.† Mrs. Norton has quitted her husband, upon a quarrel about a man whose name I forget. She is not, however, gone off with this man, but gone to the Sheridans.

“Jermyn St., April 23.

“. . . I dined with Madagascar‡ at Holland House, a small party, and for once, to my delight, plenty of elbow-room. . . . Whilst Holland House can be as agreeable a house as any I know, it is quite as much at other times distinguished for twaddle, and so it was on this occasion.”

“Brooks’s, May 13th.

“. . . Melbourne has been very ill, but is better, and will do. Young, his secretary, told me that he had been terribly annoyed by the Norton concern. The insanity of men writing letters in such cases is to me incomprehensible. She has plenty of Melbourne’s and others, but according to what is considered the best authority, the Solicitor General of the Tories—Follett—has saved Melbourne, tho’ employed against him. Follett is said to have asked Norton if it was true that he had ever walked with Mrs. Norton to Lord Melbourne’s house, and then left her there. Upon Norton’s saying that was so, Follett told him there was an end of his action.§

“The jaw about this case is now succeeded by the breaking off of the marriage between Ld. Villiers and

* Afterwards 22nd Lord Dacre.

† In 1840 Lady Louisa Craven married Sir G. F. Johnstone, Bart., and after his death she married Alexander Oswald of Auchencruive in 1844.

‡ Lady Holland.

§ The jury, without leaving the box, pronounced a verdict acquitting Lord Melbourne.

Lady — Herbert, Lady Pembroke’s daughter. Lady Pembroke’s case against Lady Jersey is merely a charge of an attempt to get her daughter to sign a paper doing herself out of £20,000—her whole fortune—without any one’s knowledge.”

“28th.

“. . . Yesterday I dined at Holland House with my old and tried friend the Speaker, and Marianne [Hon. Mrs. Abercromby] into the bargain. Such a fright I never in my life beheld, in a dress far surpassing any female crossing-sweeper on May Day. I arrived just as they had sat down to dinner, with as little room to turn myself in as ever fell to any man’s lot, and yet I was called to both by Lord and Lady Holland to leave room for a very distinguished American gentleman who was expected; but I would not hear of such a thing, and this led to a good deal of fun. The party consisted, besides the Abercrombys, of Bob Adair, Lord de Ros, the Attorney General and his wife, the peeress Scarlett’s eldest daughter (I forget her title).* I found her a very nice agreeable companion, apparently very amiable, and not the least set up with either her father’s peerage or her own. Dr. Lushington and Fonblanque, a son of old Fonblanque, and writer of one of the cleverest Sunday papers, were the others. I took to Fonblanque much. The distinguished American arrived a quarter after eight, the dinner hour having been half-past six; but he brought his card of invitation with him to shew he was right. . . .”

“Stoke Farm, Sept. 6th.

“I came here on Friday; visitors—Charles Greville, Lords Charleville and Allen, Standish, Townley, Rogers and C. Grenfell. Townley still dumb!† Was there ever? . . . Sefton asked me if I

* Lady Abinger’s eldest daughter, wife of Sir John Campbell, had just been created Baroness Stratheden, and her husband was subsequently created Baron Campbell in 1841.

† Mr. Townley had been courting Lady Caroline Molyneux, but delayed coming to the point. In effect, he married her in the November following.

had heard of ——, I mean, his cheating at cards, and upon my saying yes, he said it was all quite true, and that his practice had been so long known to his friends that they had remonstrated against his pursuing such a course, for fear of detection; but poor, dear, insinuating —— could not resist, and it has fallen to the lot of George Payne to detect him publickly. The club is to be dissolved in order to get rid of him. —— is gone abroad, and Sefton has a letter from him—the most amusing, wittiest letter about all he has seen! . . .”

“Brooks’s, Sept. 16.

“Sad work, ladies, sad work! Not a frank to be had for love or money, so don’t cry if I don’t catch an M.P. before the post goes out.* I returned from Cashiobury [Lord Essex’s] on Wednesday, and my visit was all very well. The Hollands came on Saturday, with Rogers, Melbourne on Sunday, and Glenelg on Tuesday. We all left on Wednesday—I in Glenelg’s carriage. I had the offer of Rogers’s carriage all to myself; but I declined attending the funeral; by which I mean Lady Holland’s procession. She moves in her own coach and four horses—her stipulated pace being four miles an hour, to avoid jolting! She makes Rogers go in her coach with Holland and herself, all the windows up; then Rogers’s chariot follows empty, then my lady’s chaise and pair of posters, containing her maid, her rubber, page, footmen, &c. . . . Essex is a man of very few words for compliments; but I took it as a real civility when he said:—‘I ordered for you, Creevey, the room that poor George Tierney was so fond of, and always had.’ Certainly, a more perfect apartment I never had. Essex and Lady Holland were growling at one another all the time, but she was always the aggressor. Melbourne and Holland were all good nature and gaiety. The only drawback to my amusement was owing to my great folly in walking on Monday to see the Birmingham railroad† now

* He did catch one, and the letter is franked by Mr. Kemeys-Tynte.

† Opened in 1837: now part of the London and North Western system.

making, being about four miles there and back, which has made me dead lame. . . . I think our Madagascar is evidently failing: she looks wretchedly, and there is an evident languor upon her that even victuals and liquor don’t remove. She came one day and sat close beside me in the library; and when she had begun to talk to me, a little, tidy old woman came and went down on her marrow-bones, and begun to put her hands up her petticoats. So of course I was for backing off de suite; but she said:—‘Don’t go, Creevey; it is only my rubber, and she won’t disturb us.’”

“Brooks’s, 24th.

“. . . I dine at Crocky’s daily, where I have got the dinner down to 8s. 6d.—tout compris; was I to dine here, it would certainly be a pund. . . . My eye! what a man Lord Fitzallen is, it you please—just introduced—about 7 feet high, as red as a turkey-cock and covered with bushes of black hair in mustachios and whiskers. Thank God I don’t dine with him; he is really quite disagreeable to look at.”

“30th.

“. . . I dined at Poodle Byng’s on Monday—the Honble. Mrs. Byng having been lady’s maid to the Poodle’s mother. You know I have the greatest aversion to playing at company with such kind of tits; but as Charles Greville, Cullen Smith and Luttrell, and two or three more of your men upon town took no objection, it was not for me to find fault.”

“Brooks’s, Oct. 4th.

“. . . When I was at Stoke I fell in love with Wellington’s Peninsular dispatches, published by Gurwood; but as my supply from that library is now cut off, and the book itself too dear to buy, I am living upon Napier’s Peninsular War, which has been given me by Lord Allen, because he hates it so much. . . . Napier is a clever man, and has taken great pains with his subject; but he undertakes too much in his criticism upon all the French generals in Spain, and all their acts. The Beau,* the real official and efficient observer of all, pretends to no such universal insight into the tactics of his enemy as is claimed by this subaltern in his own camp.†. . .”

“8th.

“. . . I shall certainly take your advice and subscribe to a circulating library; but I have enough on my hands at present with Napier, who rises in my estimation every page I read of him. His defence of poor Moore is perfect. . . . I think when I next see the portrait of that villain Frere hung up at Holland House, I shall not be able to contain myself.”

“Nov. 17th.

“. . . Sefton said before dinner yesterday:—‘So Charles Dix‡ is dead!’ and scarce an observation was made from any quarter upon this event . The first year you and I, Barry, were at Knowsley, I saw the said Charles Dix with his son and Berri and their respective gentlemen, going in two coaches and four to Croxteth. They did this for years. When the restoration in France took place, there was nothing that Charles Dix and his family did not do to show their gratitude to the Seftons for past kindness. . . . I was present in Arlington Street when the French Ambassador brought, by command of Charles Dix, as a present to Lady Sefton, his picture, with the prettiest note possible, saying it was great vanity in so old a man for him to send his picture to a lady, but hoping she would receive it as an acknowledgment of all the kindness he had received from her. When the last Revolution took place in 1830, and Charles Dix came here, Sefton shewed me a letter from Sir Arthur Paget (who had likewise been a personal friend of Charles Dix), saying he considered it his duty to go and pay his respects to him, and asking Sefton to

* The Duke of Wellington.

† There is some justice in this criticism: at the same time it must be remembered that Wellington’s despatches were contemporaneous; whereas Napier was writing years afterwards, and with knowledge gained from the enemy’s secret correspondence.

‡ King of the French.

accompany him. Sefton declined, and never did see him. I think I can safely say I would not have acted thus for all Sefton’s property. . . . After all, Sefton will die an unhappy man, with all the means the world can give him to make himself, and all around him, happy.”

S. Marjoribanks, M.P. for Hythe, to Mr. Creevey.

“I am just now moving my quarters in London, and I find that I have about 3 dozen of the old East India Sherry more than my bin will hold. Will you oblige me by accepting it?

“S. Marjoribanks.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Nov. 24th.

“. . . The Times newspaper had a statement from ——’s camp proclaiming his innocence. This is replied to by another statement in the Chronicle of to-day—evidently an official article from the camp of Payne and Co., charging distinctly as a cheat, as no doubt he is. Even his friend the Pet* gives him up and refuses to see him. He has, it is true, some little cause of resentment against him, being sure, as he tells me, that and Montrond cheated him out of £6000 the Xmas I met them at Croxteth.”

* Lord Sefton.

CHAPTER XIV., and Last. 1837-1838. Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Jermyn St., Jany. 14th, 1837.

“. . . I am caught at last by that infernal influenza. It’s the most marvellous concern I ever heard of—nothing but common snivelling and wholesome coughing, and yet producing such depression and incapacity as really to be beyond. No appetite, of course.”

“20th.

“. . . What a figure Peel makes with his Scotch sentiment, his scenery, his young shepherd who was so instructive to hear! The poor Spinning Jenny has acquired great power both of thinking and speaking, but his works of fancy betray his origin. They are as like his father as ever they can be. I heard the father once say:—‘I say, Mr. Speaker, Britannia is seated on a rock!’ Here they are, you see, both alike in their clumsy capers after sentiment. Only think of old Peel and Sheridan! and yet oh dear, oh dear! the difference of their deaths. I should like to have heard old Sherry’s comments upon young Peel’s speeches. . . . I am happy to say that the mischievous crew—Sir Wm. Molesworth, Roebuck, my Napier and Co.—are becoming quite blown upon by their brother Radicals, which will be a monstrous relief to the Government in the approaching session. . . .”

“Brooks’s, March 11th.

“. . . I dined on Sunday at Sefton’s to meet Brougham, with Denman, Radnor and others. . . . Just as we were going away, Brougham took me aside, and, to my great surprise, asked me if I would dine with him alone as yesterday at 6 o’clock, and that he would show me some most curious correspondence of George the third. I, of course, expected to be put off every day, but no such thing. . . . After dinner, Brougham read the correspondence to me till between 11 and 12 o’clock and I have much more to come. It consisted of letters from George the 3rd to Lord North as his minister, during the whole of his long administration.* Talk of the Creevey papers, my dear! would that they contained these royal letters! I have never seen anything approaching them in interest—the cleverness of the writer, even in his style—his tyranny—his insight into everything—his criticism upon every publick parliamentary man—his hatred of Lord Chatham and Fox, and all such rebellious subjects—his revenge; but at the same time and throughout, his most consistent and even touching affection for Lord North. . . . You would be amused to see the effect produced upon the Whig Government by this conduct of Brougham to myself. . . . [They are] most desirous for me to make some kind of opening between them and Brougham, for there is no kind of communication between them, and they feel it most unpleasant to see him every night in the House of Lords, and never to feel sure whether he will pounce upon them or not. Oh dear! to think of the prudent Mr. Thomas being called in to settle such matters!”

“18th.

“. . . Would you believe it that when Brougham was Chancellor he would press the correspondence between George the 3rd and Lord North upon our William, . . . his object being that the King might see what a constant and valuable support his father gave to his Ministers, and so induce King William to do the same; but all the observation he could get from his master was this:—‘George the 3rd, my lord, was a party man, which I am not in the least.’”

* Correspondence of George III. with Lord North from 1768 to 1783, edited by W. Bodham Donne, 1867.

“Brooks’s, April 21.

“As to poor Mrs. Fitzherbert, I wish, as you say, you had some little picture of her. She was the best-hearted and most discreet human being that ever was, to be without a particle of talent. Finding she was in town before Xmas, and dining most days at home with Lady Aldborough, Lady Radnor and others, I made an attempt to be taken into the same party, but entirely failed. Mrs. F. said she had known me formerly, but that I had long ceased to call upon her. My offence I always felt and knew to be my foul language about Prinney when he sought to destroy his wife. Mrs. F. might think that my former intercourse with him should have restrained this vituperation, and that even on her account I shd. have stopt my mouth. Poor thing, I dare say she was right; but it was more than flesh and blood could resist not to have a blow at such a villain in the perpetration of such an act of infamy and oppression. She has left her house in town and her jewels to Mrs. Damer; her house at Brighton and everything else to Mrs. Jerningham. I remember her telling me a great many years ago that she had been offered £20,000 for her town house. She can have left no other property. About a year ago, she deposited all her letters and papers of every description in the hands of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Albemarle, for the purpose of being destroyed by them, as I am told they were; but I shall ask Albemarle for an account of the transaction. She formerly expressed to me great anxiety to have her correspondence published after her death—talked of having two copies made of it for fear of being betrayed by her executors, and at one time I almost thought she would have given me one of such copies. . . . Now then, attend to Albemarle’s account just given to me by him as to Mrs. Fitzherbert’s letters. She gave these letters to Lord Albemarle about fifteen years ago, to be kept by him till further directions; her wish being that after her death they might be published. Upon the death of the late King,* the Duke of Wellington, as his

* George IV.

executor, became possessed of all Mrs. Fitzherbert’s letters, which, singularly enough, had been preserved with equal care by Prinney. Mrs. Fitzherbert applied to the Duke to have her letters restored to her; but he refused, unless she consented to restore the King’s letters likewise. This led to a negociation between the Duke and Albemarle; and finally it was agreed between them, with Mrs. Fitzherbert’s concurrence, that they should all be burnt, and so they were, at Mrs. Fitzherbert’s own house, in the presence of herself, the Duke and Albemarle. Oh dear, oh dear! that I could not have seen them. They begun in 1785 and lasted to 1806—one and twenty years. The last year—1806—was when the young man fell in love with Lady Hertford, and used to cry, as I have often seen him do, in Mrs. Fitzherbert’s presence. So it was high time for their correspondence to cease.”

“24th.

“. . . I must let Albemarle rest for the present. His recollections must be full of interesting matter from Mrs. Fitzherbert’s letters, which, at proper seasons, one must endeavour to squeeze out of him. Lady Sefton learnt from Damer Dawson* that both the houses in London and Brighton were left to Minny [Mrs. Dawson-Damer], and £20,000 stock, with all the jewels, and half of her plate; the other half to Mrs. Jerningham, to whom she says in her will she had given £15,000 during her life. £1000 each to her nieces Lady Bathurst and Mrs. Craven, and there are annuities to the amount of £1000 a year, to which Minny is subject till they drop in.

“I must just mention another species of property that our Prinney died possessed of. Perhaps no man, Prince or subject, ever left such a wardrobe behind him as our George the 4th, and the Duke of Wellington, as his executor, had to examine all his coat pockets, in which he found notes without end, broken fans, &c., &c. Now I have not the least doubt that what Lord Cowley told Lady Cowley was strictly true, viz., that the Duke, in telling this to his brother,

* The Right Hon. G. Dawson-Damer, father of the 4th Earl of Portarlington.

never let him see any one of these notes, or know any one of their contents. The letters burnt at Mrs. Fitzherbert’s were so numerous, that they had to stop every now and then, from the excessive heat produced . . . I dine at our Essex’s to-day to meet our ‘Clunch’ Althorp, now Earl Spencer, and, as I hope, Melbourne. . . . I was much amused at seeing our young Victoria playing the popular to her people on the Birthday. She passed this house [Brooks’s] in state—four royal carriages and an escort of Horse Guards. The mother had judiciously chosen a chariot for herself and daughter, so they were both visible to all. The young one was rather too short to nod quite above the door, but she was always at it as well as she could, and the mother looked quite enchanted at her daughter’s reception.”

“May 2.

“. . . Altho’ I had Tavistock* to dinner at Essex’s, as well as Clunch.† it was no great day in point of vivacity. Clunch mutters, and the amiable Tavistock is feeble. One thing I heard from Althorp† which I never knew for certain before, that when Lord Grey’s Government came in, one of their first acts was to offer Burdett a peerage, which he refused. Having known and watched Burdett for nearly 40 years, I am perfectly certain that his present hostility to the Government is attributable to the jealousy of his character. Ever since I have known him, he would have no rival; and the unexpected and successful one he has found in Howick has driven him mad. . . . As you observe, there is a very general impression that Vic is a person with a will of her own.”

On 20th June King William breathed his last, and all eyes were directed upon the maiden who, little as statesmen could expect it of her, was destined to redeem the Monarchy from the dangerous disfavour into which it had been dragged. The circumstances

* Afterwards 7th Duke of Bedford.

† The 3rd Earl Spencer.

of the memorable Accession have been told so often that a few quotations only will serve from Creevey’s abundant references thereto.

“Brooks’s, June 20th.

“I cannot resist telling you that our dear little Queen in every respect is perfection. I learnt first of all from the Duke of Argyll that, all the Privy Councillors being assembled round the Council table, the Dukes of Cumberland and Sussex went into an adjoining room, and conducted the Queen in. She took her chair at the head of the table and read her declaration in the most perfect manner possible, and with a most powerful and charming voice. I have since had all the particulars from Tavistock, who had them from Melbourne himself. She sent for him at once, and begged him to draw up the declaration she ought to make; which of course he did, and everybody says it is admirable. She then put herself entirely in his hands in the best possible manner. . . . Poor dear King William’s last act was signing pardons. Dear Lady Sefton has just been crying to me on horseback in the street at her early and royal friend dying so beautifully.”*

“July 24th.

“. . . Friday I dined at Rogers’s, and thought I understood from him that Lady Holland was to be my only companion, my lord being picked up by the Queen. Instead of that, however, I found in addition to Madagascar, Lord and Lady Langdale, the American Minister (Stevenson) and his lady, Lady Seymour, Mrs. Abercromby, Lord Minto, Pow Thompson, Miss Rogers and Allen. . . . I sat between Lady Langdale and Mrs. Abercromby . . . the only drawback to our communications was that I presently found we three had only three ears between us.

“On Saturday I dined at Dulwich; dinner in the picture gallery for 30—a triennial dinner to savants and virtuosos. Our artists were Chantrey, Wilson, Barry, Wilkie, &c., &c.,—our Mecænases, Lansdowne,

* See vol. ii. p. 212.

Sutherland and Argyll, the latter of whom carried me in his barouche—poets and wags, Rogers, Sidney Smith and Creevey! . . . I think the only thing I have to tell you of our dear Queen is Argyll’s description of her reception of Lyndhurst on the levee day. She had shown her usual pretty manner to those who preceded Lyndhurst; but when his turn arrived, she drew up as if she had seen a snake, and Lyndhurst turn’d as red as fire and afterwards looked as fierce as a fiend. Lord Grey . . . says that in the House of Lords he actually cried from pleasure at the Queen’s voice and speech; and he added that, after seeing and hearing three Sovereigns of England, the present one surpasses them all—easy—in every respect.”

“29th.

“. . . A word or two about Vic. She is as much idolised as ever, except by the Duchess of Sutherland, who received a very proper snub from her two days ago. She was half an hour late for dinner, so little Vic told her that she hoped it might not happen another time; for, tho’ she did not mind in the least waiting herself, it was very unpleasant to keep her company waiting. One day at dinner Lady Georgiana Grey sat next Madame Lutzen, a German who has been Vic’s governess from her cradle; and according to her there never was so perfect a creature. She said that now Vic was at work from morning to night; and that, even when her maid was combing out her hair, she was surrounded by official boxes and reading official papers.”

Earl of Essex to Mr. Creevey.

“9, Belgrave Square, 7 Aug., 1837. “Dear Creevey,

“The Duke of Sussex has at last decided to dine here next Saturday the 12th. Therefore I hope I shall see you on that day. . . . Lord Munster has pleaded in forma pauperis to retain the round Tower at Windsor, and I hear pays about £1000 a year. The Duke of Sussex in the handsomest manner possible gave up his claim, and the Queen most kindly returned the baton to Lord Munster, who will of course vote against us. . . . So the Duchess of St. Albans is dead, and Lyndhurst married at Paris to Lewis Goldsmith’s daughter. There are two great people amply provided for!”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Brooks’s, Sept. 6th.

“. . . Lady Tavistock and I had a most confidential walk and talk. You have heard me say what a gaby she is; but she is all truth and daylight. She told me she was in the second carriage after Vic on Sunday at Windsor; and that the Queen according to her custom, being cold in the carriage, had got out to walk, and of course all her ladies had to do the same; and the ground being very wet their feet soon got into the same state. Poor dear Lady Tavistock, when she got back to the Castle, could get at no dry stockings, her maid being out and her cloathes all locked up. . . . I am sure from Lady Tavistock that she thinks the Queen a resolute little tit. . . .”

“Jermyn Street, Sept. 22.

“. . . I have taken to Wellington and his dispatches again, and the more I read of him the fonder I am of him. He really is in every respect a perfect man. . . . Palmerston was very communicative at Stoke as to the great merits of the Queen. He said that any Ministers who had to deal with her would soon find she was no ordinary person; and when Lady Sefton observed what credit it did the Duchess of Kent to have made her what she was, Palmerston said the Duchess of Kent had every kind of merit, but that the Queen had an understanding of her own that could have been made by no one. . . . Lady Charlemont succeeded Lady Tavistock the other day [in waiting at Windsor]. She is very, very blue, and asked Lady T. if she might take any books out of the library. ‘Oh yes, my dear,’ said Lady Tavistock, not knowing what reading means, ‘as many as you like;’ upon which Lady Charlemont swept away a whole row, and was carrying them away in her apron. Passing thro’ the gallery in this state, whom should she meet but little Vic! Great was her perturbation, for in the first place a low curtsy was necessary, and what was to come of the books, for they must curtsy too. Then to be found with all this property within the first half hour of her coming, and before even she had seen Vic! . . . But Vic was very much amused with the thing altogether, laughed heartily and was as good humoured as ever she could be. . . .”

“Brighton, Oct. 9th.

“. . . Now for Brighton! Barry, my dear, it is detestable: the crowd of unknown human beings is not to be endured. . . . Whether it is a natural sentiment or not, I don’t know, or whether I mistake ennui for it, but I have a strong touch of melancholy in comparing Brighton of the present with times gone by. Death has made great havoc in a very short time with our Royalties of the Pavilion—Prinney and ‘brother William,’ Duke of York and Duke of Kent, all gone, and all represented now by little Vic only. Is it not highly dramatic that the Duke of Kent should have announced to me in 1818, upon Princess Charlotte’s death, that he was going to marry for the succession, and named his bride to me; and here she is, with the successor by her side, and what is to become of her, or how she is to turn out, who shall say?

“. . . In talking to Lady Cowper of Lord Melbourne, and, as I suppose, of his health, Vic said:—‘He eats too much, and I often tell him so. Indeed I do so myself, and my doctor has ordered me not to eat luncheon any more.’—‘And does your Majesty quite obey him?’ asked Lady Cowper. ‘Why yes, I think I do,’ said Vic, ‘for I only eat a little broth.’ Now I think a little Queen taking care of her Prime Minister’s stomach, he being nearly sixty, is everything one could wish! If the Tory press could get hold of this fact, what fun they would make of it. . . . The Duchess of Kent plays whist every night, and a horrible player she is. Vicky, I am happy to say, always plays chess with Melbourne when he is there.”

“Brighton, Oct. 13th.

