the whole Cabinet could be assembled. He then desired that the matter should remain on this footing for the present, till he should receive the answer of the Cabinet, and should see me again on Wednesday, when His Majesty proposes being in town for the levee.1 The result then is, that there is no positive rejection, on the part of His Majesty, of the advice tendered to him by his servants, and that the matter still remains open for His Majesty's decision.2 This, I think, is the substance and the result of what passed on this interesting occasion, and the conversation was marked throughout by the graciousness and kindness of His Majesty's manner, and by repeated expressions of the confidence which he places in his present Ministers. In the course of it I stated my views of the present state of the House of Lords, which had given to a party in it, which had possessed the Government for the last seventy years, a power which enabled them to resist the united wishes of the House of Commons and the people that this made a large creation of Peers, the general objections to which were forcibly stated by His Majesty, and the strength of which I acknowledged, bear a very different character from that which would have belonged to it under different circumstances; and that this was so strongly felt as to induce many reasonable men to urge the necessity of an addition to the House of Lords, to counteract the predominance of this party, independently of the present question.3 1 Correct * Certainly. " Perfectly correctly There was also some discussion as to the probable stated." majority, and the Peers, and particularly the Bishops, who are now likely to vote for the second reading. But I have not adverted to these more particularly as not being of such immediate importance to the chief and very interesting object of this conversation. (Private.) No. 391. Sir II. Taylor to Earl Grey. Windsor Castle, April 2, 1832. My dear Lord, I have just finished reading to the King the Minute your Lordship sent me this morning of what passed in your conversation with His Majesty yesterday, and I now return it. The King listened and considered it with great attention, and has authorised me to say that it is impossible for any statement to be more accurate, or to convey more correctly what passed on both sides. I have put down in pencil on the margin the short remarks made by the King on certain passages as I read the paper. His Majesty will be obliged to your Lordship to send him a copy of this Minute whenever it can be conveniently made. I have, &c. His Majesty will see you shortly. H. TAYLOR. No. 392. Minute of Cabinet. Downing Street, April 3, 1832. At a meeting of your Majesty's servants, held this evening at the house of the First Lord of the Treasury, PRESENT: The Lord Chancellor, The Viscount Melbourne, The Viscount Goderich, The Right Hon. E. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the following Minute was unanimously agreed upon:Your Majesty's confidential servants have read with the deepest interest your Majesty's most gracious answer to the Cabinet Minute of the 27th ult., and also the Memorandum of the Conversation with which your Majesty was pleased to honour Earl Grey on Sunday last at Windsor Castle. While they dutifully repeat their sincere acknowledgments of the kindness and the confidence on this as on so many former occasions shown towards them by your Majesty, they feel it to be due to your Majesty, that they should entreat your Majesty's attention to some particulars in the present position of the Government, and the general state of public affairs, which afford matter for the most anxious reflection. It cannot be doubted that the various interests of the country have suffered, and must continue exposed to great embarrassment, while the question of Reform remains unsettled; and the general and intense anxiety with which the public await the decision of the House of Lords on the Bill now before them, affords too much reason for alarm at the consequences which might ensue from its rejection. Such a state of things, which has chiefly prevailed since the failure of the former Bill in October, 1831, your Majesty's servants cannot deny to have been productive of much public inconvenience and difficulty; but they at the same time derive very great consolation from the reflection, that the Bill, far from having produced it, has in fact had the effect of repressing a much worse and more dangerous spirit than even the opponents of the present measure have ascribed to it, while the bulk of the respectable classes have warmly favoured it. A salutary check has been given to those wild notions of Reform which had previously been so widely disseminated, and of which the Unions that sprung up in 1830 were only one consequence among many. The agitation proceeding from these causes has now happily subsided, and the people of all ranks are generally disposed to adopt and even to cherish a plan which will certainly return to Parliament persons chosen in a different manner, but equally interested in preserving those institutions, and protecting those rights of property on which the stability of the Government depends. Your Majesty's servants cannot entertain the hope that, in the event of the Bill being lost, things would remain in their present state. They fear, on the contrary, that the probable and immediate effect of so unfortunate an occurrence would be a revival of all those feelings which are now dormant, and even a call, from those who have not hitherto joined in it, for those extensive and dangerous changes which it has been the object of your Majesty's Ministers to avert. The more your Majesty's servants have reflected upon this subject, the more strongly do they become impressed with the conviction, that any modifications of the measure can only be hoped for in the Committee. Were the second reading lost, it would show the number of Peers who would agree to any compromise to be extremely small, that a majority indeed of the House were determined to resist the whole measure, and any change calculated to conciliate the opponents of the Bill would be the object of general suspicion and distrust, especially at the moment of its rejection, when your Majesty's Ministers would be exposed to the reproach of having neglected to recommend the only means by which the success of the Bill could have been insured. Your Majesty's servants, therefore, feel it to be their bounden duty to represent to your Majesty that, in order to prevent the disastrous effects of the shock on the internal peace and commercial credit of the country, which are to be apprehended from the failure of the Bill, no other course would be left, except that of taking immediate measures, which would announce, at the same time with the rejection of the Bill, the resolution to re-introduce it in the House of Lords in such a manner as to afford a satisfactory assurance of its success. |