A Council at Windsor yesterday; very few present, and no audiences but Aberdeen for three-quarters of an hour and the Duke for five minutes. I sent for Bachelor and had a long talk with him. He said the King was well, but weak, his constitution very strong, no malady about him, but irritation in the bladder which he could not get rid of. He thinks the hot rooms and want of air and exercise do him harm, and that he is getting every day more averse to exercise and more prone to retirement, which, besides that it weakens his constitution, is a proof that he is beginning to break. Bachelor thinks he is in no sort of danger; I think he will not live more than two years. He says that his attendants are quite worn out with being always about him, and living in such hot rooms (which obliges them to drink) and seldom getting air and exercise. B. is at present well, but he sits up every other night with the King and never leaves him. He is in high favour, and Sir William Knighton is now as civil and obliging to him as he used to be the reverse. The King instructs him in his duties in the kindest manner, likes to have him about him, and talks a great deal to him. But his Majesty keeps everybody at a great distance from him, and all about him are afraid of him, though he talks to his pages with more openness and familiarity than to anybody. He thinks Radford (who is dying) is not in such favour as he was, though he is always there; of O'Reilly the surgeon, who sees the King every day and carries him all the gossip he can pick up, Bachelor speaks with very little ceremony. The King told them the other day that 'O'R. was the damnedest liar in the world,' and it seems he is often in the habit of discussing people in this way to his _valets de chambre_. He reads a great deal, and every morning has his boxes brought to him and reads their contents. They are brought up by Knighton or Watson, both of whom have keys of all the boxes. He says there is not one person about him whom he likes--Mount Charles pretty well, Taylor better than anybody, Knighton constantly there and his influence unbounded; he thinks K. can do anything. [Page Head: CHARACTER OF O'CONNELL.] December 20th, 1828 {p.144}