“. . . Yesterday Lady Sefton, her two eldest daughters and myself, sallied forth in the yellow coach to dine with the Queen at our own old Pavilion. Lord Headfort, a chattering, capering, spindle-shanked gaby, was in waiting, and handed Lady Sefton into the drawing-room, where I was glad to see Glenelg, and besides him were Tom Bland and a Portuguese diplomat, as black in the face as one’s hat, but with a star on his stomach, I assure you! Presently Headfort was summoned away, and on his return he came up to me with his antics and said:—‘Mr. Creevey, you are to sit on the Duchess of Kent’s right hand at dinner.’—Oh, the fright I was in about my right ear! . . Here comes in the Queen, the Duchess of Kent the least bit in the world behind her, all her ladies in a row still more behind; Lord Conyngham and Cavendish on each flank of the Queen. . . . She was told by Lord Conyngham that I had not been presented, upon which a scene took place that to me was truly distressing. The poor little thing could not get her glove off. I never was so annoyed in my life; yet what could I do? but she blushed and laughed and pulled, till the thing was done, and I kissed her hand. . . . Then to dinner. . . . The Duchess of Kent was agreeable and chatty, and she said:—‘Shall we drink some wine?’ My eyes, however, all the while were fixed upon Vic To mitigate the harshness of any criticism I may pronounce upon her manners, let me express my conviction that she and her mother are one. I never saw a more pretty or natural devotion than she shows to her mother in everything, and I reckon this as by far the most amiable, as well as valuable, disposition to start with in the fearful struggle she has in life before her. Now for her appearance—but all in the strictest confidence. A more homely little being you never beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying to be always more so. She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing not very pretty gums. . . . She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think I may say she gobbles. . . . She blushes and laughs every instant in so natural a way as to disarm anybody. Her voice is perfect, and so is the expression of her face, when she means to say or do a pretty thing. . . . At night I played two rubbers of whist, one against the Duchess of Kent, and one as her partner. . . . The Queen, in leaving the room at night, came across quite up to me, and said:—‘How long do you stay at Brighton, Mr. Creevey?’ Which I presume could mean nothing else than another rubber for her mother. So it’s all mighty well.”

Countess Grey to Mr. Creevey.

“Howick, Oct. 10th.

“. . . I hope you are amused at the report of Lord Melbourne being likely to marry the Queen. For my part I have no objection. I am inclined to be very loyal and fond of her; she seems to be so considerate and good-natured, and I am particularly pleased with her just now for having sent to desire Caroline* to bring her little girl with her when she is to be in waiting.”

Marquess Wellesley to Mr. Creevey.

“Hurlingham House, Fulham, Oct. 28th, 1837. “My dear Mr. Creevey,

“In returning my grateful thanks for your very kind congratulations,† I trust you will believe that I fully appreciate their value. You are not of that sect of philologists who hold the use of language to be the concealment of thought, nor of that tribe of thinkers whose thoughts require concealment. You would not congratulate me on the accession of any false honor, the result of prejudice or error or of the passionate caprice of party, or of idle vanity, or of any transient effusion of the folly of the present hour; but you think the deliberate approbation of my Government in India declared by the Court of Directors (after the lapse of thirty years—after full experience of consequences and results, and after full knowledge of all

* Lady Caroline Barrington, Lady Grey’s daughter.

† The East India Company, with whom Wellesley had been at sore issue in the early years of the century, had just voted £20,000 to purchase an annuity for him.

my motives, objects and principles) a just cause of satisfaction to me. . . . In truth they have awarded to me an inestimable meed of honor, which has healed much deep sorrow, and which will render the close of a long public life not only tranquil and happy, but bright and glorious. . . . Our friend Sir John Harvey most appropriately has been dubbed a Governor. What wisdom in those who made the appointment! ‘Il est du bois dont on fait les gouverneurs.’ He was certainly born ‘your Excellency.’ I think I see him strutting up to his petty throne, preceded by Harry Grey, Ellice, Shaw, Carnac, &c., with his stomach doubly embroidered; condescending to let an occasional foul pun now and then with majestic benignity.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Jermyn St., Nov. 3.

“Both Melbourne and Lord and Lady John Russell wanted much to know from the Seftons how it was that I had amused the Duchess of Kent. The only solution I can offer is this. By common consent, the Royal evenings are the dullest possible, and no one presumes to attempt to make them livelier. The Duchess of Kent is supposed to play at cards to keep herself awake—scarcely ever with success. I can imagine, therefore, a little running fire of a wag tickling her ears at the time, and leaving a little deposit on her memory. I know no other ground on which I can build my fame. . . . Just let me mention that the Sir John Harvey, mentioned in Wellesley’s letter as the new governor of Prince Edward’s Island, was at the head of the police when I was in Dublin, and I met him at dinner at the Lord Lieut.’s [Wellesley]—a large, handsome man, but by far the most vulgar would-be gentleman you ever beheld, extremely dressy withal, and my lord always remembered my asking—‘Who was the gentleman with the embroidered stomach?’”

“Jermyn St., Nov. 10th.

“Let me see; where am I to begin with my past movements. Suppose I say Sunday last, when I was told by Stephenson that the Duke of Sussex desired particularly that I would dine with him; so I was obliged to excuse myself to my Essex, where I was engaged to meet Sydney Smith. I have yet to learn why I was so specially summoned by little Sussex, as there were only his household—Ciss* and the men—with Charley Gore and me, and nothing said worth remembering. . . . Monday at Essex’s, with the accustomed sprinkling of artists, which I am quite accustomed to, and indeed like. Tuesday at Charles Fox’s, Addison Road—no joke as to distance; 8 shillings coach hire out and back, besides turnpikes! The company—Madagascar.† Allen, Babbage the philosopher, Hamick (Lord Grey’s doctor and baronet), Van de Weyer, Belgian Minister, Hedworth Lambton‡ and wife, an unknown man, and Melbourne. . . . In the evening we had the bride, Lady Winchilsea,§ of whom I had heard so much; she certainly did appear to me as beautiful a woman as I had ever seen. Wednesday at Powell’s: company—Duke of Norfolk, Albemarle, old Billy Russell,‖ Stephenson Blount and myself.

“. . . I dined on this day week at Brougham’s—a duet; and a more artificial chap I never had to do with; except, indeed, that his temper not infrequently betrayed him, and shewed him in a state of the most spiteful insurrection against the present Govt. You see he is distinctly shewing his teeth in the Lords, and will fasten them on the Government before he is a few days older. I quite approve of what he has already said there, tho’ not of his spiteful motives in doing it.”

* The Duke of Sussex’s wife, Lady Cecilia Buggin, afterwards created Duchess of Inverness.

† Lady Holland.

‡ Younger brother of the 1st Earl of Durham.

§ Daughter of the Right Hon. Sir Charles Bagot.

‖ Lord William Russell, son of the 4th Duke of Bedford: murdered by his valet, 1840.

“Dec. 4th.

“. . . I met Hayter one day this week at Lord Essex’s, and asked him to tell me anything new about the little Queen. He said she was quite as amiable and kind and lively as ever. He has got on a good way with the State picture he is making of her. She said to him the other day:—‘I am very curious to know how you mean to place my hands. Just take them and place them as you intend in the picture.’ A very delicate commission to execute, as Hayter observed; but he did so; and then the Queen turned to Lady Mulgrave and said:—‘I have often thought, if I had to paint a Queen, how I would place her hands; and, curiously enough, this is the very position I had hit on.””

“15th.

“. . . Cutlar Ferguson* is most enthusiastic about the Queen. He has had to lay before her about twenty Courts Martial—only think of such a subject for a girl of 18! After seeing the Judge Advocate, she is closeted with the Commander-in-chief, Lord Hill, upon the same matter; and Ferguson tells me that both Lord Hill and himself are lost in astonishment at the manner in which she makes herself understand these matters. Ferguson dined at the palace a few nights ago—one of the fog nights—so that when he arrived he found to his horror that the Queen had been at dinner 20 minutes. When he was about to take the opportunity after dinner of apologising for being so late, the Queen begun first by saying:—‘I said before dinner, I am sure Mr. Ferguson is stopt in the Park by the fog’ Is she not a handy little Vic? . . .”

Lady Louisa Molyneux to Mr. Creevey.

“Arlington St., Dec. 26, 1837.

“. . . Punch Greville is at present our best resource, and Poodle Byng now and then drops in, it would be ungrateful to say, without contributing

* Judge Advocate General.

much to our amusement. We have been tempted today to go to the Magnetism—a most disagreeable sight; but nobody can persuade me it is a sham. Its utility may be a question, but it is impossible to see the poor people of all ages—some quite children out of the hospitals—under the influence, and suppose they have been taught to impose upon you. The best part of the entertainment was Lady Aldborough in an opera hat, large diamond ear-rings, and rouged up to the eyes, trying to put the operator out of countenance by her noisy questions, and bouncing out of the room, declaring disbelief in the whole thing. . . .”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Holkham, Dec. 29th.

“. . . I had this cold on me before I left London; it did not, however, prevent me from dancing down twenty-five couples in a country dance last night—my partner, Dowager Anson. It was the usual Xmas ball for servants in the audit room. . . . The Earl of Leicester, aged 85, opened the ball. He is a marvellous man, but I think he is going out, tho’ he burns as bright as bright to the last.* Ellice was a real treasure to me during our two days’ journey down here. No one is more mixed up with passing events in the world than he is. He hears daily from Melbourne, and I know to a turn the present rickety nature of poor Melbourne’s cabinet.”

“Holkham, Jany. 3rd, 1838.

“. . . The worst thing of all for the Government is this. Aber, even our own Aber,† won’t stand any longer being given up to be devoured by the dogs of the House of Commons, and no Ministers of the Crown to protect him. I saw from the first, when he was left unprotected, and when he made his pathetic and most unsuccessful appeal to the House to rally round him, that he was done. Of all the mistakes John Russell

* He died in 1842, outliving Creevey by four years.

† The Speaker.

has made, and they have been numerous, this is the greatest, and in my opinion it is irreparable. It is the first instance in the history of the House of Commons of the Speaker being publickly worried by its members and the Government to sit by and take no part. . . . Then, alas! tho’ last, not least, . . . in truth little Vic and her mother are not one, tho’ Melbourne knows of no other cause of this disunion than Conroy, whom the Duchess of Kent sees still almost daily, and for a long time together. Melbourne speaks of the young one with the same enthusiasm as ever, and has the highest opinion possible of her understanding. The part she at present plays is putting herself unreservedly into the exclusive management of Melbourne, without apparently thinking of any one else. This, at all events, must be a great relief and support to him, whilst it lasts. In the midst of one’s croaking, there is another source of consolation—that the Tories never appeared in a more forlorn and shattered condition, or less likely to turn all our blunders to their own advantage. . . . Lord Leicester shoots daily; amongst other companions and competitors are his 3 sons. The eldest, Lord Coke,* aged 15, on Xmas Day shot 5 woodcock, and always shoots from 30 to 40 head daily.”

“Jermyn Street, 17th.

“You see, my dear, that towards the end of last week our Ellice received a dispatch from Lord Durham saying he had accepted the mission to Canada, but that he could do nothing without Ellice. So we left Holkham on Saturday. . . . My companion continued to the last as communicative as ever. . . . Lord Leicester is a marvellous man in everything, but above all in his clear and perspicuous telling of stories, of which he has great abundance. I was much amused one day when he was driving me, upon Lady Holland’s name being mentioned, he said to me:—‘I hope we shall find Charles Fox and Charlie Gore when we get home. I am very fond of Charles Fox, and particularly of Lady Mary.’ I remarked that I had never heard of Lord Holland being at

* The present Earl of Leicester.

Holkham, and yet that of course he must have been. ‘No,’ said he, ‘his uncle Charles used to live here, and I have often asked Lord Holland, but of course he would not come without Lady Holland, and it was quite out of the question my asking her. I dine at Lord Holland’s now and then. When I do so, I am as attentive as I ought to be to Lady Holland, and there is no kind of flattery she does not apply to me; but it won’t do! She is not a woman I approve of at all. I am only surprised that so many people have been bullied by her to letting her into their houses. For myself, I have always made up my mind that she should never enter mine.’ Bravo! King Tom. What a charming subject to plague her with the first time she gives me any offence. . . . Certain it is that this Holkham is by far the greatest curiosity in England.”

Lady Louisa Molyneux to Mr. Creevey.

“Arlington St., Jan. 17th, 1838.

“. . . Papa has found some amusement in a book that occupies everybody now—more, it appears, from its atrocity than from any merit it has—Memoires et correspondence of Queen Caroline, edited by Lady Charlotte Bury, in which there are so many bad stories ill told, and so many personal remarks on living people, that I cannot imagine anybody ever speaking to her again. Her name is not to the book, but everybody knows it is hers.

“Poodle Byng, &c., have tried, it seems, rather a dangerous experiment with the [new] House of Commons, by which they lighted it so brilliantly that you could read the smallest print; and if you held a candle to the paper it added no light to the dazzling glare, which came from 5000 apertures in gas-pipes between the roofs, where the thermometer was at 120, and kept rising! They had fire engines in attendance, and a hose laid along every gas-pipe for fear of accidents; but they will not venture to try it again. . . . Think of Lord Foley having sold Witley to Ld. Ward* for £890,000! He was some little time

* Created Earl of Dudley in 1860.

in making up his mind to part with the place they were all so fond of; but he will now have £19,000 a year without any debt, instead of being the wretched impoverished man he was.* I have had a letter from Alava, who says of Sir John Colborne†:—‘J’ai grande confiance dans Colborne—officier du premier ordre, très aimé et tres estimé tant de Sir J. Moore comme du Duc de Wellington, et quel bel éloge! Il est non seulement excellent militaire, mais qualified pour toute espèce de commandement, et d’une moralité et probité dignes d’autres temps.’

“The burning of the Royal Exchange has put the City in great dismay. They are very quiet, and were to give £16,000 this morning at 9 o’clock for a house in Lombard Street, to go on with at present, and meet there at twelve. I hope the poor bells chiming their death song brought tears into your eyes.”

Mr. Creevey to Miss Ord.

“Jermyn St., 27th.

“. . . I have really been so disturbed in my mind by this Canada Bill that I could not write till its fate was decided. I am at a loss for words to express my contempt for the Government in the endless bungling they have made on this occasion. Never was there such a piece of luck for them as the Canada rebellion, its speedy reduction, and, above all, the opportunity it afforded of considering past errors and making a wise and just arrangement for the future. All mankind was with them upon this subject; but some maniac or demon in their counsels would mar all these advantages by the manner or form of their Bill of Redress. I said from the first that every word uttered by Peel was gospel, and that nothing was left for the Government but to go down on their marrowbones and to withdraw the gratuitous, useless and unconstitutional parts of their own Bill. To think, too, of their volunteering Glenelg’s instructions to Durham. . . . Well, but now let me have done with

* See vol. ii. p. 253.

† Created Lord Seaton in 1839. Was Governor-General of Canada.

this disgusting hash, and where shall I go next? Why, to Earl Durham himself, I think, with whom I dined at the Duke of Norfolk’s on Tuesday, and no one could be more affable and conciliatory than our Canada chief. He had seen the Queen that morning, and I made him describe the meeting. After being presented by Glenelg, the Queen made a sign to the latter to withdraw, and then some conversation took place between the Queen and her Ambassador, in which the latter [Durham] expressed his earnest hopes that he might enjoy her Majesty’s permission to extend her clemency in any degree towards her revolted Canadian subjects. This she accorded in the fullest and most gracious manner. Durham was full of her praises—of her sense and excellent manners, but he admitted to me that neither on that occasion nor any other did she utter a word to him on what we call politics.

“A propos to our little Vic—we are all enchanted with her for her munificence to the Fitzclarences. Besides their pensions out of the public pension list, they had nearly £10,000 a year given them by their father* out of his privy purse, every farthing of which the Queen continues out of her privy purse, with quantities of other such things. For an instance within my own knowledge—Sir John Lade, a very rich man, and once the greatest crony of George the 4th when Prince of Wales, was reduced to beggary at last by having kept such good company; so much so, that Lord Anglesey, who had lived with both, went to our Prinney† and actually made him give Lade £500 a year out of his privy purse. When brother William came to the throne, he continued £300 a year to Lade out of his privy purse; but upon the accession of Vic it was supposed there would be an end of it altogether. As poor Lade was a brother whip and crony of Sefton, I saw letters from him imploring Sefton’s interest with Melbourne for a continuance of a portion of this pension, however small; but Melbourne in reply, however friendly he might be, could hold out no prospect of relief for him. Think, therefore, of me being the first to tell Sefton last night

* William IV. † George IV.

what Melbourne told me in the course of the day. The Queen’s pleasure had been taken as to the further reduction or extinction of this charge upon the privy purse, when she asked if Sir John Lade was not above 80 years of age, and being answered in the affirmative, she said she would neither have the pension enquired into nor reduced, but continued on her own privy purse. . . . I wish that conceited puppy Howick* had resigned and absconded from the Cabinet when he announced his intention to Ellice at Holkham to do so. It is quite clear that all this mischief has arisen from his obstinacy and the foolish attempt of his colleagues to satisfy or pacify him; and the latter object seems to have been accomplished at the expense and to the eternal disgrace, I fear, of his betters.”

Here the letters suddenly cease. These lines must have been among the last from Mr. Creevey’s industrious pen, and lend a peculiar significance to the enquiry contained in them—“Where shall I go next?” Of the manner of his death or of those who tended him in his last illness, nothing is known. He died early in February, 1838, wanting but two or three weeks to complete his seventieth year.

* Afterwards 3rd Earl Grey.

INDEX.

