Had some talk with the Duke and Peel respecting the fires in Kent, and the breaking of frames. Five are in prison. The Duke thinks smugglers are at the bottom of it. There has been alarm at Carlisle. The officers in command of the castle apprehended an attempt to surprise it and seize the arms. Men had been seen measuring the wall. Sir J. Graham was alarmed about it. Orders will be given to provision for thirty days all the places where arms are kept, the town included, where there are 600,000 stand of arms. In the meantime all classes are more comfortable in this country than they ever were, and this alone keeps down insurrection. There are leaders but no troops. Hardinge reports that the spirit in Ireland is _disimproved_ since the events in Belgium. There is to be an Anti-Union Society, which, as soon as it meets, will be put down under the Act. _October 12._ At nine went to Apsley House. Met the Chairs. We went in to the Duke. Our conversation lasted two hours. As they are to send in a _procès verbal_, it is unnecessary for me to state it. The substance was that, supposing the monopoly to be taken away, they would administer the Government of India as heretofore on one of two conditions; either closing their account with the public and receiving payment in full, or an equivalent annuity for all their property in India, in which case they would require no guarantee of the present dividend; or making over all their property, and taking a perpetual guarantee of the dividend. The public to make good in either case all deficiency of Indian revenue, and in either case the Company to be the agents for the territory, providing all necessary sums here and receiving repayment at a rate of exchange to be paid from time to time fairly. The Chairs were given to understand that the public being liable to the making good of Indian deficiency, we should require a strict control over the whole expenditure _here_, as well as in India. They show, especially Campbell, a disposition to leave off trading and become gentlemen. They were told by the Duke that if they did so we must be at liberty to revise our arrangement with them. We might as well go to the Bank as to them, if we were to treat with a body not commercial. The Duke seems much pleased with his foreign prospects. M. de Choiseul was waiting to see him. I suppose on the affair of Holyrood House. It seems probable that the French will abolish the punishment of death, and so save Polignac. _October 14._ Found at the office several papers giving accounts of Radical meetings in Lancashire. All the old Radicals are reappearing on the scene. They do not as yet seem to be attended by any numerous assemblies, never above 200 or 300. A letter from a clergyman at Wrotham speaks of burnings near that place, and of the bad conduct of the people who interfere with the working of the engines, and seem to rejoice in the destruction.