was assured by your Lordship on the 4th of January that many of your colleagues felt the strongest objections to this step, although they afterwards joined in the unanimous recommendation to His Majesty, that it should be resorted to, if it should become absolutely indispensable. His Majesty cannot imagine that they should have so far abandoned their original sentiments, as to be among those who are now hourly and daily urging you to take the step, without reference to contingencies which may possibly relieve you from the necessity of pressing upon the King, that which may indeed enable you to carry the Bill without any further alteration, but would, as His Majesty has frequently stated, have the effect also of destroying the character and independence of the Peerage, and of making him a party to the degradation of that body.

But supposing even that your Lordship should yield to this urgency, or allow yourself to be influenced by the impatience which is felt and expressed with regard to the creation of Peers, His Majesty wishes to know, what security you have that this step, whether resorted to at present or hereafter, or at any time, will have the effect for which it is intended. The number of Peers to be added was at first estimated at twenty-one: it was afterwards stated that more might be required, but that it was impossible to fix any number; and His Majesty consented that it should be indefinite. Yet there must be some limit; and it cannot be supposed by those who urge your Lordship, that His Majesty would agree to exceed certain bounds. Should forty or fifty be required (and His Majesty trusts he shall never be called upon to consider of an addition to

that extent), the King wishes to know, whether there be any security that such number will suffice. It may, indeed, prove equivalent, and more than equivalent, to the number by which the last Bill was rejected; but may not that number be increased by many of those who then voted for it, who are still friendly to the measure, but who feel and are known to have expressed the strongest dislike of an addition to the Peerage for the purpose of carrying the Bill? Your Lordship has admitted the objection to a second edition, if the first should prove insufficient; nor is it likely that it would answer the purpose, as there might be a corresponding falling off in the previous support. The step might, therefore, have been resorted to, twenty-five or thirty Peers added, and the Bill might still be lost (whether by one vote or more would matter little), after incurring the odium of the objectionable step, and the apparent ridicule of having miscalculated that which, in His Majesty's view of the subject, is not susceptible of calculation, and leaving His Majesty saddled with a large share of both.

The King has felt it due to himself, due to your Lordship, due to the country, to state his sentiments and feelings without reserve, not with any view of embarrassing or creating difficulties, nor, as before stated, with the most distant intention of allowing any ground for inference, that he is disposed to retract, or that his support will not continue steady and honest as it has ever been; but in order to endeavour to impress upon your Lordship the conviction which he himself feels, of the necessity of taking advantage of every resource, every overture, which may occur towards avoid

ing an alternative which, in His Majesty's opinion, has not the merit even of certainty or security.

His Majesty trusts also that your Lordship will see, in the anxious though possibly strong expression of his feelings, a further proof, if indeed any had been wanting, of his earnest desire for the stability of your Administration.

The character of the debate in the House of Commons on Mr. Courtenay's motion, and the division have given the King very sincere satisfaction.

I have, &c.

No. 354.

H. TAYLOR.

Earl Grey to Sir H. Taylor.

Downing Street, Feb. 13, 1832.

My dear Sir, I last night received your letter of yesterday, and must confess that it has made a very painful impression upon me.

It conveys an expression of His Majesty's regret, in terms amounting almost to disapprobation, of my now 'viewing, with so little satisfaction, any intimation of the disposition of some of the opponents of the Bill to vote for the second reading, without any assurance beyond that of a confident hope of being able to carry that point; ' and reminding me, that I had attached great importance to the exercise of His Majesty's influence and that of others, towards obtaining from some of our opponents an assurance to that extent, provided it should not be clogged with any stipulations, that the

expression of their readiness to bring the Bill into Committee should be met by the facilities to be given, and modifications to be introduced.

It is stated with perfect correctness, that I did express much anxiety for the use of His Majesty's influence with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Worcester, as well as with any other Peers who might be likely to yield to it, to prevent the rejection of the present Bill on the second reading. But in this I cannot think that there was any thing inconsistent with what I stated in my last letter, which was written confessedly in great haste, from a desire that His Majesty should be apprized of all the difficulties of my situation as soon as possible, looking forward to the necessity of my laying them before him in a more detailed and more careful statement.

I

I have never concealed from His Majesty my apprehension of the disastrous, I might say the fatal, consequences that must attend a second defeat of the Reform Bill, in whatever mode that defeat may be effected. have, with the concurrence of His Majesty's other servants, stated to him without reserve, that if those consequences could be averted by no other means, the very distressing expedient of resorting to such a creation of Peers as would ensure success, which could be justified by nothing but the most imminent danger, might become a matter of absolute necessity. I have at the same time uniformly expressed a repugnance, amounting to aversion, to such a measure; and my earnest desire, therefore, if I could have any satisfactory assurance of such a support as would enable me to carry the Bill beyond the second reading, and without

its being altered to an extent that would be equally fatal to it in the Committee, to conciliate, by every means in my power, the acquiescence at least, if not the active assistance, of some of its former opponents.

It was with these views that I thought great advantage might be derived from the communications to which you have referred; but it was absolutely necessary that, before the Bill came to the House of Lords, they should be brought to something like a definite result; and it was in consequence of the complete failure of all our endeavours, up to this moment, to obtain any thing specific on which reliance might be placed, that I expressed myself as not deriving the same satisfaction from Lord Wharncliffe's last communication as it appeared to you to afford.

For what in truth does it amount to but the same vague declaration of a disposition, or, if you will, a resolution, to support the second reading, of which we have heard so much; but without any statement of the numbers, this being the essential point, who would concur in that line of conduct? This too is accompanied with a threat, if any Peers are created, of determined opposition; on the propriety of which as applied to the exercise of the King's prerogative, or on its consistency when made by a person who declares that his acquiescence in the measure of Reform has been produced by his conviction of its being necessary to the peace of the country, I will make no observation. The time is now come, as the Bill may be expected to be brought to the House of Lords by the 1st of March, when it is necessary that these things should be left no longer dans le vague.' It is felt by us all that

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