The figures in italics refer to the notes only. A Abbot, Charles, Speaker, i. 4, 298; ii. 70; on Peel’s first speech, 1. 122; created Lord Colchester, i. 262 Abercorn, Duke of, i. 310 Abercromby, M.P. for Edinburgh, i. 36 Abercromby, Hon. James (created Lord Dunfermline), Speaker, i. 36, 113, 120, 121, 128, 191, 247, 336; ii. 37, 120, 148, 276, 309, 331; “factious and violent,” i. 217; christened “Young Cole” by Brougham, i. 327; Brougham’s fellow-counsellor, ii. 2; “my Scotch master, jemmy,” ii. 259; appointed to the Mint, ii. 279; Grey on, ii. 296; Creevey’s “old and tried friend,” ii. 312 Abercromby, Hon. Mrs. James, ii. 309, 312, 322 Abercromby, Sir Ralph, Commanderof the Army in Egypt, 1. 48 Aberdeen, George, 4th Earl of, i. 173 Abinger, Lord (Sir James Scarlett), Lord Chief Boron of the Exchequer, i. 12; ii. 2, 56, 115, 148, 226, 298, 301, 310, 312 Abisbal, General (Spain), ii. 74 Acheson, Lord (afterwards Earl of Gosford), ii. 191 Adair, Sir Robert (the target of Canning’s satire), i. 22; ii. 6, 148, 154, 211, 312 Adam, Rt. Hon. William, Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales and Lord Chief Commissioner to the Scottish Jury Court, i. 39, 107, 213, 253 Addington, Rt. Hon. Henry. See Sidmouth, Viscount Adelaide, Queen, ii. 83, 216, 217, 224, 262; her dislike of Duchess of Kent, ii. 238; at Olivia de Ros’ wedding, ii. 263; her antipathy to the Whigs, ii. 298; her fixed impression, ii. 300 Adkin, Tom, i. 99 Adour, Congreve rockets at the passage of the, i. 147 Age, the, ii. 96, 200 Agricultural depression, ii. 55, 94, 147 Alava, Representative of Spain at Bourbon Court, i. 277, 279, 289; ii. S3, 102, 226, 236, 263, 307 Albemarle, Countess of (née Hunloke), ii. 33 Albemarle, George, 3rd Earl of, ii. 33 Albemarle, William, 4th Earl of, i. 163, 336; ii. 6, 97, 224, 329; a saying of William IV., ii. 226; the King and the Reform Bill, ii. 244; Mrs. Fitzherbert’s letters, ii. 319, 320 Albuera, i. 185 Aldborough, Lady, i. 281; ii. 319, 331 Aldborough, Suffolk, ii. 227 Aldborough, Yorkshire, ii. 227 Alexander, Master in Chancery, ii. 68 Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, offers mediation between England and France, i. 15; his visit to London, i. 187, 194; a favourite with the Whigs, i. 191; Napoleon on King of Prussia and, i. 196; a remonstrance, ii. 4; Lord Holland’s peace-offering, ii. 15; the revolution in Spain, ii. 53; Lady Londonderry’s transfer, ii. 58 “All the Talents” Ministry, formed by Grenville, i. 40, 42, 75, 81, 84 Allen, M.D., John, i. 260, 264; ii. 39, 155, 156, 322, 329 Allen, Lord, ii. 288, 312, 314 Allies, in Paris, i. 187; in Belgium, i. 218 Almeida, i. 88 Alten, General Sir Charles, i. 222, 235 Althorp, Viscount (3rd Earl of Spencer), “Clunch,” i. 157, 264; ii. 47, 71, 120, 216, 246, 249, 255, 260, 297; candidate for Cambridge, i. 75-77; his motion about Prince of Wales’ outfit, i. 216; letter to Creevey, ii. 17; his first budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer, ii. 218, 221; Stanley’s obstinacy about Irish tithes, ii. 252; the scene between Durham and Grey, ii. 265; resigns on Coercion Bill, ii. 282, 283; remains in office, ii. 284; succeeds to Earldom, ii. 295, 296, 321 Alvanley, Lord, ii. 59, 129, 167; challenges O’Connell, ii. 304 Amelia, Princess, her illness and death, i. 98, 135 America, war with, i. 165, 166-173; peace, i. 211, 212 Amherst, Lord, i. 337 Amiens, treaty of, i. 10 Andover, Viscountess (afterwards Lady Digby), ii. 36, 112 Andrews, Miles Peter, i. 63 Anglesey, Marchioness of, ii. 181, 188 Anglesey, Marquess of, ii. 162, 181, 188, 231; recalled by Wellington from Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, ii. 174, 193-195; his proclamation against Catholic meetings, ii. 177; his view of Ireland, ii. 182; his leg’s grave at Vittoria, ii. 189; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland again, ii. 265; and Sir John Lade, ii. 335 Angoulême, Duchess of, i. 246 Annual Register, i. 339; ii 84 Anson, George, ii. 74, 214, 254 Anson, Hon. Mrs. George (née Forester), ii. 214, 254 Anson, Lady, ii. 35, 36, 80, 331; letter to Creevey on the battue at Holkham, ii. 52 Antalda, Marquis of, ii. 14 Antrim, Countess of, 1. 18 Antrim, Randal, 4th Earl of, i, 18 Antrim, Alexander, 5th Earl of, i. 18 Appleby, Creevey M.P. for, i. 298 Arbuthnot, ii. 121 Arbuthnot, Mrs., ii. 286 Argyll, Duke of, ii. 226, 241, 322, 323 Armstrong, Colonel, ii. 289, 290 Arran, Earl of, it. 243 Arundel, Earl of (afterwards 13th Duke of Norfolk), i. 245 Ashley, Lady Emily (née Cowper), ii. 198 Ashton, Mr., i. 171,172 Assaye, battle of, ii. 152 Athol, James, 2nd Duke of, 1. 38 Athol, John, 3rd Duke of, i. 37 Athol, John, 4th Duke of, i. 38, 336; ii. 157 Auckland, William, 1st Lord, i. 114 Auckland, George, 2nd Lord, i. 114, 120; ii. 2,95, 114,281; appointed by Grey First Lord of the Admiralty, ii. 276-278; his hand forced by Brougham, ii. 283 Audley, Lord, i. 337 Augusta, Princess, ii. 262 Austerlitz, battle of, i. 44, 45, 49 Austin, Mr., i. 302 Austria, i. 213, 218; ii. 140 Austria, Prussia, and England v. France, i. 44 B Babbage, ii. 329 Bacon, Lady Charlotte, ii. 60 Bacourt, M. de, ii. 270 Badajos, siege of, i. 145 Baden, Princess of, i. 270 Bagot, Lord, i. 337 Bagot, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles, executor of Queen Caroline’s will, ii. 25, 339 Baillie, Dr., i. 245, 266 Baird, Sir David, i. 173 Balfour of Balbirnie, Miss Katherine (Mrs. Edward Ellice), ii. 273 Ballisteros, General (Spain), ii. 74 Bamfyld, Sir Charles, i. 47 Bank Note Bill, i. 145, 146, 163 Bank of England, suspension of cash payments by, i. 292 Bankes, Mr., i. 136, 162, 272; ii. 12, 34, 156 Bankhead, Dr., ii. 44 Barham, Mrs., i. 18 Baring, Alexander, ii. 11, 55,90,244 Barnard, Lord, i. 122 Barnes, Editor of the Times, ii. 237, 257 Barnes, General Sir Edward, Adjutant-General, i. 224, 225, 230, 231, 238, 277, 279, 282, 283, 285; ii. 46, 220; wounded at Waterloo, i. 234, 235; on Lord Hill, i. 278 Barras, i. 6 Barrington, Lady Caroline (nee Grey), ii. 327 Barry, Sir Charles, ii. 322 Barrymore, Lord, i. 78 Barthelemy, M., the banker, i. 7 Bath, Marquess of, i. 337; ii. 73 Bathurst, Countess, i. 324; ii. 320 Bathurst, Earl, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, i. 166, 214, 273, 324; ii. 10, 27, 112, 113, 117 Bathurst, Lady Georgiana, ii. 154 Bathurst, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Bragge, President of Board of Control, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, i. 114, 166; ii. 10, 12 Bathurst, Seymour, i. 335 Battue, an early example of the practice, ii. 51, 52 Beauchamp, Earl and Countess, ii. 105 Beauclerk, Lord H., i. 190 Beauclerk, Mrs., i. 182 Beaufort, Duchess of, i. 324 Beaufort, Duke of, i. 324; ii. 101, 165 Beauharnais, Viscount, i. 6 Beaumont, Marquis of, ii. 3 Bedford, Duchess of, ii. 275, 303 Bedford, John, 4th Duke of, it. 329 Bedford, Francis, 5th Duke of, ii. 109 Bedford, John, 6th Duke of, i. 22, 94, 99, 111, 121, 308, 317; ii. 150, 155, 275, 297; on parliamentary reform, i. 95 Bedford, Francis, 7th Duke of. See Tavistock, Marquis of Bedlam, ii. 79 Belfast, Lady, ii. 97 Belfast, Lord, ii. 97, 107 Belgrave, Lady Elizabeth, ii. 48 Belgrave, Lord, ii. 48 Belhaven, Lady, i. 309 Bellamy, Mr., ii. 50 Bellew, Mr., ii. 179 Bellingham, Mr. Perceval’s murderer, i, 245 Bennet, Hon. H. G., i. 157, 160, 305, 306, 319, 329, ii. 2, 29, 34, 64, 71; Creevey on, i. 36; his letters to Creevey, i. 185, 187, 191, 194, 211, 213, 215, 240, 256, 264, 294; his wife’s veto, i. 210; “this is scandalous,” i. 342 Bennet, Hon. Mrs. H. G. (née Russell), i. 210, 296 Bentham, ii. 51 Bentinck, Lord George, ii. 100 Benvenuto Cellini, Roscoe’s Life of, ii. 163 Berenger, de, i. 203 Beresford, General, at Albuera, i. 185 Beresford, Lord, ii. 126 Beresford, Rt. Hon. John, Chairman of the Revenue Board of Ireland, i. 42 Bergami, Bartolommeo, Queen Caroline’s courier, i. 301, 312, 322, 324, 331, 335; ii. 24, 73 Bergami, Victorine, ii. 24 Berkeley, Admiral Sir Maurice Frederick (afterwards Lord Fitzhardinge), i. 147; ii. 185, 188 Berkeley, Captain, ii. 81 Berkeley, Hon. —, i. 247 Berkeley, Lady, i. 49 Berkeley, Lady Charlotte (née Gordon-Lennox), ii. 185 Berkeley, Thomas, 6th Earl of, i. 67 Berri, Due de, i. 223, 225 Berri, Duchesse de, ii. 252 Berry, Miss, ii. 255 Berthier, General, i. 5, 225 Bertrand, M., ii. 26 Bessborough, Frederick, 3rd Earl of, i. 62, 254; ii. 110, 171 Bessborough, John, 4th Earl of. See Duncannon, Lord Bessborough, John, 5th Earl of, ii. 268 Bessborough, Lady, i. 62 Bessborough Estates, Ireland, ii. 171 Bettesworth, R.N., Captain, ii. 276 Bexley, Lord. See Vansittart, N. Bickersteth, ii. 303 Bingham, General, ii. 259 Binning, Lord, i. 206 Birch, Mr., ii. 213 Black, Sergeant, ii. 11o Blackburne, John, M.P. for Lancashire, ii. 94 Blackwood, Mrs. (née Sheridan), afterwards Lady Dufferin, lastly Countess of Gifford, i. 39 Blake, Mr., ii. 169 Bland, Thomas, ii. 326 Blaquiere, M., ii. 61 Blessington, Lady, ii. 86, 288 Blessington, Lord, ii. 288 Blomfield, C. J., Bishop of London, ii. 195 Bloomfield, Lieut.-General Sir Benjamin (afterwards Lord), George IV.’s Private Secretary, etc., i. 66, 68, 73, 150; ii. 26, 31, 58;British Minister at Stockholm, ii. 43; “ruined from that moment,” ii. 105 Bloomfield, son of above, ii. 58 Blount, Stephenson, ii. 329 Blucher, his likeness to Lord Grey, i. 196; Wellington and, i. 228; his reported defeat by Napoleon, i. 231; at Ligny, i. 236; at Laon, i. 280 Bolton, Judge, ii. 45 Borghese, Pauline, Princess, ii. 26, Borgo, Pozzo di, ii. 307 Boston, Lord, ii. 97 Bould, Miss, ii. 47 Boulton, Mr., i. 172 Bourmont, General, deserts to Blucher at Waterloo, ii. 202, 252 Bourrienne, M., Life of Napoleon, ii. 202, 203, 207 Bouverie, Mrs., i. 13, 82 Bowes, i. 128 Boyce, a Protestant squire of Wexford, ii. 183 Boyd, Benfield and Co., i. 35, 37 Boyle, Lady Augusta (afterwards FitzClarence), ii. 300 Bradshaw, Mr., i. 111 Brand, Tom (22nd Lord Dacre), ii. 311 Brandling, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1. 23 Brandling, Charles, i. 108 Brandling, Miss Fanny, ii. 210, 278, 285 Brandling, Ralph, i. 109 Brandling, William, ii. 278 Brandon, Lady, ii. 160 Brandon, Rev. Wm. Crosbie, D.D., Lord, ii. 160 Brass Founders’ Procession, i. 334 Braybrooke, Lord, ii. 280 Briggs, Captain, i. 312 Brighton, past and present, Creeveyon, ii. 325 Brogden, Mr., i. 22; ii. 10 Brooke, Sir Charles, i. 279 Brougham, Henry, i. 128, 159, 308, 324. 331. 335: ii. 2, 5. 9. 10. 34-36, 56, 58, 60-62, 72, 76, 79, 95, 99, 103. 113, 119, 120, 123, 152, 155, 159, 195, 196, 209, 218, 222, 255, 261, 267, 278, 282, 295; his review of Lauderdale’s book in Edinburgh Review, i. 30; Grey on, i. 108; ii. 140, 184; M.P. for Camelford, i. 153; candidate for Liverpool, i. 156, 171, 173; Creevey’s distrust of, i. 168-171; ii. 23, 89, 129, 130, 136, 137, 149; his “volley of declamation,” i. 172; the weapon ready, i. 175; and Queen Caroline, i. 177, 199, 204, 295, 296, 301-303, 316-319, 326, 329. 338, 341; ii. 2, 11, 13, 18, 23, 146; letter from Lady C. Lindsay, i. 183; on Newcastle-on-Tyne, i. 186; his article on Norway in Edinburgh Review, i. 186; his profound resources, i. 197; blames Whitbread, i. 204; speech on Treaty of Paris, i. 249, 250; “has done everything with no help,” i. 257; on Tierney, i. 264; Duke of Kent and Madame St. Laurent, i. 270; “quite silent,” i. 272; his prophecy about Creevey’s Thetford seat, i. 274; feels the loss of Romilly, i. 293; Fox’s proposed epitaph, i. 299; his offer to Lord Liverpool on Queen’s behalf, i. 301-303; his speeches on the Pains and Penalties Bill, i. 310, 321, 322; Lady Charlotte Greville and, i. 314, 323; the “Coles,” i. 327; on Oldi and Mariette as witnesses, i. 328; and the Duke of Roxburgh, ii. 3; his depression, ii. 15; his plans to rouse the North for the Queen, ii. 18; the Queen’s illness, death, and funeral, ii. 20, 21, 25; “he absolutely hated her,” ii. 24; Napoleon’s appeal, ii. 26; Lauderdale on, ii. 28, 154; speech for reduction of taxation, ii. 33; Lady Holland and, ii. 37; his bid for Westmorland farms, ii. 51; and Canning, ii. 64, 66, 68, 121, 125; Lady Jersey and, ii. 71, 73, 133, 223; Creevey’s Reform pamphlet, ii. 93; Dandy Raikes’ quarrel with, ii. 106, 107, 109; his “perfidy” to Lambton, ii. 126; declines post of Chief Baron of the Exchequer, ii. 129; “another instance of his hypocrisy,” ii. 130; denounced by “the Malignants,” ii. 136, 149; Lambton’s peerage, ii. 142; “acting without the slightest tincture of interest,” ii. 145; “the Arch-fiend,” ii. 137; Grey and Cleveland, ii. 149, 150; Burdett on, ii. 153; his Cabinet dinner, ii. 154; candidate for Westmorland, ii. 165; his literary schemes, ii. 206, 207; on Napoleon, ii. 207; Lord Chancellor, ii. 214; “Vaux et præterea nihil,” ii. 216; and Sefton, the Times’ attacks on Grey, ii. 219, 220; Eldon and, ii. 224; “an intriguing, perfidious rogue,” ii. 227; on the batch of new peers, ii. 230; Lady Grey on, ii. 231; “Old Wickedshifts,” ii. 236, 274, 275; and the Reform Bill, ii. 237, 247, 292; and the Duchess of Kent’s absence from William IV.’s Coronation, ii. 237, 238; his demand for new peers, ii. 241, 245; William IV. and, ii. 246, 260, 297, 298; Gascoigne’s motion to reduce Ordnance Vote, ii. 265; “Beelzebub,” ii. 272, 292; and Mrs. Petre, ii. 276; indignant with Grey, ii. 277; Roscoe, ii. 280; forces Auckland’s hand, ii. 283; “drove Grey from office,” ii. 285; his defence, ii. 287, 288, 294; attacks Durham in Edinburgh Review, ii. 289; “letters of a perfect Bedlamite,” ii. 298, 300; his “insincere jaw,” ii. 305; some correspondence of George III., ii. 318; his spiteful motives, ii. 329; his letters to Creevey, i. 119, 134, 144, 145. 154, 155, 174. 178-183, 186, 192, 194, 195, 201, 202, 204, 206, 211, 243, 245, 247, 252, 258, 261, 294, 297, 319; ii. 16, 19, 24, 44, 45, 66, 114, 146, 206, 208, 235 Brougham, Lady (Mrs. Spalding, née Eden), ii. 70, 71, 72, 89, 107, 120 Brougham, James, ii. 229, 271 Brougham, William, ii. 220 Brown, Mrs. (Lord Thurlow’s daughter), i. 60 Brozam, Count, A.D.C. to the Czar, i. 281 Bruce, Lavalette, ii. 64, 74 Brudenel, Lord, ii. 75 Brunswick, Duke of, i. 183, 184; killed at Quatre Bras, i. 230 Brussels, before Waterloo, i. 218, 219; Creevey at, i. 205-273, 292-295 Buckingham, George, 1st Marquess of, i. 27 Buckingham Palace, ii. 151, 307 Buckingham, Richard, 2nd Marquess of (afterwards 1st Duke of), i. 215; ii. 221; “is trying hard for office,” i. 217; duel with Sir Thomas Hardy, i. 256; the Queen’s trial, i. 316; his letter to Canning, ii. 69 Buckinghamshire, Earl of, i. 159 Buggin, Lady Cecilia, Duchess of Inverness, ii. 230, 243, 258, 329 Buggin, Sir George, ii. 243 Bulow, Herr, ii. 262 Bulteel, Lady Elizabeth, ii. 233, 306 Bulteel, Mr., ii. 233, 243 Buonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon Burdett, Sir Francis, i. 60, 97, 249; ii. 72, 74, 198, 199; v. agriculturists, i. 194; on Roman Catholic question, i. 100; ii. 67; Creevey on, i. 107; on Reform, i. 128; imprisoned in lower,i. 131, 133; and Brougham, i. 202, 203, 249; ii. 153; refuses peerage, ii. 321; his letters to Creevey, i. 3, 132 Burford, Earl of (afterwards 9th Duke of St Albans), ii. 73 Burgess, Whitbread’s solicitor, i. 241 Burgh, Sir Ulysses de, i. 281 Burghersh, Lady, i. 197 Burgos, siege of, i. 173 Burgoyne, i. 120 Burke, Chief Justice, ii. 175, 183, 188 Burke, Edmund, i. 108, 162 Burn, Mr., ii. 179 Burrell, Walter, M.P. for Sussex, ii. 34 Burton, A.D.C. and Secretary to Lord Anglesey, ii. 188 Bury, Lady Charlotte, Memoirs and Correspondence of Queen Caroline, ii. 333 Bury, Lord, ii. 75 Bute, John, 1st Marquess of, i. 228 Butler, Lady Eleanor, ii. 185 Butler, Lady Mary, i. 107 Byng, G. (“Poodle”), i. 128, 204; ii. 96, 230, 279, 290, 314, 330, 333 Byng, Hon. Mrs., ii. 314 Byron, Lord, Hours of Idleness, i. 75; Lady C. Lamb’s Glenarvon and Vivian, i. 255; at Geneva, i. 258, 267; on Dr. John Allen, i. 260; a rejected poem, i. 294 C Cabarenne, Madame (previously Comtesse de Fontenay, then Madame de Tallien, lastly Princess de Chimay), i. 6, 7 Caithness, Lord, i. 257 Calcraft, John, i. 46, 113, 128, 333; ii. 16, 106, 114, 160, 213 Callander, Caroline Henrietta (Mrs. T. Sheridan), i. 39 Calthorpe, Lord, i. 336 Cambray, taken by storm, i. 239; Creevey at, i. 275 Camelford, Lord, i. 60 Cameron, James, ii. 187 Campbell, Lady Charlotte, i. 177, 199; ii. 288 Campbell, Lady Mary, Baroness Stratheden, ii. 312 Campbell, Lord Chancellor, on Twiss, ii. 12 Campbell, Sir Colin, ii. 75, 153 Campbell, Sir John (afterwards Baron), ii. 312 Canada Bill, ii. 334 Canning, Colonel, Wellington’s A.D.C., killed at Waterloo, i. 230 Canning, George, i. 262, 342; ii. 46, S3. 59. 6i, 85, 90, 201; and Addington, i. 8; Creevey on, i. 9; on Fox and Pitt, i. 20; satirises Adair, i. 22; illness of George III., i. 27; Foreign Secretary, i. 93; ii. 49, 52; quarrel and duel with Castlereagh, i. 93, 96-98, 106, 108; ii. 297; Whitbread on, i. 99, 109; Grey on, i. 108, 159; ii. 118, 140; on Coke, i. 108; Brandling all for, ibid.; his rhetorical flourishes, i. 123; the Walcheren Expedition, i. 124; “every Frenchman that falls,” etc., i. 134; disbands his troop, i. 151; and Wellesley, i. 154, 157,161-163; the Liverpool seat, i. 155, 156, 169, 171-173; and Brougham, i. 156, 178, 206, 209, 253; ii. 64-66, 68, 121, 125, 129; the Roman Catholic question, i. 158; ii. 103, 108; Sheridan on, i. 164; “on the skirts of the party,” i. 175; Ambassador to Lisbon, i. 207, 287; ii. 35; Peel’s election for Oxford, i. 263; Governor-General of India, ii. 43-45, 69, 70, 75 called “Merryman” by Brougham, ii. 50, 51; “has his hands full,” ii. 55; and George IV., ii. 59, 110, 111; his irritability, ii. 63; and Lord Kensington’s son, ii. 73; Cobbett’s Life of, ii. 94; and Hobhouse, ii. 99; his and Huskisson’s Corn Bill, ii. 100, 101, 122; his illness, ii. 106; Premier, forming his Cabinet, ii. 111-117, 125, 145, 146; the Penryn case, ii. 119; and Wellington, ii. 121, 124, 135; death and funeral, ii. 125, 126; monument, ii. 133 Canning, Miss, ii. 48 Cantillon, attempts to assassinate Wellington, i. 273 Caparo, Duke of, ii. 14 Carlisle, Countess of, i. 184 Carlisle, 6th Earl of, i. 27, 78, 121; ii. 123, 306 Carlisle, 7th Earl of, ii. 223, 276, 278, 307 Carnac, Mr., ii. 328 Carnac, Mrs., ii. 80 Carnarvon, Lord, i. 308, 318, 324; ii. 6, 39, 79 Caroline, Queen, in the House of Commons, i. 123; the Commission on, i. 176-181; and Brougham, i. 177. 199, 204, 295, 296, 301-303, 3l6-319. 320, 329, 338, 341; ii. 2, 11, 13, 18, 23, 146; at Vauxhall, i. 182, 184; the drawing-room, i. 187; and Grey, i. 193; at the Opera, i. 195, 196; “carries everything before her,” i. 196; declines increased allowance voted by Parliament, i. 199, 204; the thanksgiving at St. Paul’s, i. 202; a divorce impossible, i. 209; her intended return to Kensington Palace, i. 212, 253; is offered £50,000 to renounce title and live abroad, i. 295, 301, 302; her trial, i. 295, 303-342; ii. 6; popular sympathy, i. 298, 299; her Solicitor-General, Denman, q.v.; her name excluded from the Liturgy, i. 303, 304, 306; ii. 9, 10, 12; Grey’s and Lambton’s interview with, ii. 7; Brougham testifies to his belief in her innocence, ii. 11, 13; proposed subscription for, ii. 15; buys Cambridge House, ibid.; excluded from the Coronation, ii. 16, 18; proposed visit to the North, ii. 19, 20; her death and funeral, ii. 21-26; Lord Bath on, ii. 73 Carrington, Lord, i. 99, 111, 214 Cartwright, General, i. 150 Cartwright, John, the “Father of Reform,” i. 202 Casimir, M., ii. 226 Castlereagh, Viscountess, ii. 43 Castlereagh, Viscount, loses Co. Down on seeking re-election as Pitt’s War Minister, i. 43, 63; quarrel and duel with Canning, i. 93, 96-98, 106, 108; ii. 297; Grey on, i.’ 107; his claims on the House of Commons, i. 122; the Walcheren Expedition, i. 123, 124; ministerial changes, i.157, 165; Foreign Secretary, i. 175; “he cannot but be in a scrape,” i. 185; Ward on, i. 189; increase of Princess of Wales’ allowance, i. 198, 200, 201; red hot on war with France, i. 214; Brougham’s speech on Treaty of Paris, i. 250; “appealing to posterity,” i. 262; his supposed influence over Prince Leopold, i. 266; Lady Holland on, i. 266; Creevey on, i. 287; ii. 10; the King’s message about the Queen, i. 303; “smiling as usual,” i. 306; roughly handled at Covent Garden, i. 338; a scene in the House of Commons, i. 342; Tierney and Napoleon, ii. 4; Dublin’s applause, ii. 30; replies to Brougham’s motion for reduction of taxation, ii. 33, 34; his suicide, ii. 38,40-47; his successor Canning, ii. 49, 63, 119; his keynote non-intervention, ii. 52, 53 Cathcart, Lord, i. 86, 281, 282 Catholic Association, the, ii. 193, 195 Caton, Mr., of Philadelphia, ii. 249 Cator, Captain of an Indiaman, i. 279 Cator, Miss, i. 276, 279; ii. 248 Caulincourt, M., i. 190 Cavendish, Charles (Baron Chesham), i. 207 Cavendish, Lord George, i. 100, 111, 122, 265; ii. 34, 88; nominal leader of the Whigs, i. 112, 247, 257; Bennet on, i. 257 Cavendish, William, i. 126 Caxton, ii. 207 Cazes, M. de (Decazes), i. 272; ii. 4 Cellini, Benvenuto, ii. 163 Chalmers, Dr., Professor of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, afterwards of Theology in Edinburgh, ii. 84 Chaloner, ii. 34 Chalons, ii. 80 Chantrey, ii. 322 Charlemont, Lady, i. 147; ii. 324 Charlemont, Lord, i. 147, 148, 150 Charleroi, capture of, i. 223, 229 Charles X., 11. 253, 315 Charleville, Lord, ii. 312 Charlotte of Wales, Princess, the Prince Regent’s treatment of, i. 176, 178-180, 182; Brougham’s advice to, i. 198; her illness, i. 184, 207; marriage, i. 258, 259; death, i. 266, 268; ii. 325 Charlotte, Queen, i. 184, 194, 197, 281, 284 Chateaubriand, i. 214 Chatham, Earl of, i. 85; ii. 318; the Walcheren Expedition, i. 95-97, 107, 129-131, 133 Chesham, Charles, Lord, i. 207 Chesterfield, Countess of (Hon. Anne Forester), ii. 214 Chesterfield, Earl of, ii. 199, 214 Chichester, Earl of, i. 113 Chifnay, Mr., ii. 210 Chimay, Prince de, i. 7 Cholmondeley, Lady Charlotte (afterwards Seymour), i. 266 Cholmondeley, Marchioness of, i. 196 Cholmondeley, Marquess of, i. 320 Church of England, Hume’s attack on, ii. 66 Churchill, Lady, ii. 243 Churchill, Lord, ii. 167 Cintra Convention, i. 89, 93 Civil List Bill, 1831, ii. 218 Civil Offices Pensions Act, 1817, ii. 34 Clanricarde, 1st Marquess of, ii. 188 Clanwilliam, Earl of, ii. 60 Clare Election, ii. 193 Clare, Lady, i. 47, 49 Clare, Lord, ii. 29, 47, 64, 198 Clarendon, Earl of, Queen Caroline’s executor, ii. 25 Clarke, Mr., i. 112 Clarke, Mrs. Mary Anne, and the Duke of York, i. 97, 112, 113, 115, 193, 310; ii. 2, 278 Clavering, General, i. 61 Cleveland, Duchess of, Lady Darlington (Mrs. Russell alias Funnereau), i. 184; ii. 86, 89, 109, 131, 132, 165, 208, 243; and Mrs. Taylor, ii. 90; Creevey on, ii. 92 Cleveland, 1st Duke of, 3rd Lord Darlington, “Niffy-Naffy,” i. 243, 308; ii. 109, 113, 130, 131, 149, 150, 207-209, 230, 243; his marriage, i. 184; ii. 86; five seats to dispose of, ii. 90; raves about Canning, ii. 116; Grey and, ii. 122; his Winchelsea seat, ii. 165; Wellington and, ii. 153 Cleveland, Lord William Powlett, 3rd Duke of, ii. 130-132, 201 Clifden, 2nd Viscount, ii. 217 Clifden, 3rd Viscount, ii. 217 Clifford, Charlotte, Baroness (afterwards Duchess of Devonshire), i.264 Clifford, Lieutenant (Lord?), i. 264 Clifford, Lord de, i. 308, 336 Clifton, Lord, i. 184 Clincial thermometer, Dr. Currie’s, i. 2 Clinton, Lord, ii. 13 Cloncurry, Lord, ii. 194 Clowes, Mrs., i. 60 Cobbett, William, i. 89; ii. 252; imprisoned for libel, i. 133; his letter to Creevey, i. 134; “a foul-mouthed malignant dog,” i. 334; on agricultural depression, ii. 55; Lift of Canning, ii. 94; his “blackguard language,” ii. 251; and Lord Radnor, ii. 278 Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, i. 89, 132, 133 Cochrane, Admiral Lord (afterwards 10th Earl of Dundonald), i. 128; tried for Stock Exchange conspiracy, i. 202, 203 Codrington, Admiral, ii. 231 Coercion Bill, ii. 282, 285, 288, 294 Coke, Miss, ii. 36 Coke, Sir Edward, Chief Justice, ii. 111 Coke, Thomas, of Holkham (created Earl of Leicester), i. 122, 297; ii. 76,276, 294; Canning’s “landed grandee,” i. 108; marries Lady A. Keppel, ii. 36; furious about Lady Mary Keppel’s marriage, ii. 97 j “our worthy King Tom,” ii. 111; created Earl, ii. 295; Creevey on, ii. 331; on Lady Holland, ii. 333 Coke, Thomas William, 2nd Earl of Leicester, ii. 36, 76, 332 Colborne, Sir John (afterwards Lord Seaton), Governor-General of Canada, ii. 334 Colchester, riot at Queen’s funeral at, ii. 32 Colchester, Lord. See Abbot, Charles Cole, Hon. Sir Lowry, commanded 4th Division in Peninsular War, i. 277, 283; ii. 9; Governor of Mauritius, ii. 12 Cole, Lady Frances (née Malmesbury), i. 277-279 Collier, Lady, i. 254 Collingwood, Lord, Memoirs, ii. 161 Colvill, General, i. 239 Commission on, Royal Navy, i. 33; Public Expenditure, i. 136; Queen Caroline, 1. 176, 177, 181; Flogging, ii. 310 Condé, Prince de, i. 225 Congleton, Lord, i. 31, 164 Congreve, Sir William, inventor of rockets, i. 147, 150 Conroy, Mr., ii. 332 Consort, Prince, ii. 52 Conway, Field Marshal, ii. 13 Conyngham, Lady Elizabeth (Marchioness of Huntley), i. 333; ii. 73, 96; Conyngham, Lady Elizabeth Denison, 1st Marchioness of, i. 229, 333; ii. 157; George IV.’s relations with, ii. 1, 20, 30, 31, 43, 45, 58, 77, 89, 104, 105, 108, 120, 148; her portrait by Lawrence, ii. 16; her friend Lady Glengall, ii. 29; “shows but little in public” at Dublin, ii. 30, 31; her opposition Ball at the Opera House, ii. 38; Duke of Sussex and his sisters, ii. 48; at Ascot, ii. 77; “a blow-up between Prinney and,” ii. 89; “she hates Kingy,” ii. 96; her paramount influence at Court, ii. 103 Conyngham, Lord, i. 320; ii. 29, 59, 60, 103, 279, 326 Conyngham, Lord Albert Denison, ii. 58 Cook, Captain, killed at Trafalgar, i. 69 Cooke, “Kangaroo,” ii. 109 Copenhagen Expedition, i. 85, 86 Copley, Maria (afterwards Lady Howick and Countess of Grey), ii. 31, 48, 295; her letters to Creevey, ii. 59, 64 Copley, Sir John (afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, ii. 113, 114 Copley, Sir Joseph, ii. 306 Cork, Edmund, 7th Earl of, i. 56 Cork, Lady, i. 56 Corn Laws, ii. 94, 100, 101, 158, 166 Cornwall, Mr., ii. 132 Cornwallis, Marchioness, i. 168 Corry, James, ii. 169, 177, 181, 188 Cotton, Sir Charles, i. 89 Courier, i. 179 Courtenay, Mr., i. 184 Courvoisier, valet, murders his master, Lord William Russell, ii. 109, 329 Coutts, Mr., i. 209; ii. 3, 8 Coutts, Mrs. (afterwards Duchess of St. Albans), ii. 120, 217 Covent Garden theatre, i. 97 Coventry, George William, 8th Earl of, i. 56; ii. 268 Coventry, Lady Mary Augusta (afterwards Holland), ii. 268 Cowley, Lady (Olivia de Ros), ii. 204, 237, 263, 320 Cowley, Lord (Sir Henry Wellesley), i. 218; ii. 263, 320 Cowper, Lady (afterwards Palmerston), i. 255, 259; ii. 129, 167, 226, 241, 268, 307, 325 Cowper, Lady Emily (Countess of Shaftesbury), ii 198 Cowper, Lord, i. 82, 259, 313, 317, 318, 336; ii. 6, 9, 39, 79, 88, 129, 167, 226, 230, 241 Cox and Greenwood, ii. 242 Cradock, Colonel, i. 281; ii. 96, 306 Crampton, Surgeon-General, ii. 169, 181 Craufurd, Madame, ii. 288 Craven, Countess of, ii. 310 Craven, Earl of, i. 247; ii. 212 Craven, Hon. Berkeley, i. 296, 330; ii. 13, 14, 139 Craven, Hon. Keppel, i. 309, 311; ii. 14 Craven, Hon. Maria. See Sefton, Lady Craven, Lady Louisa (afterwards Johnstone, then Oswald), ii. 311 Craven, Mrs., ii. 320 Creevey, Miss, ii. 143, 310 Creevey, Mrs. (formerly Mrs. Ord), i. 12, 18, 22, 108, 120, 148-150; at Brighton, i. 47-50; and Sheridan, i. 52; Lord Thurlow, i. 60; at Brussels, i. 205-272; her death, i. 275, 295; letters—from Earl Grey, i. 1; from Sheridan, i. 39; to Creevey, i. 65-73, 80; from Mrs. Fitzherbert, i. 69; to Miss Ord, i. 82, 84; from Creevey, i. 121-132, 136-143, 145, 156-173, 195; from Lady Holland, i. 151, 184, 189, 205, 246, 254, 265 Crewe, Lord, ii. 36 Crockford’s, ii. 151 Croker, J. W., on Brougham, ii. 23; his dispute with Hume, ii. 35; his article in Quarterly Riview on O’Meara’s A Voice from St. Helena, ii. 65; “the three C’s,” ii. 94; his account of Liverpool’s illness, ii. 105; a P.C., ii. 160; a slender chance of being M.P. again, ii. 221 Croker Papers, i. 31; ii. 23, 31, 211 Cromwell, Oliver, ii. 171 Cross, Mr., K.C., ii. 125 Cumberland, Duchess of (Princess Frederica of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, widow, firstly, of Prince Frederick of Prussia, and secondly, of Prince Frederick William of Salmo-Braunfels), i. 205 Cumberland, Duke of, i. 146, 148-150, 205, 276, 298, 339; ii. 196, 197, 210, 245, 322 Cumberland Hussars, at Waterloo, i. 148, 232, 234 Curran, J. P., Irish Master of the Rolls, 1. 61, 107 Currency question, the, ii. 94, 97 Currie, Dr. J., of Liverpool, his clinical thermometer, i. 2; his letters to Creevey, i. 2, 12, 30; from Creevey, i. 4, 9, 11-16, 19, 24, 27 33. 78, 80 Cuthbert, Lady Fanny, ii. 60 D Dacre, Thomas, 20th Lord, i. 337; ii. 95, 223, 278 Dacre, Thomas, 22nd Lord, ii. 311 Daly, Mr., i. 128 Damer, Mrs. (née Conway), ii. 13, 14. 319 Danglas, Boissy, i. 7 Danton, i. 7 D’Aremberg, Duc, i. 225 D’Aremberg, Prince, ii. 167 D’Arenberg, Prince, ii. 71 Darlington, Lady. See Cleveland, Duchess of Darlington, Lord. See Cleveland, Duke of Darnley, Lord, i. 283, 329; ii. 79 Dartmouth, Earl of, i. 337 Davenport, M.P. for Cheshire, ii. 34 Davie, Sir John, 8th baronet of Creedy, Devon, ii. 65 Dawson, Mr., ii. 167 Dawson-Damer, Mrs., ii. 320 Dawson-Darner, Rt. Hon. G., ii. 304, 320 Day, Mr., i. 66, 68 Decazes, M., i. 272; ii. 4 Delaney, General, i. 34, 247 Delawarr, Lord, i. 337 Denison of Denbies, William Joseph, ii. 24, 43, 105, 107, 109, 120, 148 Denman, Lord Chief Justice, i. 297; ii. 208, 317, 331; Queen’s Solicitor-General in her trial, i. 303, 304, 308, 310, 311, 317, 326, 328, 331, 333-335. 341; 23; his reception by the populace, ii. 18; present at the Queen’s death, ii. 21 Denmark, Princess of, i. 272 Dent, “Dog,” ii. 58 Derby, James Stanley, 4th Earl of, i.88 Derby, Edward, 12th Earl of, i. 27, 29, 100, 112, 114, 120, 128, 130, 260, 305, 308, 318, 326, 329, 331; ii. 37. 57. 76. 83, 94, 203; letter to Creevey, ii. 40; the railway movement, ii. 87; and William IV., ii. 226 Derby, Edward Smith, 13th Earl of, i. 171-173; ii. 76, 88 Derby, Edward, 14th Earl of, ii. 40, 76, 128, 203, 226, 269, 282, 284, 295, 297, 299, 309; Secretary for Ireland, ii. 219, 265; and Durham, ii. 264; M. P. for Cheshire, ii. 255; resigns, ii. 273, 276; split between Russell and, ii. 273, 274 Derby, Eliza Farren, Countess of (wife of 12th Earl), i. 112, 305, 318, 326, 329, 331; ii. 57, 71, 75, 83 Derby, Countess of (wife of 13th Earl), i. 171-173 d’Erlon, Marshal, at Waterloo, i. 238, 242 Devereux, Mr., ii. 179 Devonshire, Charlotte, Baroness Clifford, Duchess of (wife of 4th Duke), i. 184 Devonshire, Lady Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of (1st wife of 5th Duke), i. 71 Devonshire, Lady Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of (2nd wife of 5th Duke), i. 84, 254 Devonshire, William, 4th Duke of, 1. 184 Devonshire, William, 5th Duke of, i.31, 84, 120, 182, 184 Devonshire, William Spencer, 6th Duke of, i. 184, 257; ii. 241, 303, 310; declares for Reform, ii. 6; proposed subscription for Queen Caroline, ii. 12; protest against Creevey’s exclusion from office, ii. 115; his coach at Doncaster races, ii. 129 Digby, Admiral Sir Henry, ii. 36, 111 Digby, Aurora (Lady Ellenborough), ii. 80 Digby, Lady (Viscountess Andover), ii. 36, 112 Dillon, Lord, ii. 255 Dillon, Miss, i. 190 Dimont, Queen Caroline’s femme de chambre, i. 314, 315, 335 Dino, Madame de, ii. 217, 236, 241, 249, 253, 262, 269-271, 279, 302 Dinorben, Lady, i. 80 Dinorben, Lord, i. 80; ii. 70 Dogherty, Irish Solicitor-General, ii. 188 Donne, W. Bodhani, editor of Correspondence of George III. with Lord North, ii. 318 Donoughmore, 1st Earl of, i. 48, 138, 317, 326, 328; ii. 177, 189; his recollections of Ireland, ii. 178-180 Dorchester, Lord, i. 63 d’Orleans, Duc, i. 244; ii. 253, 269,270 Dorneburg, General, Commander of Mons garrison, i. 221, 222 D’Orsay, Count, ii. 254, 288 Dorset, Duchess of, i. 67 d’Otranto, Joseph Fouche, Duc, i. 7, 214 Douglas-Hamilton, Lady Charlotte (Duchess of Somerset), ii. 64 Douro, Lord, ii. 209 Douro, Wellington’s passage of the, i. 101-105, 109 Dover, Lord, ii. 257 Downshire, Marchioness of, i. 49, 62, 65, 66, 68, 73, 147 Downshire, Marquess of, i. 128; ii. 79 Downton borough, Wilts, Creevey and James Brougham returned for, ii. 229 Drury Lane theatre, and Whitbread, i. 241 Dublin, i. 42; Creevey’s visit to, ii. 168, 187 Du Cane, ii. 230 Ducie, Lord, ii. 230 Dudley, John William Ward, 1st Earl of, i. 111, 112, 140, 151, 162, 174, 262; ii. 68, 100, 152, 158, 159. 205, 243, 255; and Jekyll, i. 189; Rogers, the dead poet, i. 255; Foreign Secretary, ii. 134; “a Ward in Chancery,” ii. 141 Duff, Captain, killed at Trafalgar, i. 69 Dufferin, Lady (ne’e Sheridan), i. 39 Duncannon, Viscountess (Lady Maria Fane), ii. 73, 171-173, 176, 182 Duncannon, Viscount (4th Earl of Bessborough), ii. 9, 16, 223, 254; a conversation between Tierney and, i. 327; Mrs. Murphy’s letter, ii. 110; “now counts noses on the other side,” ii. 116; his Bessborough estates, ii. 171-176, 182; Durham and Lady Jersey, ii. 219; the Reform Bill draft, ii. 264; and Anglesey’s views on Ireland, ii. 265; Home Secretary, ii. 285 Duncombe, Tom, ii. 78, 167, 288, 290 Dundas, Henry. See Melville, Viscount Dundas, Lord, i. 46, 158; ii. 231 Dundas, Mrs. (née Williamson), ii. 81 Dundas, Tom, i. 338; ii. 34, 81, 179 Dundass, a Richmond surgeon, i. 28 Dundonald, Admiral Lord Cochrane,f, i. 128; tried for piracy, i. 203 Dunfermline, Lord. See Abercromby, Hon. James Dunmore, 4th Earl of, ii. 843 Dunning, Mr., i. 162 Du Paquier, Louis XVIII.’s valet, ii. 26 Durham, Countess of (Lady Louisa Grey), ii. 7, 10,15, 83, 92, 95, 217, 266 Durham, John George Lambton, 1st Earl of (“King Jog”), i. 265, 332, 335. 342; ii. 9-12, 1S, 32, 34. 39. 56, 71, 80-82, 91, 147, 154, 196, 201, 217, 219, 223, 229, 252, 291, 294, 305, 309; interview with Queen Caroline, ii. 7; Miss Copley on, ii. 31; a victim of temper, ii. 49. 57; letter to Creevey, ii. 54; a scene with Creevey, ii. 91, 92; his debts, ii. 120; Brougham’s perfidy, ii. 126; his peerage—an appeal to Brougham, ii. 142; and Reform, ii. 230, 247, 264, 292; peer-making, ii. 241; the Times’ attack on Grey, ii. 257, 294; scene between Grey and, ii. 265; furious for dissolution, ii. 266; his exclusion from Grey’s cabinet, ii. 277; a quarrel with Brougham, ii. 289; his Glasgow dinner, ii. 297; accepts the Canada mission, ii. 332, 334; interview with Queen Adelaide, ii. 335 Durham, Mrs., Creevey’s landlady, ii. 223, 229, 260, 281 Duval, Justice, i. 327 Duvernay, the opera dancer, ii. 273 E East India Company, i. 88, 120, 130, 134. 143. 291; ii. 327 East Tetford, disfranchised, ii. 158 Eaton, Mr. and Mrs., i. 12 Ebrington, Viscount, ii. 310 Eckersley, Mr., i. 279 Eden, Hon. George (afterwards 2nd Lord Auckland), i. 114, 120; ii. 2, 95. 114 Eden, Sir William, ii. 107 Edinburgh mail, the, ii. 291 Edinburgh Review, i. 30, 119, 186, 205, 248; ii. 39, 99, 150, 167, 289 Edwardes, Mr., ii. 72 Edwards, box-keeper of Drury Lane theatre, Sheridan’s valet, i. 59 Egremont, Earl of, i. 337; ii. 164 Egypt, Napoleon’s claims on, i. 14 Eldon, Earl of, i. 109, 119, 136, 214,257, 261; ii. 78, 135, 300; and George IV., i. 157, 159, 298; Roman Catholic question, i. 166; ii. 112; jealous of Mrs. Leach, i. 258; the Pains and Penalties Bill, i. 308, 314, 317, 325, 329, 333, 335; some sharp words with Liverpool, 1. 323. 339; Grey’s palaver with, i. 337; Canning and, ii. 43, 68; “the most noble of all the beasts,” ii. 49; Lord Portsmouth’s case, ii. 63; resigns, ii. 95, 113; the patronage question, ii. 103; “lock the door on Eldon and Co.,” ii. 114, 115, 117; Brougham and, ii. 121, 224; “whining at his unhappy fate,” ii. 152 Elizabeth, Princess, 3rd daughter of George III., wife of Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, i. 339 Ellenborough, Lady (née Digby), ii. 80 Ellenborough, Lord, i. 40, 75, 181; ii. 79, 80, 197 Ellesmere, Earl of (Lord F. Leveson), i. 185; ii. 59, 64, 188 Ellice, General, ii. 267 Ellice, Lady Hannah (née Grey), ii. 273 Ellice of Invergarry, Edward, ii. 273, 310 Ellice of Invergarry, Mrs. Edward (née Balfour), ii. 273, 310 Ellice of Invergarry, Mrs. Edward (previously Mrs. A. Speirs), ii. 273 Ellice, Rt. Hon. Edward (“Bear”), ii. 74, 93, 107, 115, 230, 243, 250, 257, 268, 273, 276, 328, 331, 332, 336; in Paris with Madame de Lieven and Louis Philippe, ii. 309 Elliot, Mr., i. 21- 214 Ellis, Agar, ii. 217 Ellis, Charles Rose (Earl of Seaford), i. 97, 151 Elvas, i. 88 Ely, flogging of mutinous militiamen at, i. 33 England, at war with France, i. 10; and the independence of Greece, ii. 133 Enniskillen, Earl of, i. 377, 323, 336, 337 Entertaining Knowledge, Library of, ii. 206 Erroll, Lord and Lady, ii. 181 Erskine, Captain, i. 234 Erskine, Lord, i. 3, 75, 119, 181, 209, 308, 318; ii. 6; on Russia’s offer of mediation, i. 15; v. Windham, i. 19; letter to Creevey, i. 136; and Alexander I., i. 195; K. T., i. 211; “The Green Man and Still,” i. 212; “the most beautiful speech possible,” i. 317; a fainting fit, i. 335; greatly applauded, i. 338; on Francis and Junius, ii. 8; “very old and forlorn,” ii. 68 Essex, Countess of (Catherine Stephens), ii. 286 Essex, Earl of, i. 99, 111, 296; ii. 38, 154, 230, 269, 270, 272, 285, 286, 306, 313, 321, 329, 330; his letters to Creevey, ii. 290, 323 Esterhazy, Prince, ii. 96, 213, 236, 262, 263, 267 Esterhazy, Princess, ii. 199 F Fagal, General, i. 220, 222, 286 Fane, John, M.P. for Oxfordshire, ii. 34 Fane, Lady Maria (Lady Duncannon), ii. 171-173 Fawkes, Mr., ii. 55 Featherstone, Sir H., i. 295 Felice, Madame, ii. 14 Fellowes, Rev., the Queen’s chaplain, ii. 17 Ferdinand of Wurtemberg, Prince, i. 69 Ferdinand VII. of Spain, i. 248; ii. 63-64. 90 Fergus, Provost of Kirkcaldy, ii. 85 Ferguson, Cutlar, Judge Advocate-General, ii. 330 Ferguson, Major-General R. C, i. 105, 109, 122, 158, 212, 337; ii. 2, 34, 36, 42, 71, 107, 148, 151, 156, 276; his motion for production of Milan Commission, i. 312; the railway movement, ii. 87 Ferguson, Miss, ii. 3 Ferguson, Mrs., ii. 230 Ferguson of Raith, General Sir Ronald, ii. 45, 47, 84 Ferguson, Robert, ii. 47 Fesch, Cardinal, ii. 39 Fife, Lord, i. 244 Filanqueri, i. 88 Firmacon, Madame de, ii. 96 Fitzallen, Lord, ii. 314 FitzClarence, Lady Frederick (Lady Augusta Boyle), ii. 300 FitzClarence, Lord Frederick, ii. 83, 300. 335 Fitzclarence, Miss, ii. 224 Fitzgerald, “Fighting,” ii. 128 Fitzgerald, Hon. W. Vesey (afterwards Lord), ii. 50, 147, 160, 167, 193 Fitzgerald, Lady Cecilia. See Foley, Lady Fitzgerald, Lady Olivia (afterwards Kinnaird), i. 273; ii. 102 Fitzhardinge, Admiral Sir Maurice Frederick Berkeley, Lord, i. 147; ii. 185, 188 Fitzharris, Lord, i. 33 Fitzherbert, Mrs., i. 4, 47-50, 65-72, 82, 138, 139, 163, 176, 179; ii. 212, 319, 320 Fitzpatrick, General Richard, i. 13, 94, 121, 157. 183 Fitzroy, Lady Mary (née Gordon-Lennox), ii. 185 Fitzroy, Lord Henry, i. 164 Fitzroy, Sir Charles, ii. 185 Fitzwilliam, Countess of, i. 332 Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl of, i. 27, 29, 31, 109, 166, 263, 303, 308, 313, 332, 336; ii. 6, 11, 15, 91, 109, 135, 155, proposed subscription for Queen Caroline, ii. 12; his coach at Doncaster, ii. 120; Madame de Lieven’s compliments, ii. 130; and Brougham, ii. 133 Fitzwilliam, 5th Earl of. See Milton, Viscount Flahault, General de, i. 250; ii. 271 Flahault, Madame de (afterwards de Souza), i. 251, 326 Fleury, Duchesse de, ii. 138 Flint, Sir Charles, ii. 74 Floridas, the, seized by U.S.A., i. 279 Fludyer, Mr., ii. 187 Flynn, Captain, i. 323, 329 Foley, Lady (Lady Cecilia Fitzgerald), ii. 102, 204, 209 Foley, Lord, i. 296, 317, 331, 335,338; ii. 205, 209, 226, 230, 253, 333 Foljambe, Savile, ii. 277 Folkestone (née Mildmay), Viscountess (Lady Radnor), i. 190, 272; ii. 280, 319 Folkestone, Viscount (afterwards 3rd Earl of Radnor), i. 125, 160, 213, 257; ii. 34, 249, 317; and Mrs. Clarke, i. 112, 115, 116; ii. 278; letters to Creevey, i. 96, 190, 271; “will take his line,” ii. 5; Canning’s tirade against, ii. 68; Creevey and James Brougham returned for Downton by favour of, ii. 229 Follett. Sir William, Solicitor-General, ii. 311 Fonblanque, M., i. 49, 150; ii. 312 Fontenay, Comtesse de (afterwards de Tallien), i. 6, 7 Foote, the actor, i. 327 Forbes, Lord, i. 161; ii. 178, 181 Ford, Mrs., ii. 286 Fordyce, John, Receiver-General of Land Tax, Scotland, i. 34, 35 Fordyce, Mrs. (née Maxwell), i. 34 Forester, Hon. Anne (Lady Chesterfield), ii. 214 Forester, Hon. Isabella (Mrs. Geo. Anson), ii. 214 Forester, Lord, ii. 214 Forester, Mr., i. 184 Forster, Mr., i. 168 Forsyth, Mr., ii. 40 Fortescue, George, ii. 64 Fortescue, Lady, i. 329 Fortescue, Lord, i. 308, 329 Foster, J., Chancellor of Exchequer, Ireland, i. 31 Fouché, Joseph, Duc d’Otranto, i. 7, 214 Fox, Charles, ii. 155, 268, 310, 329, 332 Fox, Charles James, at Talleyrand’s, i. 5; “Liberty asleep in France, but dead in England, i. 9; speech on Russia’s offer of mediation, i. 16; his “palaver about a military command for the Prince of Wales,” i. 18; “a proscribed victim of fortune,” i. 20; Windham’s enmity, i. 21; “devotion to Fox,” i. 22; alliance with Pitt, i. 23, 27, 37; letter to Creevey, i. 23; speech on the St. Vincent enquiry, i. 24; Sheridan’s project, i. 25; George III. v., i. 26; ii. 318; Prince of Wales’s relations with, i. 27, 28, 31, 46, 47, 82, 146; and Fordyce, i. 34, 35; his conduct in the Athol business, i. 37; Romilly’s support, i. 41; Graham Moore on, i. 78; his illness and death, i. 79, 80-84; the highest of “All the Talents,” i. 84; Whitbread on, i. 92; Creevey on, i. 143; Brougham compares Pitt and, i. 172; his friend Fitzpatrick, i. 183; the Fox dinner at Newcastle, i. 187; his great influence, i. 290; proposed epitaph, i. 299, 300; at Lady Olivia Fitzgerald’s wedding, ii. 102; Grey, Grenville, and, ii. 117, 119 Fox Club, ii. 6 Fox, Henry (afterwards 4th Lord Holland), ii. 268 Fox, Lady Mary, ii. 268, 310, 332 Fox, Mrs., i. 70, 300 France, the king guillotined, i. 1; in 1802, i. 4; war with England, i. 10; her aggressive policy, i. 14; Alexander I.’s offer of mediation, i. 15; Austria, Prussia, and England v., i. 44; her Spanish South American colonies, i. 86-88; Cintra Convention, i. 89; the Hundred Days, Waterloo, i. 213-238; and Greek independence, ii. 133 Franceschi, General (France), i. 101 Francis I. of Austria, i. 99 Francis, Lady, ii. 8 Francis, Sir Philip, i. 61, 112, 147, 149, 150; Junius, ii. 8 Franklin, John, ii. 264 Fraser, Dr., i. 68 Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, i. 339 Frederick of Prussia, Prince, i. 205 Frederick William of Salmo-Braunfels, Prince, i. 205 Frederick William III., of Prussia, i. 45, 187, 19s, 196, 197 Freeman, ii. 289 Freemantle, Rt. Hon. Sir William Henry, i. 127, 162, 214, 217, 272, 282 French, at the Douro, i. 101-104 French, Lord, ii. 179 Frere, ii. 315 G Galileo, ii. 207 Galway, 1st Viscount, 11, 56 Garth, Captain, ii. 196, 197, 200 Garth, General, ii. 196, 200 Gascoigne, General, M.P. for Liverpool, i. 155, 169, 173, 253; his motion to reduce Ordnance Vote, ii. 265 Gell, Sir William, i. 309, 311, 323, 330 Genlis, Madame de, ii. 96 George II., i. 51, 339; ii. 246 George III., and Addington, i. 8; France’s aggressive policy, i. 14; against Prince of Wales, i. 17; for Duke of York, i. 17, 107; “will never more exercise the Royal function,” i. 25; v. Fox, i. 26, 28; his illness, i. 27, 28, 36, 65, 119, 135, 142, 145, 146; and Pitt, i. 27; determined on a Tory Cabinet, i. 39; v. Roman Catholic Emancipation, i. 43, 84; at Weymouth, i. 48, 63; has recourse to the Whigs, i. 74; “has not yet sent for Wardle,” i. 97; Princess Amelia’s illness and death, i. 98, 135; his letter to Perceval, i. 99; Canning and Castlereagh, i. 106; his popularity, i. 113; “the Gentleman at the end of the Mall,” i. 118, 132; the Walcheren Expedition, i. 131; the Princess Charlotte, i. 176; his death, i. 295, 296; Princess Elizabeth’s marriage, i. 339; shut up for 10 years, ii. 16; “Old Nobbs,” ii. 119; parting with Lord North, ii. 246; Coke’s violent speech against, ii. 294; some correspondence with Lord North, ii. 318 George IV., i. 4, no, 257; ii. 75, 79 90, 115, 117, 120, 208; proposed substitution of Council for Viceroy in Ireland, i. 16; and George III., i. 17; a military command for, i. 18; his attachment to the old nobility, i. 26; “a Regency must be resorted to,” i. 27; and Fox, i. 27, 28, 46, 47, 82, 146; a kind of Cabinet, i. 31; invites Creevey to dinner, i. 32; and the Whigs, i. 39, 62, 76, 177, 178; Romilly, i. 40; Creevey’s account of, i. 46-51, 57-59- 62, 63; and Sheridan, i. 57, 58; Warren Hastings, i. 59; and the Duke of York, i. 63, 113, 140, 209, 305, “had got more wine than usual,” i. 65; Mrs. Creevey on, i. 65-73, 147, 149; the air-gun, i. 66; Mrs. Fitzherbert, i. 66, 82, 139; his grief at Nelson’s death, i. 70; Rev. W. Price’s letter to, i. 76; Tufnell and Colchester, i. 81; his threat to Perceval, i. 111; appointed Regent—changed attitude towards Ministers, i. 135-137, 142, 144, 145, 153; Bank Note Bill, 1. 145; at Brighton, i. 146-150; Wellington and the Peninsular War, i. 147, 149; Viotti, the violinist, i. 148; on Sir Willoughby Gordon, i. 150, 151; end of Creevey’s intimacy with, i. 151; the Dandy ball incident, i. 152; reconstructs the Cabinet, i. 153-163; Grey and Grenville, i. 153, 157; sends for Wellesley, i. 156; for Moira, i. 158, 160, 164, 165; scandalous treatment of Princess of Wales, i. 176-188, 193, 201, 203, 212, 253; Brougham’s support of the Princess, i. 177, 178-183; “our magnanimous regent,” i. 187; Whitbread on, i. 191; visit of foreign royalties, i. 187-197; Princess Charlotte’s engagement, i. 197; ill, i. 207, 259, 266, 297; ii. 104, 105, 109, 146; M. A. Taylor, i. 211; ii. 116; for war with France, i. 214; Bennet on, i. 241; and Ossulston, i. 244; his nickname for Dean Legge of Windsor, i. 247; “has left off his stays,” i. 263; Duke of Kent on, i. 268; Folkestone on, i. 272; Wellington on, i. 279; Brougham on, i. 294; succeeds to throne, i. 295; hostility to, i. 299; excludes Queen’s name from Liturgy, i. 302-304; Sam Spring, i. 310; the chambermaid’s evidence, i. 313; wants to go to Hanover, i. 314; divorce clause abandoned, i. 319; his intended changes, i. 320; Hutchinson and Donoughmore at Windsor with, i. 326, 328; “greatly deceived,” i. 333; his coronation, ii. 1; insults Prince Leopold, ii. 7, 8; “has slept none,” ii. 16; his unpopularity, ii 18; his Knights of the Thistle, ii. 19, 27; squabbles with his Ministers, ii. 20; Lady Jersey’s relations with, ii. 25; determined to marry again, ii. 28; the print of his sacred feet, ii. 29; in Ireland, ii. 30, 31; Lady Conyngham’s opposition ball, ii. 38; Castlereagh’s death, ii. 43; in Edinburgh, ii. 45; his sisters and Lady Conyngham, ii. 48; and the Whigs, ii. 56, 118; Lord Albert D. Conyngham, ii. 58; the reference in his speech to Spain, ii. 61, 62; Lord Bath’s blue ribbon, ii. 73; at Ascot races, ii. 77, 88; “getting very old and cross,” ii. 83; quarrel with Lady Conyngham, ii. 89, 96; distrusts Canning, ii. 103; the Roman Catholic question, ii. 108, 198, 200; instructs Canning to form a ministry, ii. 11o, i11, 113; Canning’s death, ii. 122, 125; Snip Robinson, Premier, ii. 123, 142; his “good friend Wellington,” ii. 124, 159; Herries, Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, ii. 128; and Brougham, ii. 129, 146; on Navarino, ii. 140; and Lady Conyngham, ii. 148; “crept into town,” ii. 155; Buckingham Palace, ii. 156; and Ferguson, ii. 157; Bishop of Winchester’s reproof, ibid.; on Creevey, ii. 160; reports about his health, ii. 187; Captain Garth’s case, ii. 196; v. the Pope, ii. 197; his horse “the Colonel,” ii. 199, 210; on the Wellington-Winchilsea duel, ii. 200; and Grey, ii. 201; his last illness and death, ii. 210, 211, 325; the Ordnance Department tents, ii. 233; preserved all Mrs. Fitzherbert’s letters, ii. 320; Sir John Lade and, ii. 335 Gerard, General, ii. 202 Gerobtzoff, Madame, i. 57, 72 Gibbon, Edward, ii. 257 Gibbs, i. 132 Gifford, Countess of, i. 39 Gifford, Sir Robert (afterwards Lord), ii. 95 Giles, Mr., M.P., i. 99, 111 Gillespie, Rev., i. 320 Gilray, ii. 29 Gladstone, Bart., Sir John, i. 120, 169, 211, 253 Gladstone, W. E., i. 353 Glasgow, 4th Earl of, ii. 300 Glenelg, Lord, ii. 313, 326, 334, 335 Glengall, Lady, ii. 29, 38, 60, 107 Glengall, Lord, ii. 107 Glenlyon, Lord, ii. 157 Gloucester, Duchess of, i. 333; ii. 7, 197, 262 Gloucester, Duke of (“Slice”), i. 179, 184, 193, 308, 332, 333; ii. 71, 275; declares himself a Radical, ii. 6, 7; a proverbial bore, ii. 9; a scene between Wellington and, ii. 67; dangerously ill, ii. 299 Goderich, J. Robinson, Viscount, Premier, ii. 97, 120, 123, 128, 133, 154; “will cry himself out of office,” ii. 129; “a minister pour tire,” ii. 135; resigns, ii. 141, 144; in favour of new peers, ii. 241 Goderich, Lady, ii. 305 Goldsmith, Lewis, ii. 324 Goodall, Provost of Eton, ii. 263 Goodwood, ii. 162 Gordon, Colonel Sir Willoughby, Secretary to Commander-in-Chief, i. 49, 150, 332; British Minister at Troppau, ii. 4 Gordon, 4th Duke of, i. 168 Gordon, Hon. Sir Alexander, i. 173,319 Gordon, James, i. 319 Gordon, Jane, Duchess of, i. 34,168 Gordon, Mr., ii. 254 Gore, Charles, ii. 329, 332 Gosford, 3rd Earl of, ii. 191 Goulbourn, Henry, Chancellor of the Exchequer, ii. 212, 302 Gower, Lord (afterwards 2nd Duke of Sutherland), ii. 47, 48 Grafton, Duke of, i. 168, 308; ii. 79, 133 Graham, Rt. Hon. Sir James, First Lord of the Admiralty, ii. 234, 305; the Reform Bill draft, ii. 264; resigns office on Irish Church Bill, ii. 273, 276; “canting,” ii. 274; Grey complains bitterly of, ii. 282 Grammont, Antoine, Due de, H. 307 Granard, 2nd Earl of, i. 161 Granard, 6th Earl of, i. 161 Grant, Rt. Hon. Charles, Lord Glenelg, President of the Board of Control, ii. 159, 213, 234, 269, 296 Grant, Robert, Governor of Bombay, ii. 234 Grantham, Lord, i. 336 Granville, Countess, i. 184, 254; ii. 60, 96, 306 Granville, Earl, i. 216, 255, 322; ii. 306 Grattan, i. 114, 121, 216, 228; ii. 175. 178, 179. 181, 183 Great Northern Railway, ii. 291 Greathead, Mr., i. 230 Greece v. Turkey, ii. 133 Greenwood, i. 34; ii. 242 Gregory, Under Secretary for Ireland, ii. 177 Grenfell, Charles, ii. 226, 252, 290, 312 Grenfell, Pascoe, ii. 218 Grenville, C, ii. 167 Grenville, Lord, i. 4, 114, 121, 142, 144, 146, 158, 164-166,181; leader of the Old Whigs, i. 3, 21; for Fox, i. 28; ii. 119; v. Pitt, i. 28; forms a coalition Cabinet, “All the Talents,” i. 75; ii. 117; resigns on Roman Catholic question, i. 84; the extreme members of the Opposition, i. 87; the anti-war party’s rage, i. 93, 94; Ministers’ offers to, i. 106, 110; and Brougham, i. 119; Tierney, i. 127; Wellesley, i. 129, 130; his offer to Whitbread, i. 137; refuses to reinstate Duke of York as Commander-in-Chief, i. 140; declines office under Prince Regent, i. 153; Prince Regent on, i. 157; against war, i. 162; called by Brougham “Bogey,” i. 179, 216; and “Snoutch,” i. 247; Alexander I. and, i. 195; Grey’s firmness, i. 214; called “the Stale” by Bennet, i. 217; supports Pains and Penalties Bill, i. 336; Grey and Whitbread, ii. 118 Grenville, Tom, i. 4, 21, 28, 255 Gresley, Lady Sophia, ii. 81 Gresley, Sir Roger, ii. 81 Greville, Charles Cavendish Fulke, Clerk of the Council (“Punch”), ii. 59, 79, 142, 169, 214, 223, 226, 233, 236, 241, 261, 312, 314, 330 Greville, Lady Charlotte, i. 215, 225-227, 278, 279, 289, 314; ii. 48, 160, 236 Greville Memoirs, ii. 211, 215 Grey, 1st Earl, i. 196; ii. 273 Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl, i. 13, 23, 27. 29, 30, 47. 87, 94, 108, no, 120, 128, 130, 137, 142-144. 154, 158, 159, 166, 173, 192, 217, 242, 243, 256, 265, 308, 318, 319, 333; ii. 6,9, 10, 15, 35,37, 57. 79. 81, 83, 116, 124, 142, 154, 201, 210, 223, 229, 234, 260, 268, 284, 307, 309, 321; his letter to Mrs. Ord (Creevey) on execution of Louis XVI., 1. 1; the Prince of Wales and Fox, i. 26; commission on Army abuses, i. 34; on continental confederacies, i. 44; Prince of Wales on, i. 72, 157, 164; the reports of Pitt’s illness, i. 80; one of his best speeches, i. 81; Ministers’ offers to, i. 106, 109, 163, 165; the Holland campaign, i. 107, 121-123, 129, 162; and Whitbread, i. in, 139, 183; and Ponsonby, i. 117; his speech against Wellington, i. 123; Tierney’s influence, i. 124-126; a job by Bishop Mansel’s brother, i. 129; on Creevey, i. 139; declines to reinstate Duke of York as Commander-in-Chief, i. 140; “will be passed over,” i. 146; refuses office under Prince Regent, i. 153; and Brougham, i. 174, 193, 253; ii. 129, 133. 140, 149, 184, 219, 220, 285, 287, 289, 292, et seq.; semi-pacific, i. 179; the Fox dinner at Newcastle, i. 187; and Alexander I., i. 195; and Napoleon, i. 196, 240; and Grenville, i. 214, 247; on the Divorce question, i. 259; spies and informers exposed by, i. 263; Wellington on, i. 287; ii. 121; Pains and Penalties Bill, i. 299, 310, 313, 317, 325, 326, 329, 331, 332, 334, 336, 337; ii. 7; proposed epitaph for Fox, i. 300; on the Queen’s letter to the King, i. 306; Francis and Junius, ii. 8; Whitbread, Canning and, ii. 118; his son and Lord Darlington, ii. 122; the Old Whig Guard represented by, ii. 130; on Lady Londonderry’s dress, ii. 132; and the Malignants, ii. 135; on the Turkish scrape, ii. 139, 140; his speculations on the new Government after Goderich’s resignation, ii. 141; on Wellington’s Cabinet, ii. 144, 145, 151; his new “Wellington” coat, ii. 155; and Duke of Sussex, ibid.; his panegyric on Peel, ii. 196; and Roman Catholic Emancipation, ii. 199; and Rosslyn as Privy Seal, ii. 202; Premier, appoints Creevey Treasurer of Ordnance, ii. 215; William IV. and, ii. 216, 231, 246, 274, 276, 286; and Lord Durham, ii. 217, 232, 265, 277, 291; the Pension list, ii. 218; the Tims’ attacks on, ii. 219, 220, 257; on Stanley, ii. 219; his advice to Sir John Shelley, ii. 222; dismissal of Seymour and Meynell from the King’s household, ii. 225; his appeal for a dissolution, ii. 227-229; reduction of Creevey’s salary, ii. 228; K.G., ii. 232; down with influenza, ii. 233; the Reform Bill, ii. 236, 237, 247, 264; insists on Lord Hill voting against Wellington, ii. 240; the proposed peer-making, ii. 241, 243, 244; withdraws his resignation, ii. 244, 245; Creevey’s retirement, ii. 249; Stanley’s obstinacy about Irish tithes, ii. 252; whist at Windsor Castle, ii. 262; Palmerston’s intimacy with Lady Jersey, ii. 269; his change of tone towards Talleyrand, ibid.; and J. Parkes, ii. 271; Creevey’s heartwhole devotion to, ii. 272; Creevey’s forecast, ii. 279; appoints Creevey to the Greenwich Hospital estates, ii. 281; complains of Stanley and Graham, ii. 282; resigns, ii. 282; his farewell speech, ii. 283; his passion for dancing, ibid.; Essex and, ii. 290; in retirement, ii. 292-301; O’Connell’s abuse of, ii. 306; Queen Victoria’s voice and speech, ii. 323; letters to Creevey, i. 45, 74; ii. 125, 133, 139, 144 Grey, 3rd Earl. See Howick, Lord Grey, Countess, i. 80, 82, 91, 163; ii. 155, 184, 210, 215, 217. 219, 225, 243, 248, 254, 262, 263, 267, 271, 273, 276, 283, 285, 287, 290, 292, 294. 295. 306 Grey, Frederick, ii. 292 Grey, General Charles, i. 80; ii. 243, 262 Grey, Harry, i. 69; ii. 292, 328 Grey, Lady Elizabeth, ii. 81, 83, 306 Grey, Lady Georgians, ii. 243, 262, 292, 306, 323 Grey, Lady Hannah (afterwards Bettesworth, then Ellice), ii. 273 Grey, Lady Louisa (afterwards Durham), i. 265; ii. 7, 10, 15, 83, 92, 95. 276 Grey, Mrs., i. 128; ii. 91, 140 Grey of Morrick, Colonel, ii. 294 Griffiths, Lieut. (Guards), wounded at Waterloo, ii. 233 Gronow, Captain, ii. 273 Grosvenor, Bob, ii. 81, 100, 128 Grosvenor, Earl (afterwards 2nd Marquess of Westminster), ii. 260 Grosvenor, General, ii. 57 Grouchy, Marechal, i. 237 Guiche, Madame de, ii. 288 Guilford, Earl of, i. 31, 257, 322; ii. 246, 318 Gully, John, prize-fighter, i. 64; ii. 157. 210 Gurwood, Wellington Despatches, ii. 314. 315 Gwydyr, Dowager Lady (Lady Willoughby d’Eresby), i. 311 Gwydyr, Lord, ii. 104 H Habeas Corpus, i. 263 Hadley, Lord, i. 76 Halford, Sir Henry, i. 130; ii. 234, 243, 262 Halket, General, i. 222 Hallam, Henry, ii. 272 Hallyday, Lady Jane, ii. 75 Hamick, Bart., Sir—, Lord Grey’s doctor, ii. 329 Hamilton, Colonel, at Waterloo, i. 220, 225, 229-231, 238; wounded, 234, 235; at Cambray, 277 Hamilton, Mrs. (née Ord), i. 220,225, 278, 283, 286 Hamilton, 9th Duke of, i. 309; ii. 64 Hamilton, Lady, i. 70, 340 Hamilton, Lady Anne, i. 302, 309; ii. 17, 24 Hamilton, Lady Charles Douglas- (afterwards Duchess of Somerset), ii. 64 Hamilton, Lord Archibald, i. 85, 122, 128, 309; ii. 9, 50, 64 Hammersley, i. 34 Hammond, General, i. 150 Hamond, Sir Andrew, i. 277 Hanbury-Williams, Sir Thomas, ii. 38, 39 Hansard, i. 81 Hardinge, Sir Henry, ii. 157 Hardy, Lady, i. 256 Hardy, Sir Thomas, i. 256 Hare, i. 61, 84 Harewood, Earl of, ii. 32 Hargrave, Mr., i. 194 Harper, General (America), i. 279 Harrington, 2nd Earl of, i. 57 Harrington, 3rd Earl of, i. 56, 330; ii. 191 Harrowby, Countess of, i. 324 Harrowby, 1st Earl of, i. 166, 314, 324, 328; ii. 242, 244 Harvey, Mr., i. 238 Harvey, Mrs., i. 276, 279 Harvey, Sir John, ii. 328 Hastings, 1st Marquess of, ii. 285 Hastings, Warren, i. 59, 61 Hastings, Mrs. Warren, i. 59 Hatherton, Lord, ii. 288, 305 Hawarden, Lady, ii. 174 Hawkesbury, Lord. See Liverpool, Earl of Hay, Lord, killed at Quatre Bras, i. 230 Hayter, his picture of the Queen’s trial, ii. 70, 330 Headfort, Marquess of, i. 244; ii. 326 Heathcote, Gilbert, ii. 75 Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, ii. 218 Heber, Mrs., ii. 218 Heber, M.P. for Oxford, ii. 64 Henry, Mr., ii. 236 Herries, J. C., Chancellor of the Exchequer, ii. 128, 140 Hertford, Isabella, Marchioness of, i. 82, 148, 189, 214; ii. 1, 148, 320 Hertford, Marquess of, i. 214, 320; ii. 13, S6, 94. 101, 221, 225, 227 Hervey, Lord, i. 277, 281; ii. 87, 267 Hesse-Homburg, Frederick, Landgrave of, i. 8S9; ii. 17, 20 Heywood, Arthur, ii. 268 Heywood, Samuel, i. 130, 171 Hieronymus, Queen Caroline’s major-domo, ii. 17 Hill, Lord Arthur (afterwards Lord Sandys), i. 236, 238, 239, 283; ii. 87, 198, 210 Hill, Lord, Commander-in-Chief, “Daddy,” i. 277, 278; ii. 154. 157; votes against Wellington, ii. 240; on Queen Victoria, ii. 330 Hill, Miss, i. 277 Hinchcliffe, Mr., ii. 36 Hobart, Secretary for Ireland, ii. 179 Hobhouse, John Cam (afterwards Lord Broughton), ii. 64, 81, 83, 99; and General Mina, ii. 74; on Creevey’s Reform pamphlet, ii. 99; Woods and Forests, ii. 285 Holland, Lady, “Madagascar,” i. 82, 158, 208, 249, 273, 300, 330, 341; ii. 4. 9. 1S. 26, 37, 56, 58, 69, 74, 86, 209, 269, 284, 309, 311, 312, 322, 329; her letters to Mrs. Creevey, i. 151, 184, 189, 205, 246, 264; her “nutshell,” ii. 154; “I tell you she’s 57,” ii. 156; and Sefton’s flowers, ii. 256; ’ eating like a horse,” ii. 267; her “procession,” ii. 313; evidently failing, ii. 314; her flattery, ii. 333 Holland, Lord, i. 114, 120, 159; ii. 3. 4. 9. 39. 74. 128, 129, 155, 209, 303, 312, 313, 332. 333; Whitbread on, i. 100; Creevey on, i. 143; on the state of public affairs, i. 144; and Wellesley, i. 154; “quite inimitable,” i. 157;and Alexander I., i. 195; ii. 115; on Napoleon, i. 196; his letters to Creevey, i. 206, 239, 263, 264, 292; his love of tennis, i. 246; his daughter’s death, i. 260; the Pains and Penalties Bill, i. 308, 325, 334; Wellington’s scrape, ii. 6; his apology to the Emperor of Russia, ii. 15; his Bill to enable Duke of Norfolk to officiate as Earl Marshal, ii. 78; denounced by the Malignants, ii. 136; defends the Navarino business, ii. 141; the Reform Bill, ii. 236, 247; on peer-making, ii. 241; his agreeableness, ii. 267, 272; making offers to Lord Howick, ii. 295; the repository of Brougham’s confidential letters, ii. 301 Holland, Henry, 4th Lord, ii. 268 Holmes, William, ii. 213, 221 Hood, Viscount, Lord Chamberlain to Queen Caroline, ii. 3, 18, 20, 21 Hood, Viscountess, ii. 17, 24 Hope, M.P. for Lancashire, i. 36, 280, 281 Hoppner, his portrait of Berkeley and Keppel Craven, ii. 14 Horn, John, of Cambridge, i. 170 Hornby, Mrs., i. 17 Hornbys of Knowsley, the, i. 172,203 Home, Mr., Surgeon of Newcastle-on-Tyne, i. 186 Horner, Francis, i. 99, 112, 157, 249; his motion on McMahon’s salary, 355 i. 162; Western on, i. 251; on the Sinking Fund, i. 252; his death, i. 278 Horton, Mr., i. 172 House of Commons, tone of debates in, i. 21 Houses of Parliament, burnt, ii. 288 Houston, Lady Jane, 1. 148; ii. 203 Howard, Bernard. Set Norfolk, 12th Duke of Howard, Lord, ii. 9 Howard of Effingham, Lord, i. 336 Howick, Lady (Maria Copley), i. 80, 295. 306. 310 Howick, Lord (afterwards 3rd Earl of Grey), i. 80; ii. 31, 59, 81, 122, 165, 243, 295, 296, 300, 310, 321, 336 Howman, a witness in the Queen’s trial, i. 329, 335 Howorth, Mr., i. 78 Howth, Lord, ii. 188 Hughes, Colonel J., ii. 230, 231 Hughes of Kinmel (afterwards Lord Dinorben), 1. 80; ii. 70 Hughes of Kinmel, Mrs. (afterwards Lady Dinorben), i. 80 Hugomont, i. 237, 239 Hume, Dr., i. 239; ii. 209, 303 Hume, Joseph, ii. 35, 50, 63, 66, 74, 76, 251, 252, 303 Hundred Days, the, i. 213, 218 Hunloke, Miss Charlotte (Countess of Albemarle), ii. 33 Hunt, Henry, “Orator,” ii. 55 Huntly, Marchioness of (Lady E. Conyngham), i. 333; ii. 33 Huntly, 9th Marquess of, i. 125, 333 Huskisson, Rt. Hon. William, Secretary to the Treasury, i. 36, 151, 162, 165; First Commissioner Woods and Forests, i. 207; ii. 70; Canning and, ii. 99-101, 122; the Corn Bill, ii. 122; his load of unpopularity, ii. 141; and Wellington’s Cabinet, ii. 144, 145; “fell 50 per cent. in last night’s jaw,” ii. 152; resigns on Corn Laws, ii. 158, 159; on Stanley, “the Hope of the Nation,” ii. 203; killed at Liverpool, ii. 213 Hutchinson, Hon. Christopher H., M.P. for Cork, i. 161; ii. 28 Hutchinson, Lord, on substitution of Council for Viceroy in Ireland, i. 16; Commander of Army in Egypt, i. 48; the true account of Austerlitz, i. 49; Mrs. Creevey’s “chief flirt,” i. 73; “Wellington ought to be hanged,” i. 130; and the Prince Regent, i. 138, 141, 142, 146, 149; the Russian accounts of their victories, i. 170; and Queen Caroline, i. 302; ii. 28; interview with the king, i. 326; and Creevey, i. 334. 335; Creevey’s visit to, ii. 174-177 I Ibrahim, General (Turkey), ii. 133 Influenza, prevalence of, ii. 233, 252, 317 Inverness, Duchess of (Lady Cecilia Buggin, Duchess of Sussex), ii. 230, 243. 258, 329 Irby, Mr., ii. 100 Ireland, anomaly of the Lord Lieutenancy, i. 16; Creevey’s visit to and impressions of, ii. 168-192; Donougnmore’s recollections of, ii. 178-180; Anglesey’s view of, ii. 182 Irish Church Reform, ii. 254-256, 273, 274 Irving, Edward, 11. 75, 85 Isle of Man, i. 37; Receiver-Generalship offered to Creevey, ii. 249, 250 Italy, Napoleon in command of the army in, i. 6 J Jacobins, masters of Paris, i. 214, 217 Jeffrey, Francis, Lord, i. 205 Jeffrey, Rev.—, i. 319 Jekyll, i. 189 Jenkinson, Lady Selina (afterwards Lady Milton), ii. 277 Jerningham, Mrs., ii. 319, 320 Jersey, Frances, Countess of, ii. 1, 25 Jersey, Sarah Sophia, Countess of, i. 189, 297, 318, 324, 326, 332; ii. 39, 113, 132. 150, 160, 234, 270; Alexander I. waltzing with, i. 197; the “Lady Augusta” of Glenarvon, i. 254; and Brougham, i. 259, 295; ii. 73, 133; Creevey’s visit to Middleton, i. 295, 296; “herself is a host,” ii. 9; and Mrs. Brougham, ii. 71; scene between Durham and, ii. 219; mad against Reform, ii. 223; and Wellington, ii. 232; Palmerston and, ii. 268, 269; Lady Pembroke v., ii. 312 John Bull, ii. 2 Johnson, Dr. S., London, i. 134 Johnson, Mrs., ii. 75 Johnson, Sir John, Superintendent-General and Inspector-General of Indian affairs in British North America, ii. 64 Johnstone, Bart., Sir G. F., ii. 311 Johnstone, George, i. 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70 Johnstone, Lady Louisa, ii. 311 Johnstone, Miss, i. 65-68 Jordan, Mrs., ii. 300 Jourdan, Camille, i. 7 Juarenais, Madame de, i. 233, 234 Juarenais, Marquis de, i. 231, 233, 234 Junius, Letters of, ii. 8 Junot, General, i. 89 Juvenal, 3rd Satire, i. 134 K Karaiskaki, General (Greece), ii. 133 Kean, ii. 76 Keith, Lady, ii. 269, 270 Keith, Lord, i. 149 Kemeys-Tynte, Mr., ii. 313 Kempt, General Sir James, Commander 8th Brigade at Waterloo, ii. 254, 258. 259, 267 Kennedy, Mr., ii. 224 Kensington, Lady, ii. 71 Kensington, 2nd Lord (“Og, King of Bashan”), i. 78, 111, 112, 114; ii. 39, 62, 71, 196; Creevey and the Lord Mayor’s invitation card, i. 338; on France and Louis XVIII., ii. 61; story of the Duke of Buckingham, ii. 69; tenders his son’s resignation to Canning, ii. 72; the facts of the Garth case, ii. 197 Kent, Duchess of, i. 282, 283, 284; ii. 83, 210; and Queen Victoria, ii. 228, 257, 324-326; absent from William IV.’s coronation, ii. 237, 238; Creevey, ii. 277; her fêtes at Kensington, ii. 310; Creevey plays whist with, ii. 327, 328; and Conroy, ii. 332 Kent, Duke of, i. 113, 115, 276, 297; Creevey’s notes on a conversation with, i. 269-271; ii. 325; his mother’s illness, i. 282; his appearance, i. 283; Wellington’s jokes about, i. 284 Kenyon, Lord, i. 308 Keogh, a Dublin silk mercer, ii. 178, 179 Keppel, Lady Anne (Countess of Leicester), ii. 36, 97 Keppel, Lady Mary (afterwards Stephenson), ii. 97 Kerr, Lord Mark, i. 18 Kerry, Earl of, ii. 208, 254 Kerry, Knight of, ii. 112, 114, 181 Kew, Mr., ii. 50 Kilkenny, the Catholic meeting at, ii. 182 King, Lady, ii. 71, 72 King, Lord, ii. 10, 64, 71, 72, 79 Kingston, Earl of, ii. 30, 79 Kinnaird, Hon. Douglas, ii. 74, 98, 102 Kinnaird, Lady Olivia (Fitzgerald), i. 273; ii. 102 Kinnaird, Lord, i. 114, 246, 258, 262; ii. 232; against Prince Regent and Bank Note Bill, i. 146; his arrest by Napoleon, i. 244; takes Lady C. Lamb’s Glenarvon to Mrs. Creevey, i. 254; and the Antiquary, i. 255; Wellington and the Marine incident, i. 272, 276; the plot in Prince of Orange’s favour, 1. 286; Byron’s poem rejected by Murray, i. 294; his fatal illness, ii. 101 Kirkwall, Lord (afterwards 5th Earl of Orkney), ii. 96 Knatchbull, Mr., ii. 302 Knight, Mr., a barrister, ii. 197 Knighton, Sir William, i. 129; ii. 104, 120; George IV.’s executor, ii. 233 L Labedoyere, General, i. 246 Lade, Sir John, Queen Victoria’s generosity to, ii. 335, 336 La Fayette, i. 7; ii. 178 Lamb, George, ii. 39, 201 Lamb, Hon. William. See Melbourne, Viscount Lamb, Lady Caroline (ne’e Ponsonby), Glenarvon: The Fatal Passion, i. 254 Lamb, Mrs. George, ii. 2, 39 Lambton, Hedworth, ii. 329 Lambton, John George. See Durham, Earl of Lambton, Lady Louisa (née Grey). See Durham, Countess of Lambton, Mrs. William, ii. 83 Lancey, de, i. 238 Lane, Mr. and Mrs. Fox, ii. 96, 214 Langdale, Lord and Lady, ii. 322 Langford, Lord, i. 294 Lansdowne, Henry Petty, 3rd Marquess of, i. 10, 128, 163, 259, 308, 318, 326, 329, 336, 340; ii. 35, 74, 95, 112-116, 122, 126, 142, 154, 303, 322; Chancellor of the Exchequer in “All the Talents,” i. 42; amendment censuring Pitt, i. 74; opposed at Cambridge by Palmerston and Althorp, i. 75-77; Whitbread on his leadership of the House of Commons, i. 100, 112; succeeds to Earldom, i. 100, 113; and Creevey, i. 122, 141; Grey’s view of Canning, i. 159; Alexander I. and, i. 195; Wellington on, i. 286; a furious speech, i. 325; Wellington’s scrape, it. 6; Soult’s offer of Murillos, ii. 70; Althorp on, ii. 117, 121; Goderich put over him, ii. 123; and Herries, ii. 128; denounced by the Malignants, ii. 136; in favour with George IV., ii. 140, 141; Sefton on, ii. 144; “Roscius,” ii. 234; Auckland’s appointment to the Admiralty, ii. 277 Lansdowne, Marchioness of, i. 2 6 Lansdowne, 2nd Marquess of, i. 36, 100, 113, 130 Laon, i. 280 Las Casas, ii. 61 Lascclles, Lord, i. 294 Latouche, David, his motion v. Catholic petition to Irish House of Commons, ii. 178 Lauderdale, 8th Earl of, i. 13, 130, 184, 208, 209, 213, 253, 256, 297; ii. 26, 151; and Brougham, i. 30; ii. 28, 154; the Queen’s trial, i. 317, 323, 332, 335; K.T., ii. 27; negotiates between George IV. and Lady Conyngham, ii. 89 La Vallette, i. 246 Lawley, M.P. for Warwickshire, ii. 34 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, his portrait of Lady Conyngham, ii. 34 Leach, Mrs., i. 258 Leach, Vice-Chancellor, i. 298, 312, 333; ii. 96, 217 Leamington, Creevey’s opinion of, ii. 213 Leconfield, 1st Lord, ii. 165 Lee, spokesman at Covent Garden, i. 97 Leeds, Duke of, ii. 156 Legge, Dean of Windsor, “Mother Frump,” i. 247 Legh of Lyme, M.P. for Newton, i. 233 Leicester, Countess of (Lady Anne Keppel), ii. 36 Leicester, Rev.—, ii. 170 Leicester, 1st Earl of. Set Coke, Thomas Leicester, Thomas William, 1st Earl of, ii. 36, 76, 332 Leigh, Egerton, of the West Hall, Cheshire, ii. 148 Leigh, Marianne (Hon. Mrs. James Abercromby), ii. 148 Leinster, Duchess of, ii. 191 Leinster, Duke of, i. 308, 310; ii. 6, 31. 79. 154, »8ii 190. 238 Le Marchant, Brougham’s secretary, ii. 237 Lemon, Miss, ii. 36, 65 L’Enfant, Council of Pisa, i. 293 Lennox, Lady Louisa, ii. 87 Lennox, Lord William, ii. 75 Leopold, King of the Belgians, ii. 71, 73. 257 Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Prince, i. 358, 266, 270; ii. 7, 83, 210 Leveson, Lady Francis (née Greville), ii. 48, 59” Leveson, Lord Francis (afterwards Earl of Ellesmere), i. 185; ii. 59, 64, 188 Leveson-Gower, Lord Francis, Secretary for Ireland, ii. 160, 169 Leveson-Gower, Lord Granville, i. 206 Leycester, i. 126 Liancourt, M., i. 5 Lichfield, Lady, ii. 277 Liddell, ii. 81 Lieven, Prince de, ii. 167, 262, 279 Lieven, Princess de, i. 326; ii. 15, 104, 129, 130, 167, 196, 262, 279, 290, 309 Ligny, L 236 Lindley, Hester (Mrs. R. B. Sheridan), i. 4, 39, S2, 54. 55. 60. 72, 80-82 Lindley, Mr., i. 54, 55 Lindsay, Lady Charlotte, i. 182, 183, 199, 322, 330; ii. 3, 255 Lindsay, Mr., i. 323 Lister, ii. 74 Littleton, created Lord Hatherton, ii. 288, 305 Liverpool, Sir Charles Jenkinson, 1st Lord Hawkesbury. and 1st Earl of, his speech on Russia’s offer of mediation, i. 15; War Minister, i. 96; Wellington’s letter on the Portuguese soldiers, i. 128, 131; interview with Prince Regent, i. 157; Canning and, i. 159; ii. 69, 103; Prime Minister, i. 165, 166, 175; his letter in reply to Princess of Wales’ remonstrance, i. 177; entertains foreign royalties, i. 194; and Sheridan, i. 195; “Jenky,” i. 211, 260; ii. 46; the Princess of Wales’ intended return to Kensington Palace, i. 212; for peace, i. 214; Roman Catholic Emancipation, i. 293; Queen Caroline’s increased allowance, i. 301-304; Pains and Penalties Bill, i. 304, 308, 309, 318, 329, 338; the divorce part of the Bill, i. 317; sharp words with Eldon, L 323, 339; the Italian witnesses, i. 325, 336; and Grey, i. 332, 336, 337; Wellington’s scrape, ii. 6; the Queen’s Will, ii. 22; the King’s Knights of the Thistle, ii. 27; trying to keep peace with Spain, ii. 62 j the Corn Laws, ii. 101; an apoplectic stroke, ii. 105, 108 Liverpool, Charles Cecil Cope, 3rd Earl of, ii. 277 Liverpool and Manchester Railway, ii. 87, 203, 213 Llandaff, Lord, Memoirs, i. 264; ii. 181 Lloyd, ii. 36 Loch, Mr., K.C., i. 108 “Loco Motive machine,” ii. 203 Loison, General, i. 103 Londonderry, Charles William, 3rd Marquess of, Wellington’s Adjutant-General in the Peninsula, ii. 81, 93, 113, 131. 135. 153 Londonderry, Frances Anne, Marchioness of, ii. 58, 80, 81, 91, 93 Lonsdale, Countess of, ii. 127 Lonsdale, 2nd Earl of, i. 254, 317, 323; ii. 127, 147 Lories, Baron, i. 227 Lothian, 5th Marquess of, i. 18 Louis XVI., guillotined, i. 1 Louis XVIII., and Fouche, i. 8; restored to throne, i. 187, 190; visits London, i. 187; Ney’s offer about Napoleon, i. 214; Soult resigns War Ministry, i. 220; words, not deeds, i. 223; and Baron Lories, i. 227; well received at Le Cateau, i. 239; proposals to dethrone, i. 286; Tierney’s “frightful intelligence,” ii. 4; the operation of signing papers, ii. 26; Kensington in a fury v., ii. 61; Erskine’s wish, ii. 68 Louis Philippe, ii. 270, 309 Lowe, Sir Hudson, Quarter-Master-General, i. 224; his marriage, i. 247; Wellington on, i. 288, 289; O’Meara’s letter to, ii. 40; and Major Poppleton, ii. 47 Lowther, Lord, ii. 107, 147 Lucien Buonaparte, i. 215, 226 Lugano witnesses, the, i. 316, 317 Lushington, Dr., i. 328; ii. 89, 312; present at Queen Caroline’s death, ii. 21; the Queen’s funeral, ii. 22, 24; Phillimore put over his head, ii. 140 Lushington, Mrs., ii. 89 Luttrell, Henry, ii. 58, 167, 196, 223, 236, 269, 272, 314 Lutren, Madame, Queen Victoria’s governess, ii. 323 Lyndhurst, Lady, ii. 198, 223 Lyndhurst, Lord (Copley), ii. 95, 113, 114, 244, 298, 300-302, 323, 324 Lyttelton, Lord and Lady, ii. 255 M Macaulay, Lord, on Twiss, ii. 12; Lansdowne and, ii. 208; his “memorable words,” ii. 238; Creevey on, ii. 254 Macdonald, James, i. 120, 162, 321, 328; ii. 35, 120, 229, 254 Macdonald, Marshal, i. 221 Macdonald, Norman, it 180 Mack, General (Austria), i. 44 McKenzie, Mr., ii. 139, 143 Mackintosh, Sir James, i. 3, 254; ii.12, 85, 141; in Paris, i. 5-7; and Perry, i. 298; Fox’s epitaph, i. 299, 300 McMahon, Colonel Sir John, Prince Regent’s private secretary, etc., i. 39, 66, 71, 81, 82, 110, 111, 136, 140, 162, 179; ii. 105 Maddock, Mr., i. 12 Madrid, occupied by Wellington, i. 173 Magdalene College, Cambridge, Library, ii. 2S0 Magnetism (mesmerism), exhibition of, ii. 331 Magra, ii. 175 Mahon, Lord, i. 86 Mahon, The O’Gorman, ii. 194 Maitland, General Sir Peregrine, i. 230; ii. 185 Maitland, Lady Julia, ii. 60 Maitland, Lady Sarah (née Gordon-Lennox), ii. 185 Malignants, the, ii. 135, 136; quarrel with Brougham, ii. 149 Mallet du Pan, M., i. 288 Malmesbury, 1st Earl of, i. 277 Malta, i. 10, 14 Manchester, 6th Duke of, ii. 307 Mann, Sir Horace, Minister at Florence, ii. 261 Manners, Jack, i. 244 Manners, Lady Louisa, ii. 75 Manners, Lord Chancellor (Ireland), i. 314; ii. 63 Manning, Mr., i. 125 Mansel, Bishop, i. 129 Mansfield, Lord, i. 337 Manson, General, i. 61 Manvers, Earl and Countess, ii. 254 Marble Arch, ii. 308 March, Lord, i. 222 Marcot, M., i. 265 Marie Antoinette, ii. 300 Mariette, i. 328 Marinet, i. 272, 276 Marjoribanks, S., ii. 316 Markham, Mr., i. 68 Marlborough, Duke of, i. 13, 77; ii. 163, 267 Marmont, General, i. 173, 190, 225; ii. 247 Martin, Harry, Master in Chancery, i. 136; ii. 68, 247 Martin, Harry, the regicide, ii. 247 Martyn, i. 100, 112 Mary, Queen, ii. 165 Maryborough, Lord, ii. 124 Mathews, i. 54 Maude, ii. 115 Maule, Solicitor to Treasury, i. 323 Maxwell of Monreith, Miss Catherine (Mrs. Fordyce), i. 34 Maxwell, Sir William, of Monreith, M.P., i. 1ll, 122, 128 Maynooth College, ii. 175, 179, 180, 192 Meath, Lord, ii. 31 Mecklenberg-Strelitz, Duke of, i. 906 Melbourne, Viscount (Hon. William Lamb), i. 354, 255, 311; ii. 39, 167, 213, 216, 219, 226, 264, 269, 308, 321, 322, 328, 329; in favour of disfranchisement, ii. 158, 159; his crim. con. case, ii. 160; letters of introduction for Creevey, ii. 168; Secretary of State, ii. 234; and William IV., ii. 282-284, 286, 296, 297; and Brougham, ii. 287, 288; action against, ii. 311; “all good nature and gaiety,” ii. 313; and Queen Victoria, ii. 325, 327, 332; “the rickety nature of his Cabinet,” ii. 331; Sir John Lade and, ii. 335 Melbourne, Viscountess, i. 255; ii. 164 Melville, Henry Dundas, Viscount, i. 10; First Lord of the Admiralty, i. 32; impeachment of, i. 33-36; his court in Scotland, i. 85; and Brougham, i. 119; a great favourite with Prince of Wales, i. 159; the Queen’s funeral, ii. 22; K.T., ii. 27; resigns on Canning becoming Premier, ii. 112 Mermet, General, i. 101 Methodism, rapid growth of, i. 113 Methuen, Lady, ii. 280 Methuen, Paul, Lord, ii. 279 Meux, H., ii. 235 Meynell, Captain, dismissed from William IV.’s household, ii. 225 Miguel, Dom, King of Portugal, ii. 263 Milan Commission, i. 326, 335; ii. 157 Milbank, Lady Augusta, ii. 81, 82, 92, 230 Milbank, Mr., ii. 81, 92 Mildert, Wm. Van, Bishop of Durham, ii. 131 Mildmay, Sir Harry, i. 152, 190 Mill, ii. 51 Mills, John, ii. 12, 15, 81-83, 92, 1OO Milton, Lady, ne’t Jenkinson (afterwards Foljambe), ii. 277 Milton, Viscount (afterwards 5th Earl of Fitzwilliam), i. 109, 118, 122, 125, 157, 166, 257, 263; ii. 129, 277 Mina, General Espoz y, Commander of a Corps under Wellington in Peninsular War, ii. 74, 75 Minto, Lord, ii. 322 Miocci, i. 335 Miranda, General, i. 86 Missionary in Demerara, trial by court-martial of, ii. 77 Moira, 1st Earl of, i. 161 Moira, 2nd Earl of, i. 16, 31, 113, 146, 149, 157-161, 164, 165 Moldavia, ii. 139 Molesworth, Sir William, ii. 317 Moliere, Bourgeois Gentilhomme, i. 183 Molyneux, Colonel the Hon. Henry, ii. 198, 290 Molyneux, Lady Georgiana, ii. 56 Molyneux, Lady Louisa, ii. 137, 261, 310; her letters to Creevey, ii. 263, 330, 333 Molyneux, Lady Maria, ii. 137, 143, 223 Molyneux, Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. George Berkeley, ii. 187, 253, 254, 268, 290 Molyneux, Viscount, i. 171; ii. 232, 268 Monck, i. 217 Monckton, i. 56 Monk, Sir Charles, i. 108 Monson, Lady (afterwards Lady Warwick), i. 247 Monson, Lord, i. 247 Montalembert, Baron, i. 149 Monteagle, Lord (Spring Rice), ii. 107, 108, 112, 114, 180, 269, 276, 295, 298 Montgomery, ii. 198 Montholon, M., ii. 26 Montron, M., ii. 137, 138, 167, 316 Moore, R.N., Captain Graham, i. 12, 18, 133; his letters to Creevey, i. 17, 24, 77. 94, 95 Moore, General Sir John, i. 11, 18, 90, 93-95. 978; ii. 315; his letters to Creevey, i. 17, 29 Moore, Lady, i. 17 Moore, Peter, i. 256 Moore, Thomas, i. 255; ii. 89, 232, 272, 286 Morant, Mrs., i. 67, 68 Morelaix, Abbe, i. 7 Morillo, ii. 74 Morley, Countess of, ii. 243, 306 Morley, Earl of, ii. 69, 243, 306 Morning Chronicle, i. 4, 132, 177, 179, 269; ii. 316 Morning Herald, ii. 220 Morning Post, i. 4; ii. 220 Morpeth, Lord, 6th Earl of Carlisle, i. 27, 78, 121; ii. 123, 306 Morpeth, Lord, 7th Earl of Carlisle, ii. 223, 276, 278, 307 Morris, General, ii. 168 Morris, Lieut.-Colonel, ii. 169 Morritt of Rokeby, “Avoirdupois,” ii. 125, 126 Morritt of Rokeby, “Troy,” iL 126 Motteux, M., ii. 167 Mountague, Lord, his fountain at Cowdray, ii. 163 “Mountain, the,” name assumed by Radicals, i. 124, 175, 182, 210, 212, 215, 216, 247, 253, 257, 265, 290, 299, 341; ii 136 Mountcharles, Earl of, Under Secretary Foreign Affairs, ii. 103, 148 Mulgrave, Countess of, ii. 330 Mulgrave, Earl of, i. 96; ii. 241, 276, 296, 303 Municipal Reform Bill, ii. 308 Munster, Earl of, ii. 300, 323’ Murat, King of Naples, i. 213, 218 Murillos, offered by Soult for £100,000, ii. 70 Murphy, Mrs., ii. 110 Murray, General Sir George, i. 272, 279, 283, 285 Murray, General Sir John, i. 185 Murray, John, and Byron, i. 294; the Quarterly Review on O’Meara’s book, ii. 65; on the Ladies of Llangollen, ii. 185 Murray, Lady Augusta, Duchess of Sussex, 1f. 243 N Napier, Peninsular War, i. 1O1, 314, Napoleon Buonaparte, Mackintosh and, i. 5; suppresses the Sections, i. 6; commander of army in Italy, ibid.; his fits of passion, i. 7; his restless ambition, 1. 10, 14, 24, 29; and Lord Whitworth, i. 10, 13; and Addington, i. 11; swept through the Black Forest, i. 44; Austerlhz, i. 49; his armies in all parts of Europe, i. 86; Spain, i. 86, 88, 90; “a temperate hardy knave,” i. 96; overshot his mark, i. 175; abdicates, i. 187, 187, 189, 191, 239; the difference between Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia, i. 196; his popularity, i. 196; escapes from Elba, i. 213; Ney’s offer, i. 214; Waterloo, before and after, i. 219, 231, 237, 240; Kinnaird’s arrest, i. 244; at St. Helena, i. 266, 288; and Blucher at Laon, i. 280; Sir Hudson Lowe, i. 288; Tierney and, ii. 4; Princess Borghese’s appeal, it 26; O’Meara’s book, ii. 39,42; Castlereagh one of his imbetiies, ii. 43; Major Poppleton, ii. 47; Las Casas’ book, ii. 61; and Montron, ii. 137, 138; and General Gerard, ii. 202; Brougham on, ii. 207 Nash, the architect, ii. 156 Navarino, battle of, ii. 134, 139-143 Navy Estimates, ii. 35 Nelson, Earl, i. 69, 70, 73; ii. 161 New Zealand, king of, i. 330 Newcastle, Duke of, L 337; ii. 227 Newcastle-on-Tyne, i. 186 Newport, Sir John, i. 127 Newton, Lord, i. 333 Ney, Marshal, i. 190, 214, 246 “Nimrod,”ii. 291 Nivelle, battle of, i. 187, 235 Nollekens, sculptor, i. 184 Non mi ricordo, i. 322 Norfolk, 11th Duke of, “the Jockey,” i. 3, 15S. 168, 169, 186, 212, 245, 252; ii. 71 Norfolk, Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of, “Scroop,” i. 168-170, 245, 313. 322. 335. 336. ii. 35, 71, 78, 104, 162, 195, 196, 303, 310, 329, 335; deprives Creevey of Thetford seat, i. 274, 275; Prince of Wales’ advice to Sam Spring, i. 310; letter to Creevey, i. 325; Pains and Penalties Bill, ibid.; in pursuit of Creevey, i. 337; denounced by O’Connell, ii. 188 Norfolk, 13th Duke of (Earl of Arundel), i. 245 North, Lord, ii. 246, 318 Northumberland, Duchess of, ii. 140 Northumberland, 5th Duke of, i. 278 Northumberland, 6th Duke of, i. 31, 100, 110, 296, 336; ii. 157; Viceroy of Ireland, ii. 174, 193 Norton, Hon. Mrs. (née Sheridan), afterwards Lady Stirling-Maxwell of Keir,i. 89; ii. 305, 311 Norton, Mr., ii. 311 Nugent, Earl, ii. 89 O O’Callaghan, ii. 98 O’Connell, David, the Clare election, ii. 167, 193; Creevey on, ii. 183, 251; denounces Duke of Norfolk on Catholic question, ii. 188; his “Catholic cookery,” ii. 199; his arrest, ii. 216: Stanley and, ii. 219; challenged by Alvanley, ii. 304, 305 Oldenburg, Duchess of, i. 195 Oldi, Madame, i. 328, 339; ii. 14 Olivia of Cumberland, Princess (Olive Wilmot Serres), i. 339, 340; ii. 7 O’Meara, A Voice from St. Helena,i. 224, 288; ii. 39, 42, 47, 65 Omnibus, Creevey’s first experience of an, ii. 262 Oporto, i. 101 Orange, Prince of, King of Holland, i. 197, 217, 222, 285, 286; Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Brussels, i. 224 Orangemen (Ireland), ii. 174, 177 Ord, Charles, i. 224, 230, 231 Ord, Miss (Mrs. Hamilton), i. 220, 225, 228, 277, 283, 286 Ord, Miss Elizabeth, i. 232, 267, 283, 295; letters from Creevey to, i. 296, 299, 305-318, 320-342; ii. 1-15, 20, 23-28, 31-39, 42, 46-49, 53, 56-58, 65, 67-92, 98-102, 104-112, 114, 120-134, 137, 141-143, 147-157, 159-167, 169-192, 194-205, 208-214, 215-238, 240-336 Ord, the Misses, i. 17, 47, 147, 149, 224, 229, 276, 277 Ord, Mr., i. 4, 121 Ord, Mrs., i. 1, 128 Ord, William, ii. 279 Ordnance Office, Creevey appointed treasurer of, ii. 215 O’Reilly, George IV.’s doctor, ii. 211 Orkney, Earl of, ii. 96 Orleans, Duke of, i. 244; ii. 253, 269, 270 Ormonde, 16th Earl of, ii. 185 Ormonde, 17th Karl of, ii. 186 Osbaldislon, Mr., ii. 200 Ossory, Archdeacon of, ii. 175 Ossory, Lord, i. 157 Ossulston, Lady, ii. 9 Ossulston, Lord (afterwards 5th Earl of Tankerville), i. 111, 121, 122, 150, 151, 168, 210, 243-245, 254, 295. 331: 9. 36. 39. 112, 152, 211 Oswald of Auchencruive, Alexander, ii. 811 Oswald, Lady Louisa, ii. 311 Ouvrad, the banker, i. 7 Owen, Mr. and Mrs. Smythe, ii. 170 Oxford, Countess of, i. 3, 60, 255; ii. 60 P Paget, Lord and Lady William, ii. 181 Paget, Sir Arthur, ii. 315 Pains and Penalties Bill, i. 304-342 Palfy, Count, i. 45 Palk, Miss Elizabeth Mallet (afterwards Lady Seymour), i. 266 Palmerston, Lady, ii. 268 Palmerston, Viscount, ii. 199, 213, 226, 310; opposes Petty at Cambridge, i. 75, 76; Secretary at War, ii. 123; votes for disfranchisement, ii. 158; and Lady Jersey, ii. 268, 269; and Mrs. Petre, ii. 276; Grey and, ii. 286; dismissed by Wellington, ii. 298; “Cupid,” ii. 307; on Queen Victoria’s great merits, ii. 324 Paoli, Sefton’s valet, ii. 256 Papal States, the, i. 213 Paripol, the dancer, ii. 283 Paris, treaty of, i. 249; awaiting Napoleon s entry, i. 220, 221 Parkes, Joseph, of Birmingham, an organizer and demagogue, ii. 270 Parliamentary Reform, i. 263; ii. 51, 97-99, 251 Parnell, Charles Stewart, i. 164 Parnell, Henry Brook (Lord Congleton), i. 31, 164 Parr, Dr., i. 3; ii. 17 Patronage, ii. 103, 215 Paull, his exertions to obtain Wellesley’s impeachment, i. 226; his suicide, i. 226; ii. 41 Payne, George, i. 113; ii. 80, 313, 316 Pearce, Henry, “the Game Chicken,” champion of England, i. 64 Pechell, Captain, i. 312 Peel, Sir Robert, “Spinning Jenny,” i. 126; ii. 141, 275; his first speech, i. 122; M.P. for Oxford, i. 263; Creevey on, ii. 12, 43-45, 100; Brougham on, ii. 50, 145; for Spain against France, ii. 62; Ward on, ii. 69; and Canning, ii. 103, 112, 133; and George IV., ii. 110; resigns office, ii. 112, 113; Sefton on, ii. 117; his difficult position, ii. 146, 147; his “preconceived prejudices,” ii. 152; the Roman Catholic question, ii. 174, 194, 244, 246; Home Secretary, ii. 195; Grey’s panegyric on, ii. 196, 198; Reform, ii. 233; consulted by Grey about the coronation, ii. 234; a most remarkable declaration from, ii. 246; and William IV., ii. 284; his absence in Rome, ii. 296, 298, 299; “the humbug of Jenny,” ii. 302; predicted failure, ii. 303; his Scotch sentiment, etc., ii. 317; “every word was gospel” ii. 334 Pelham, Bishop, i. 323 Pellew, Admiral, i. 95 Pembroke, Countess of, ii. 312 Peninsular War, i. 87, 153, 157, 160, 175 Penryn borough, bribery and corruption in, ii. 119; disfranchised, ii. 158 Pension lists, ii. 218 Pepys, ii. 280 Perceval, Spencer, i. 96, 99, 100, 109-111, 114, 119, 124, 126, 133, 136-138, 146, 175; ii. 227; assassinated, i. 145, 153; ii. 50 Percy, Colonel the Hon., A.D.C. to Sir John Moore and Wellington, carried Wellington’s despatches to London after Waterloo, i. 278 Percy, Earl, i. 76, 100, 110 Perry, editor of Morning Chronicle, i. 132, 298 Persia, Russian successes in, ii. 139 Petre, Lady, i. 108, 325 Petre, Lord, i. 37, 108, 167, 168, 252; ii. 79, 234 Petre, Mrs., ii. 276, 288 Petworth, Creevey’s description of, ii. 163 Philips, Sir R., i. 112 Phillimore, ii. 140 Phillips, George, i. 274; ii. 64 Picton, General, i. 238 Pierrepont, M., i. 152 Pieton, Madame, i. 69 Piggott, i. 108 Pillet, General, i. 255 Piltown (Ireland), ii. 172, 173 Piré General, Red Lancers, i. 231 Pitt, William, i. 3, 4, 12, 22, 69, 73, 161, 263; in retirement, i. 8, 10; his intolerance of Addington, i. 9, 23; his treatment of Sir John Moore, i. 11; returns to House of Commons, i. 14; his speech for war, i. 15, 16, 20; and Fox, i. 21, 23; Lord St. Vincent, i. 24; his last administration, i. 26, 27, 31; and George III., i. 27; in a dilemma, i. 28; fears of French invasion, i. 29; Brougham on, i. 30, 119, 120, 134, 172; his schemes of reform, i. 32; Melville’s impeachment, i. 33; Roman Catholic question, i. 33, 43; Boyd, Benfield & Co., i. 35-37; Beresford and, i. 42; Castlereagh and, 143; the capitulation of Ulm his death-blow, i . 44; his illness, i. 74; and death, i. 79; ii. 119; his despotic authority, i. 260; Maynooth college, ii. 175, 179, 180; and the Catholic delegates, ii. 179 Plato, Bipontine edition of, i. 293 Platoff, i. 196 Plunket, Lord, ii. 181, 188, 189, 261 Plymouth, Lord, i. 337 Pole, Sir Charles, i. 114, 122 Police, origin of the, i. 304 Ponsonby, Frederick, i. 107, 238 Ponsonby, John, 5th Earl of Bessborough, ii. 268 Ponsonby, Lady, i. 110, 111; ii. 243 Ponsonby, Lady Betty, ii. 186 Ponsonby, Lord, i. 110, 111, 128; ii. 243 Ponsonby, Major-General the Hon. Sir William, i. 242 Ponsonby, Miss, ii. 185 Ponsonby, Rt. Hon. George, Leader of Whigs in House of Commons, i. 91, 94, 107, 117, 121, 122, 124, 125, 128, 141, 154, 162, 164, 165, 217, 251, 257 Ponsonby, Sir John, of Cumberland, ii. 171 Poppleton, Major, ii. 47 Porchester, Lord, i. 124, 128 Portarlington, 4th Earl of, ii. 320 Porter, Colonel, i. 22; ii. 10 Portland, Duke of, i. 81, 85, 86, 96, 106, 145, 331 Portsmouth, Lord, insane, ii. 63 Portugal, i. 130, 134, 147-149, 160; her “soldiers the fighting-cocks of the army,” i. 128 Portugal, King of, ii. 310 Powell, Mr., i. 322, 329; ii. 329 Power of Kilfane, John, ii. 176, 182-184 Power of Kilfane, Mrs., ii. 175 Powlett, Lady Caroline, ii. 100 Powlett, Lord (afterwards 3rd Duke of Cleveland), ii. 100, 107, 126, 130-132, 201 Poyntz, Miss, i. 264; ii. 47 Pozzo di Borgo, M. and Mdme, ii. 307 Pretyman, George (afterwards Tomline), Bishop of Lincoln, i. 202 Price, Rev. W., i. 76 Property tax, i. 211, 250 Prussia, i. 213, 218 Pruth river, ii. 139 Pyrenees, the, i. 186, 187 Q Quarterly Review, ii. 65 Quatre Bras, i. 230 R Radicals, named “the Mountain,” q.v.; schism between Whigs and, i. 260 Radnor, 2nd Earl of, i. 89, 96 Radnor, 3rd Earl of. See Folkestone, Viscount Raganti, i. 326 Raglan, Lord, ii. 74, 289 Raikes, “Dandy,” ii. 106-109 Railway movement, the great, ii. 87 Raine, Jonathan, ii. 115 Ramsay, General Norman, ii. 193 Ramsden, Lady, ii. 93 Ramsden, Mr., ii. 34 Ramthorne, i. 172 Ranelagh, Lord, ii. 210 Rastelli, i. 325, 326 Rawdon, Hon. John, ii. 285 Redesdale, Lord, i. 314; ii. 157 Reeves, ii. 261 Reform, i. 263; Act, i. 274; ii. 221, 223; Creevey’s letters on, ii. 93, 97-99, Bill, ii. 12, 225, 227, 228, 230. 233. 235, 236, 238, 240-247, 251, 292 Retrenchment and Reform, ii. 272 Ribblesdale, Lord, ii. 305, 307 Ricardo, ii. 55 Richelieu, Duc de, i. 285, 287; ii. 290 Richmond, Dowager Duchess of, ii. 38, 87, 185 Richmond, Duchess of, ii. 88, 162 Richmond, 3rd Duke of, ii. 162 Richmond, 5th Duke of, i. 223, 229, 337; ii. 162, 246, 264, 273, 274, 276, 297, 305 Ridgway, ii. 93, 97, 98 Ridley, Sir M., i. 197, 217, 326; ii. 37, 81 Ripon, Lord, ii. 273 Rivers, Lord, i. 196 Robespierre, i. 7 Robinson, J. See Goderich, Lord Roden, Lord, i. 320 Roder, General, i. 223 Roebuck, Mr., ii. 317 Rogers, Miss, ii. 272, 285, 286, 322 Rogers, Samuel, the dead poet, i. 255, 256, 334. 335: ii. 195, 196, 272, 285, 286, 305, 312, 322, 323; Human Life, 1. 294; Lady Holland’s cat, ii. 58; Creevey’s opinion of, ii. 162; a blue dinner at, ii. 275; Lady Holland’s procession, ii. 313 Rolle, Lord, i. 261 Roman Catholic question, i. 31, 43, 47, 84, 100, 148, 153, 157, 158, 166, 245,293; ii. 12, 31, 67, 94, 103, 108, 112, 116, 167, 170, 174-176, 178-180, 188, 193 Romilly, Sir Samuel, Solicitor-General, in “All the Talents,” i. 5, 122, 130, 278, 290; Prince of Wales’ offer of a seat in House of Commons, i. 40, 63; Grey on, i. 108; calls Erskine “The Green Man and Still,” i. 212; his suicide, i. 243, 293; ii. 41, 44; on Tierney, i. 265; “in high force,” i. 272; and Duke of Roxburgh, ii. 3 Romney, George, his works at Petworth, ii. 165 Ros, Lord de, ii. 78, 198, 237, 238, 254, 312 Ros, Olivia de (Lady Cowley), ii. 204, 237. 263, 320 Roscoe, William, historian, Creevey’s election agent at Liverpool, i. 169-171, 211; Leo: Lorenzo de Medici, ii. 256, 280 Roscommon, Countess of, ii. 3 Rose, Mr., i. 36 Rosebery, Lady, ii. 36 Rosebery, 4th Lord, i. 335; ii. 36 Rosebery, 5th (and present) Lord, Napoleon, the last Phase, it. 40 Rosslyn, Earl of, i. 305, 326, 333; ii. 26, 79, 99, 150, 153, 154; and Brougham, ii. 129; Lord Lieutenant of Fife, ii. 153, 155; Privy Seal, ii. 202 Rothschild, ii. 90 Roxburgh, Duke of, Queen Caroline’s Grand Chamberlain, ii. 3 Royal Exchange, burnt, ii. 334 Royal Naval Commission, i. 33 Russell, Francis, ii. 74, 100, 167 Russell, Lady John, widow of 2nd Lord Ribblesdale, ii. 305, 307, 328, 331 Russell, Lady William (née Rawdon), ii. 285 Russell, Lord John, i. 157, 309, 333; ii. 34. 51, 79, 112, 114, 133, 261, 268, 275, 276, 296, 307, 328; Creevey’s Reform letters addressed to, ii. 93, 97-99; motion for disfranchisement of Penryn borough, ii. 119; Reform, ii. 217, 221, 264; split between Stanley and, ii. 273, 274; offer to Howick, ii. 295; “the conceited puppy,” ii. 297; “the Widow’s Mite,” ii. 305 Russell, Lord William, i. 210, 277, 278; ii. 114, 155, 275, 285; murdered by his valet, ii. 109, 329 Russell, Miss, ii. 80 Russell, Mrs., alias Funnereau. See Cleveland, Duchess of Russia, i. 213, 218; and Greek independence, ii. 133; and Turkey, ii. 139; her successes in Persia, ibid. Rutland, Duke of, i. 323; ii. 101, 110, 135, 195, 199 Ryder, Hon. Henry, Bishop of Lichfield, ii. 170 S St. Albans, Duchess of (Mrs. Coutts, née Conway), ii. 120, 217, 324 St. Albans, 9th Duke of, ii. 73, 120, 217 St. Antonio, Countess, ii. 141 St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of, i. 10 St. Laurent, Madame, i. 268-271 St. Leger, General, i. 195, 199, 201-203, 322 St . Paul’s Cathedral, thanksgiving for peace on 7th July at, i. 202 St. Vincent, Earl, 1st Lord of the Admiralty, i. 24, 68 Salamanca, Battle of, i. 128, 173; ii. 247 Salisbury, Dowager Marchioness of, ii. 166, 210, 230, 234, 263 Salisbury, Marquis of, ii. 37, 73 Salisbury, Sarah, Marchioness of, i. 197, 236; ii. 37, 67, 108, 197 Salmo-Braunfels, Prince Frederick William of, i. 305 Sambre, Napoleon’s passage of the, i. 233, 240 San Sebastian, fall of, i. 187, 187 Sandys, Lord (Lord Arthur Hill), i. 236, 238, 239, 282; ii. 87, 198, 210 Savory, i. 66-68 Saxe-Coburg, Princess of, i. 271 Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duke of (Prince Leopold), i. 358, 266 Saye and Sele, Lord, ii. 107 Scarlett, Sir James. See Abinger, Lord Scheldt Expedition, i. 125, 133 Scotsman, ii. 45 Scott, Harry, i. 80, 81 Scott, Sir Walter, Antiquary, i. 255; Rob Roy, i. 264; George IV.’s visit to Edinburgh, ii. 45; Rokeby, ii. 125; Life of Napoleon, ii. 203 Seaford, Lord (Charles Rose Ellis), i. 97 Seaton, Lord, Governor-General of Canada, ii. 334 Seaton, Mr., ii. 40 Sebastiani, General, i. 250; ii. 307 Sebright, Sir John, i. 114; ii. 198 Sections in France, the, i. 6 Sefton, Countess of (Hon. Maria Craven), ii. 9, 71, 83, 89, 197, 198, 209, 212, 219, 223, 233, 252, 256, 275, 310, 315. 320, 322, 324, 326; and William IV., ii. 308 Sefton, Dowager Lady, i. 57, 148 Sefton, 1st Earl of (“the Pet”), i. 57, 121, 155, 159, 171, 200, 203, 208, 211, 261, 262, 267, 294, 300, 303. 305, 312, 317, 318. 326-331; ii. 3-5,10,11,15, 32-37i 39i 40, 56, 62, 64, 65, 69, 72, 75, 76, 79, 84, 87-89, 93, 97, 99, 101, 102, 108, 112, 114, 117, 118, 121, 151, 154, 159, 166, 168, 196, 198, 199, 204, 210, 211, 215, 223, 226, 237, 243, 249, 252, 260, 26l, 267, 274, 277, 279, 281, 286, 288, 301, 304, 308, 312, 317, 328; Creevey’s great ally, ii. 136-139; Grey on, ii. 141; his letters to Creevey, ii. 144, 156, 170, 186, 200, 214, 250, 268, 269, 271; and Brougham, ii. 142, 143, 219, 222, 227, 230, 236, 245, 275. 287, 297, 298, 300; cracking his jokes at the expense of Huskisson and Dudley, ii. 152; and Lady Holland, ii. 155, 256; on Rogers, ii. 162; and Lord Egremont, ii. 164; correspondence between Anglesey and Wellington, ii. 194; breaks the bank at Crockford’s, ii. 195; Lambton’s nonsense, ii. 217; ill with influenza, ii. 233, 234; Lord Foley’s family, ii. 253; a story of Grey, ii. 283; wins £600 at whist, ii. 289; and Lady Grey, ii. 290; contrast between Grey and, ii. 299; Charles X., ii. 315, 316; and Sir John Lade, ii. 335 Sefton, 2nd Earl of, ii. 232 Sefton, 3rd Earl of, ii. 232 Serres, Olive Wilmot, claims to be Duke of Cumberland’s daughter, i. 339, 340 Seymour, Lady (née Palk), i. 266; ii. 310, 322 Seymour, Lady Charlotte (tiee Cholmondeley), i. 266 Seymour, Lieut.-Colonel Hugh Henry, i. 266 Seymour, Lord (afterwards 12th Duke of Somerset), ii. 191, 310 Seymour, Lord Hugh, i. 266 Seymour, Miss, ii. 47 Seymour, Sir Horace Beauchamp, i. 266; ii. 225 Shaftesbury, 6th Earl of, ii. 222 Shaftesbury, 7th Earl of, ii. 198 Sharpe, Charles Kirkpatrick, ii. 275 Shaw, Colonel, ii. 267, 328 Shelley, P. B., ii. 79, 100 Shelley, Sir John, ii. 222, 225 Sheridan, Charles, i. 53 Sheridan, Mrs. R. B., i. 4, 39, 52, 54, 55, 60, 72, 80-82; ii. 278 Sheridan, R. B., i. 4, 22, 46, 73, 78, 141, 142, 146, 149, 157, 162, 165, 195, 202, 204; ii. 317; his plan to substitute Council for Viceroy in Ireland, i. 16; Creevey’s distrust of, i. 21, 25; his diabolical project, i. 25; and Prince of Wales, i. 25, 26, 32, 51-60, 68; his speech v. Melville, i. 33; The Rivals, i. 55; Treasurer of the Navy in “All the Talents,” i. 81; ill, i. 84; on Grenville’s resignation, i. 85; the Regency Bill, I. 138; and Whitbread, i. 159, 164, 180; Madame de Stael and, i. 189; his death, i. 256; and Lord Dacre, ii. 278; his letters to Creevey, i. 38, 39, 138; to Mrs. Creevey, i. 39 Sheridan, Thomas, i. 38, 39, 51, 190 Sheridan, Mrs. Thomas, i. 38, 39 Shiel, ii. 181, 183 Shoenfeld, ii. 96 Sicard, Brougham’s courier, i. 297 Sidmouth, Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, Speaker, created Viscount (nicknamed “the Doctor”), i. 4, 43, 97, 114, 122, 123, 130, 147; Premier, i. 8; and Pitt, i. 9, 20, 23, 26; war-clouds, i. 10; and Napoleon, i. 11; “this accursed apothecary,” i. 14; and his colleagues, i. 19; Prince of Wales and, i. 25, 159, 194. resigns, i. 26, 28; Privy Seal in “All the Talents,” i. 75; Home Secretary, i. 166; for peace, i. 214; Queen Caroline’s trial, i. 314; Tierney’s attempt to enlist Creevey in support of, ii. 10; “was never sober,” ii. 31 Sidney, Sir Henry, ii. 165 Sierra Morena, i. 130 Sieyes, Abbé. i. 190 Simmonds, Dr., i. 28 Siniavin, Admiral (Russia), i. 89 Six’s iron index, i. 2 Slang, ladies’ use of, ii. 86 Slave trade, i. 120, 167, 214 Smiles, Dr., Memoir of John Murray, ii. 186 Smith, Adam, i. 264 Smith, Alderman Christopher, ii. 76 Smith, Bobus, ii. 275 Smith, Cullen, ii. 314 Smith, Rev. Sydney, i. 166; ii. 79, 148, 243, 255, 268, 269, 323, 329 Smith, Sir William, i. 81 Smith, Thomas Assheton, ii. 49 Smyth, Jack, i. 230 Sneyd, Rev.—(Brighton), i. 60 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, ii. 206 Somerset, Lady Charlotte Douglas-Hamilton, Duchess of (wife of 11th Duke), ii. 64 Somerset, Duchess of (née Sheridan), wife of 12th Duke, Queen of Beauty at Eglington Tournament, i. 39 Somerset, 11th Duke of, i. 336; ii. 64, 191 Somerset, 12th Duke of, ii. 191 Somerset, Lord Charles, ii. 132, 165 Somerset, Lord Fitzroy (Lord Raglan), ii. 74, 254, 289 Soult, Marshal, i. 101, 102, 186, 220; ii. 70 South American Colonies of Spain, i. 86, 87 Southey, Robert, ii. 147 Souza, Madame de (formerly Flahault), i. 6, 7, 251 Souza, M. de, Portuguese Ambassador, i. 62 Sovilliano, i. 88 Spain, i. 86-88, 90, 105; ii. 61, 62; French invasion of, ii. 52 Spalding, Mrs. (née Eden). See Brougham, Lady Speirs, Mrs. Alexander (afterwards Ellice), ii. 273 Speirs of Elderslie, Alexander, ii. 273 Spencer, George John, 2nd Earl of, i. 77, 214, 305, 308; ii. 208, 255, 295 Spencer, 3rd Earl of. See Althorp, Viscount Spencer, Hon. and Very Rev. George, Superior of the Order of Passionists, ii. 208 Spencer, Lord Robert, i. 13, 77, 121; ii. 148, 162, 196 Spring Rice, Lord Monteagle, ii. 107, 108, 112, 114, 180, 269, 276, 295, 298 Spring, Sam, waiter at Cocoa Tree Club, i. 310 Stael, Albert de, ii. 39 Stael, Albertine de, i. 184 Stael, Madame de, i. 184, 189; her house at Geneva, i. 258 Stafford, Lady, i. 274; ii. 48 Stafford, 2nd Marquess of, 1st Duke of Sutherland, i. 27, 194, 216, 245, 322, 328, 336; ii. 48, 69 Standish, ii. 312 Stanhope, 3rd Earl of, i. 377, 308 Stanhope, Hon. Augustus, ii. 191 Stanhope, Hon. James Hamilton, i. 277, 278; ii. 112 Stanhope, Mrs., ii. 112 Stanhope of Revesby Abbey, Banks, i. 277 Stanistreet, i. 208 Stanley, Lord, 13th Earl of Derby, i. 171; ii. 76, 88 Stanley, Edward, 14th Earl of Derby, ii. 40, 76, 128, 203, 226, 269, 282, 284, 295, 297, 299, 309; Secretary for Ireland, ii. 219, 265; and Durham, ii. 264; M.P. for Cheshire, ii. 255; resigns, ii. 273, 276; split between Russell and, ii. 273, 274 Stanley, Lady Mary (afterwards Lady Wilton), i. 305 Stanley, Mrs. Edward (née Dillon), ii. 226, 255 Star, i. 179 Statesman, i. 107; ii. 94 Stephens, Catherine (Lady Essex), vocalist and actress, ii. 286 Stephenson, Henry Frederick, natural son of Duke of York, ii. 6, 47, 97, 107, 126, 155, 329 Stephenson, Lady Mary (née Keppel), ii. 97, 109 Stepney, Tom, i. 149, 150 Stevenson, the American Minister, ii. 322 Stirling-Maxwell of Keir, Lady, i. 89 Stormont, Viscount, i. 31 Strafford, Lord, ii. 310 Strachan, Admiral Sir Richard, i. 95, 97, 129, 131. 133 Strathaven, Lady, ii. 148 Stratheden, Baroness, ii. 312 Strickland, i. 186 Stuart, Lady Elizabeth, i. 326 Stuart, Mr., ii. 45 Stuart, Mrs. Eliza (afterwards Molyneux), ii. 253 Stuart de Rothesay, Lord (Sir Charles Stuart), British Minister at Brussels, i. 210, 227, 228; ii. 144, 154, 157 Sturges, i. 20 Suchet, General, i. 185 Suffolk, 15th Earl of, ii. 112 Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, ii. 157 Sunderland, Lord, i. 266 Surrey, Earl and Countess of, ii. 48 Sussex, Duke of, i. 297; ii. 3, 6, 75, 109, 155. 229, 231, 258, 322, J23, 329; “talked very sad stuff,” i. 192; absent from Queen Caroline’s trial, i. 308; his stories of his cousin Olivia ot Cumberland, ii. 7; Creevey’s tête-à-tête with, ii. 47; “it had been a molancholy day,” ii. 79; his two marriages, ii. 243 Sussex, Lady Augusta Murray, Duchess of, ii. 243 Sussex, Lady Cecilia Buggin, Duchess of (created Duchess of Inverness), ii. 230, 243, 258, 329 Sutherland, Dowager Duchess of, i. 245; ii. 306 Sutherland, 1st Duke of, i. 27, 194, 216, 245, 322, 328, 336 Sutherland, 2nd Duke of, ii. 47, 48, 323 Sutherland, Harriet Elizabeth Howard, Duchess of, ii. 306, 323 Sutton, Charles Manners, Speaker (Viscount Canterbury), i. 114, 271 Suwarrow, Madame, i. 283 Swift, Dean, ii. 181 T Tabley, Lord and Lady de, ii. 170 Taglioni, ii. 252, 283 Talavera, i. 95, 105, 107, 123 Talbot, ii. 198 Talleyrand, his Paris house, i. 5; demands evacuation of Malta, i. 10; Napoleon’s abdication, i. 239; his reputed son, General de Flahault, i. 251; ii. 271; Napoleon’s Memoirs, ii. 26; and Montron, ii. 137, 138; and his niece, Madame de Dino, ii. 217, 236, 241, 262; cordiality between England and France, ii. 218; Creevey and, ii. 249; Lady Grey’s hatred of, ii. 263; Grey’s changed tone towards, ii. 269; Lady Keith, ii. 270; kept away from Oxford, ii. 279; Grey dining with, ii. 286; on Melbourne, ii. 309 Tallien, Jean Lambert de, i. 7 Tallien, Madame de (previously Comtesse de Fontenay), i. 6, 7 Tankerville, Armandine, Countess of (née de Grammont), ii. 98, 152, 307 Tankerville, Charles, 4th Earl of, i. 36, 158, 237 Tankerville, Charles Augustus, 5th Earl of. See Ossulston, Lord Tankerville, Emma, Countess of (née Colebrooke), i. 36 Tarleton, General Sir Banastre, i. 126, 156, 169 Tarragona, siege of, i. 185 Tavistock, Marquess of (7th Duke of Bedford), his speech on Whitbread’s death, i. 242; Bennet on, i. 257; to move a vote of censure, ii. 5, 11; “infinitely below himself,” ii. 12; Castlereagh and, ii. 38, 42; at Newmarket, ii. 79; half a buck from, ii. 91; Church Reform Bill, ii. 255; split between Stanley and Russell, ii. 274; Creevey on, ii. 321; and Queen Victoria, ii. 322, 324 Taylor, Michael Angelo, his house in Whitehall a rendezvous of the Whigs, i. 118, 160, 161, 199, 211, 212; ii. 2, 3, 19, 24, 42-44, 60, 61, 65, 89-91, 100, 105, 106, 116,152, 155. 213, 215. 284 Taylor, Mrs. M. A., i. 137, 140, 141; ii. 3, 28, 29, 38, 58, 60, 65, 81, 89-91, 95, 113, 119, 120, 121,123, 129, 132, 148, 160, 165, 184, 194, 208, 209, 219, 267 Taylor, Sir Herbert, ii. 124; the Garth case, ii. 197, 200 Tempest, Bart., Sir Harry Vane, of Wynyard, ii. 58 Tempest, Mr., ii. 93 Tennant, Dr., i. 2 Tennyson, Clerk to the Board of Ordnance, ii. 233, 241, 252 Thackeray, W. M., Vanity Fair, i. 218 Thanet, Sackville Tufton, 9th Earl of, i. 120, 257, 295, 317, 318, 328, 336; ii. 6, 9, 11, 15, 62; Creevey’s opinion of, 1. 125; ii. 36; compares Prince Regent with Mohere’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme, i. 183; his illness, i. 243; Creevey M.P. for Appleby by favour of, i. 298; Queen Caroline’s trial, i. 308, 313; his bet with Sefton, i. 328; the Whigs little better than old apple-women, i. 331; a curious fact about Junius, ii. 8; letter to Creevey, ii. 51; wins £40,000 at Paris Salon, ii. 67; his death, ii. 85, 165 Thayer, Miss, i. 190 Thermometer, Dr. Currie’s clinical, i. 2 Thetford, Creevey M.P. for, i. 3, 169 Thomas, Captain, killed at Waterloo, ii. 223 Thompson, B., ii. 302, 303 Thompson, Powlett, ii. 269, 322 Thornhill, Colonel, ii. 188 Thorpe, Lord Mayor, i. 340 Thorpe, Miss, i. 340 Thurlow, Lord, i. 30,114; and Horne Tooke, i. 60; Creevey on, i. 61; and Johnstone’s port wine, i. 64 Tierney, George, “Mother Cole,” or “Old Cole,” i. 68, 71, 94, 100, 122, 123, 137, 162, 191, 200, 256; ii. 120, 157, 281, 313; incessantly intriguing, i. 22; and Whitbread, i. no, 121, 242; on Grey and Whitbread, L 111 1 proposes Petty or Cavendish as Whig leader, i. 112; “personal questions never answer,” i. 114; “will end in smoak,” i. 124; the thanks of Parliament to Wellington, i. 126; his tricks, i. 127; “is doing very well,” i. 217; his temporising plans, i. 247; his style in speaking, i. 248; “expert, narrow, and wrong as ever,” i. 251; selected as leader of Whigs, i. 265, 278, 290; ii. 106; Wellington on, i. 278; his motion on the Bank forgeries, i. 292; his nickname, i. 327; Creevey’s attack on, i. 329, 330, 336; Brougham his fellow-counsellor, ii. 2; and Decaze, ii. 4; his inveterate folly, ii. 5; attempts to enlist Creevey as Addington’s supporter, ii. 10; “the Venerable,” ii. 123; P.C., ii. 141 Tighe, Lady Louisa, ii. 184, 185 Tighe, Mrs., ii. 87 Tighe of Woodstock, Hon. W. F., ii. 182, 184, 185 Times, ii. 15, 48, 219, 220, 223, 237, 257. 308, 310, 3l6 Tindal, i. 328 Titchfield, Lord, ii. 71, 100 Tomline, George (previously Pretyman), Bishop of Lincoln, i. 202 Tooke, Horne, i. 60, 61 Tories, under Pitt, i. 3; and Roman Catholic Emancipation, ii. 193 Torres Vedras, i. 131 Towneley, Charles, ii. 312 Towneley, Lady Caroline (née Molyneux), ii. 312 Townshend, Lord John, i. 13, 125, 184 Trafalgar, i. 44, 69 Traveller, i. 342 Trippe, Baron, i. 221 Tufnell, i. 81 Tullamore, Lord, ii. 288 Turkey, and Greece, ii. 133; and Russia, ii. 139 Twiss, Horace, ii. 12 Tynte, Mr. Kenneys, ii. 313 Tyrone, Earl of (1st Marquess of Waterford), ii. 127 Tyrrell, John, ii. 236 Tyrwhitt, Sir Thomas, Black Rod, i. 329, 340, ii. 120; the Queen’s trial, i. 306; George IV.’s illness, ii. 104, 197 U Ulm, capitulation of, i. 44, 45 Ultras, the, ii. 147 Useful Knowledge, Library of, ii. 206 Uxbridge, Earl of (afterwards 2nd Marquess of Anglesey), i. 830; ii. 231 V Valenciennes, i. 282, 283 Van de Weyer, Belgian Minister, ii. 329 Van Merlen, General, i. 230 Vane, Mr., ii. 96 Vane-Tempest, Bart., Sir Harry, ii. 58 Vansittart, N. (afterwards Lord Bexley), “Mouldy,” i. 114, 262, 342; ii. 129; on Whitbread’s death, i. 242; his attempt to punish Creevey, ii. 9 Vaughan, “Hat,” i. 208, 236 Verbyst, i. 293 Vernon, Edward Venables, Archbishop of York, i. 328, 337 Vernon, Sir Charles, i. 162; ii. 63 Verona Congress, ii. 52, 60, 62 Victor, Marshal, i. 190, 223, 225 Victoria, Queen, ii. 1, 51, 228, 257, 310, 321-336; her accession, ii. 322; her reception of Lyndhurst, ii. 323; Melbourne’s health, ii. 325; Creevey presented to, ii. 326; Hayter the artist, ii. 330; Melbourne on, ii. 332; and Durham, ii. 335 , her generosity to the Fitzclarences and Sir John Lade, ii. 335. 336 Vienna Congress, i. 213 Villa Real, Marquess, ii. 167 Villeneuve, Admiral, i. 69 Villiers, John, i. 136, 140 Villiers, Viscount, ii. 311 Vimeira, battle of, i. 237 Viotti, the violinist, i. 148 Vitry, i. 280 Vittoria, battle of, ii. 193 Vivian, Sir Hussey, afterwards Lord, i. 309 Voeykoff, Mdlle., i. 69 Voltaire, i. 2 W Waithman, Robert, i. 129-131, 341; ii. 18 Walcheren Expedition, i. 93, 95, 96, 118, 124, 127, 129, 13l, 250 Waldegrave, Countess, i. 246 Waldegrave, Earl, i. 246; ii. 267 Walker, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 186 Wallachia, ii. 139 Walpole, George, i. 47 Walpole, Horace, ii. 163, 261, 267 Walpole, Sir Robert, ii. 246, 267 Walsham, Lady, ii. 235 Walter, M.P. for Berkshire, proprietor of Times, ii. 308 Ward, John William. See Dudley, 1st Earl of Ward, Lord, 2nd Earl of Dudley,ii. 333 Ward, Robert, i. 45 Wardle, Colonel, i. 97, 112, 113, 115, 116 Warner, i. 66, 68 Warren, Charles, lawyer, i. 60, 113; ii. 8 Warrender, Lady Julia (née Maitland), i. 209; ii. 60 Warrender, of Lochead, Sir George, 4th Baronet, i. 127; ii. 60, 74, 167, 211 Warrender, Sir John, 5th Baronet, i. 209; ii. 60, 76 Warwick, Lord, i. 247; ii. 7 Waterford, Marchioness of, ii. 127 Waterford, 1st Marquess of, ii. 127 Waterloo, i. 179, 230 Waters, Colonel, i. 101 Watley, Colonel, i. 67 Waverers, the, ii. 244 Wear, Whitbread’s valet, i. 242 Webster, Lady Frances, i. 255 Webster, Sir Godfrey, i. 255 Weekly Political Register, Cobbett’s, i. 89, 132, 133 Weissenberg, Herr, ii. 262 Wellesley, Marchioness of, i. 70; ii. 248 Wellesley, Marquess of, i. 95, 113, 164, 175; ii. 285, 288; the Copenhagen Expedition, i. 85; attacks on his Indian administration, i. 86, 90; the revolution in Spanish South America, i, 86, 118; Whitbread hostile to, i. 88; Foreign Secretary, i. 96, 118; “the Atlas of the falling State,” i. 123; Portuguese soldiers, i. 130; resigns office, i. 153, 175; and Lord Holland, i. 154; Prince Regent and, i. 154, 156-159, 161, 163; “our new patron,” i. 157; Prime Minister, i. 158, 163; and Sheridan, i. 159; and Canning, i. 161, 162; Paull, i. 226; “there seems an idea of,” ii. 16, 20; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, ii. 63, 267, 328; Reform Bill, ii. 247; letter to Creevey, ii. 327 Wellesley, Sir Henry, Lord Cowley, i. 218; ii. 263, 320 Wellington, Duke of, “the Beau,” i. 95. 3. 132, 148, 217, 260, 267, 303, 307. 337; ii. 18, 20, 42, 44, 79, 117, 140. 234. 269, 273, 284, 303; Secretary for Ireland, i. 86; 2nd Peninsular War, i. 87-90, 93; 3rd Peninsular War, passage of the Douro, i. 101-105, 109; Talavera, i. 107, 123, 125; Perceval’s notice of thanks, i. 124-127; a pension for, i. 128; “Portuguese are now the fighting cocks of the army,” i. 128; Hutchinson on, i. 130; Torres Vedras, i. 131; Siege of Badajos, i. 145; Congreve’s rockets, i. 147; siege of Burgos, i. 173; on General Murray’s operations, i. 185; in winter quarters on French soil, i. 187; the thanks of the House of Commons, i. 198; British Plenipotentiary at Vienna Congress, i. 213; predicts a Republic in Paris, i. 215, 226; in command of the Allies in Belgium, i 218; composition of his forces, i. 219; Waterloo, i. 221-231, 235-239; Lord Holland v., i. 246; Kinnaird and the Marinet incident, i. 273, 276; extracts from Creevey’s journal about, i. 276-289; on the English Princes, i. 277; on Tierney, i. 278; on the Prince Regent’s figure, i. 279; Duke of Kent, i. 282, 284; Richelieu, i. 285; on Grey and Lansdowne, i. 286; Canning’s and Whitbread’s sparring bout, 287; withdraws Army of Occupation, i. 288; on Lowe, i. 289; his “scrape” when Lord Lieutenant of Hants, ii. 6; violent against Queen Caroline, ii. 14; ill, ii. 49; the Verona Congress, ii. 52, 60; France v. Spain, ii. 64; and Duke of ¥«rk, ii. 67; and Canning, ii. 103, 111, 121, 135; resigns Command-in-Chief, ii. 104, 123; Creevey’s confidence in, ii. 110; resigns office, ii. 112, 113; “curious times these, Duke!” ii. 121; and Brougham, ii. 122; correspondence with George IV. as to Command-in-Chief, ii. 123, 124; Commander-in-Chief, ii. 131, 135; identifying himself with the Old Tories, ii. 131; Lady Jersey and, ii. 133, 232; Goderich’s resignation, ii. 141; Prime Minister, ii. 144, 153, 196; stands firm, ii. 147; Grey satisfied with, ii. 151; “will do capitally,” ii. 152; and the new Buckingham Palace, ii. 156; his view of Corn Laws, ii. 158; Huskisson’s resignation, ii. 158, 159; and George IV., ii. 159; his “horrible appointments,” ii. 160; and the Roman Catholic question, ii. 170, 190, 193, 194, 198, 199; recalls Anglesey from Ireland, ii. 174.193-195; and Lady Louisa Tighe, ii. 184; his intentions about Ireland, ii. 186; duel with Winchilsea, ii. 199, 200; a fall from his horse, ii. 201; Brougham on, ii. 208; in tip-top spirits, ii. 210; and William IV., ii. 212, 296, 298; at opening of Liverpool and Manchester Railway, ii. 213; on Brougham as Chancellor, ii. 218; and Sir John Shelley, ii. 222; George IV.’s executor, ii. 233, 320; the Ordnance tents, ii. 233; Lord Hill votes against, ii. 240; fails to form Ministry, ii. 244, 246, 247; mobbed, ii. 248; the Irish Church Bill, ii. 258; at Lord Cowley’s wedding, ii. 263; Chancellor of Oxford University, ii. 279; Mrs. Arbuthnot’s death, ii. 286; removes Duke of Clarence from office of Lord High Admiral, ii. 300; his evidence before Flogging Commission, ii. 310; Mrs. Fitzherbert, ii. 319, 320 Wellington Despatches, Civil and Military, i. 87, 128, 131, 185, 373, 304; ii. 53, 123, 124, 314, 315, 324 Werncck, i. 44 Western, Charles Callis (“Squire Western”), created Baron Western of Ravenhall, i. 114, 313, 339; ii. 5, 236, 310; on the Castlereagh-Canning duel, i. 98; Folkestone and Mrs. Clarke, i. 115, 116; on Brougham’s Treaty of Paris speech, i. 249; “no superior mind amongst us,” i. 251; on agricultural depression, etc., i. 252; Queen Caroline’s trial, i. 310; on the abandonment of the Divorce clause, i. 319; on Cobbett, i. 334; at the Lord Mayor’s dinner, i. 340; his letters to Creevey, i. 98, 249, 251, 319, 334 Westmacott, editor of The Age, ii. 200 Westminster, 2nd Marquess of, ii. 260 Westminster Review, ii. 98 Westmorland, Earl of, i. 159; ii. 105, 112, 128, 171 Wetherell, Sir Charles, Attorney-General, ii. 224, 248 Wharncliffe, Lord, ii. 242, 244 Whateley, Councillor, ii. 231 Whetham, General, i. 150 Whigs, under Grenville, i. 3; schism between Radicals and, i. 260; their fusion with the Canningite Ministry, ii. 135 Whishaw, J., i. 5, 111, 138, 250 Whitbread, Lady Elizabeth, i. 109, 157, 196; ii. 153 Whitbread, Miss, i. 139 Whitbread, Samuel, i. 13, 14, 34. 114, 128, 139, 141, 156, 157, 173, 182, 185, 207, 217; ii. 117; Sheridan and Adair, i. 22; impeachment of Melville, i. 33, 88; the Boyd, Benfield and Co. incident, i. 35, 36; opposes war policy of Government, 1. 88; Cintra Convention, i. 89; and Sir Arthur Wellesley, i. 103-105; discusses nothing but politics with Creevey, i. 109; and Tierney, i. 11o, 112; the “old trader,” i. 118; Ponsonby and, i. 121; “stout and strong,” i. 123; the Walcheren Expedition, i. 131; Creevey’s advice as to Office, i. 137, 140; his offer to Creevey, i. 142, 143; his projected exclusion from the Cabinet, i. 158, 183; and R. B. Sheridan, i. 159, 164, 165, 180; Brougham, i. 177; the only peacemaker, i. 179; his two capital blunders, i. 181; correspondence with Tom Sheridan, 1. 190; Princess Charlotte and Prince of Orange, i. 197; against grant to Wellington, i. 198; Princess of Wales’ letter to, and his reply, i. 200, 201; his strange backwardness about Westminster, i. 204; “all for Boney,” i. 214; commits suicide, i. 240-244, 249; ii. 41, 42, 44; a sparring bout with Canning, i. 287; Grey and, ii. 118; his letters to Creevey, i. 88-90, 94, 99, 111, 117, 193, 195, 199 Whitbread, Samuel, son of above, ii. 71 Whitbread, William, ii. 71 Whitworth, Lord, British Ambassador at Paris, stormy interview with Napoleon, i. 10; leaves Paris, i. 13; his liaison at St. Petersburg, i. 67 Wilberforce, William, M.P. for Hull, i. 36, 99; an inimitable speech for peace, i. 15; and Brougham, i. 30; Sydney Smith on, i. 167; his opinion of Whitbread, i. 242; on exclusion of Queen Caroline’s name from Liturgy, i. 306; and Lord John Russell, i. 309; a frustrated intention, ii. 76 Wilbraham, i. 298 Wilde, Sir Thomas (afterwards Lord Truro), i. 328; present at Queen Caroline’s death, ii. 21, 22; her funeral arrangements, ii. 24 Wilkie, Sir David, ii. 322 William IV., Duke of Clarence, i. 46, 47, 50, 62, 190, 277, 314; ii. 3, 99, 325; letter to Creevey, i. 32; present at the Pearce-Gully prize-fight, i. 64; and the Bank Note Bill, i. 146; Duke of Kent on, i. 268-270; ill, i. 272; “that Prince of Blackguards,” i. 298; his vote v. Queen Caroline, i. 339; “our Billy is a wag,” ii. 104; £9000 a year for, ii. 106; and Lady Sefton, ii. 212; his wish to be comfortable, ii. 224; dismisses Seymour and Meynell from his household, ii. 225; “I beg you won’t kneel, Lord Derby,” ii. 226; Grey’s appeal for dissolution, ii. 227-229; at the Opera, ii. 228; his greeting to Creevey, ii. 229; and Grey, ii. 231, 244-246, 274, 276, 286; his Coronation, ii. 235; and the Duchess of Kent, ii. 238; peer-making, ii. 241, 244, 245; the Reform Bill, ii. 244, 264; commands Wellington to form administration, ii. 244; and Brougham, ii. 246, 318; his gracious behaviour to Creevey, ii. 258-260; “exactly so, Ma’am,” ii. 262; at Olivia de Ros’ wedding, ii. 263; sends for Melbourne, ii. 282-284, 285, and Coke’s speech against George III., ii. 294; dismisses Melbourne, sends for Wellington, ii. 296-298; reprimanded and removed (when Duke of Clarence) from office of Lord High Admiral, ii. 300; his 70th birthday, ii. 308; his death, ii. 321; his last act, ii. 322; his generosity to Sir John Lade, ii. 335 Williams, John, ii. 39 Williams, Owen, i. 99, 111 Williams, Sir Thomas Hanbury, ii. 38, 39 Williamson, Sir Hedworth, ii. 81 Willoughby, d’Eresby, Lady (Dowager Lady Gwydyr), i. 311 Wilmot, a house-painter at Warwick, i. 339 Wilson, the artist, ii. 322 Wilson, M.P. for City, i. 278 Wilson, General Sir Robert (“Jaffa” Wilson), i. 240; ii. 26, 32, 64, 68, 95, 107, 269; History of the British Expedition to Egypt, i. 312; letter from Taylor to, ii. 90 Wilson, Harriet, i. 294 Wilson, Richard, ii. 300 Wilson, Sir M., ii. 114 Wilton, Lady Mary Stanley, Countess of, i. 305; ii. 48, 81, 83, 203 f, ii. 81, 82, 100, 128, 129 Wilton, 3rd Earl of, ii. 81, 82, 100, 128, 129 Winchester, Lord Mayor, ii. 308 Winchilsea, Countess of, (née Bagot), ii. 329 Winchilsea, 9th Earl of, his duel with Wellington, ii. 199, 200 Windham, Mr., i. 9, 19-21, 38; ii. 55 Windsor, Mrs., i. 47 Winslow, Lord, i. 62 Wolcott, John, “Peter Pindar,” The Lousiad, ii. 29 Wood, Alderman, his support of Queen Caroline, i. 202, 302, 318; ii. 14, 17, 18 Wood, Mr., Lord Grey’s Secretary, ii. 242, 249, 250 Woodville, Mrs., i. 279 Woronzow, Count, i. 283-285 Wortley, i. 160; ii. 103 Wrights, the, i. 112, 113, 115 Wyatt, the architect, ii. 289 Wykeham, Miss, i. 272 Wyndham, General Sir Henry, ii. 165 Wyndham, Hon. Charles, ii. 164 Wyndham, Hon. Mrs. (daughter of Lord Charles Somerset), ii. 165 Wyndham, Hon. William, ii. 164 Wyndham, Miss, ii. 164 Wynn, Rt. Hon. Charles W. Williams, i. 128, 194, 214, 271; ii. 70, 113 Wynn, Sir W. W., i. 282; ii. 31 Y Yarborough, Lord, i. 308 Yarmouth, Earl of, i. 150; ii. 191; Castlereagh’s second in duel with Canning, i. 97; Sheridan and, i. 146, 195; Prince Regent and, i. 149; the Courier, i. 179; “preaches peace at the corners of all the streets,” i. 214 York, Duchess of, i. 182, 183, 305; ii. 27 York, Duke of, i. 17, 81, 34, 44, 53, 123, 146, 150, 294, 297; ii. 3, 7, 61, 79, 89, 100, 157, 325; Commander-in-Chief, i. 63; Prince of Wales and, i, 63, 159; Mrs. Clarke, i. 97, 112, 115, 124, 151, 310; ii. 2; motion to reinstate as Commander-in-Chief, i. 140, 147; his debts, i. 209; “so tipsy,” i. 184; Duke of Kent on, i. 268, 271; “won’t live long,” i. 298; Queen Caroline’s trial, i. 314, 339; Lauderdale’s story, ii. 27; at Ascot, ii. 77; the insidious Scroop, ii. 78; his natural son, ii. 97; building a new palace, ii. 99; his death and funeral, ii. 104, 106 Yorke, Mr., i. 127, 137 Young, Mr., Lord Melbourne’s Secretary, ii. 311 Younger, an English merchant from Riga, ii. 290

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