Codrington was at Brookes' yesterday, telling everybody who would listen to him what had passed at an interview, that I have mentioned before, with the Duke of Wellington, and how ill the Duke had treated him. He said the Duke assured him that neither he nor any of his colleagues, nor the Government collectively, had any sort of hostility to him, but, on the contrary, regarded him as a very meritorious officer, &c. He then said, 'May I, then, ask why I was recalled?' The Duke said, 'Because you did not understand your instructions in the sense in which they were intended by us.' He replied that he had understood them in their plain obvious sense, and that everybody else who had seen them understood them in the same way--Adam, Ponsonby, Guilleminot, &c.--and then he asked the Duke to point out the passages in which they differed, to which he said, 'You must excuse me.' All this he was telling, and it may be very true, and that he is very ill-used; but if he means to bring his case before Parliament, he is unwise to chatter about it at Brookes', particularly to Lord Lynedoch, to whom he was addressing himself, who is not likely to take part with him against the Duke. March 2nd, 1829 {p.179} Saw M---- yesterday; he has been at Windsor for several days, and confirmed all that I had heard before about the King. The Duke of Cumberland has worked him into a state of frenzy, and he talks of nothing but the Catholic question in the most violent strain. M---- told me that his Majesty desired him to tell his household that he wished them to vote against the Bill, which M---- of course refused to do. I asked him if he had told the Duke of Wellington this; he said he had not, but that the day the Ministers came to Windsor for the Council (Thursday last, I think) he did speak to Peel, and told him the King's violence was quite alarming. Peel said he was afraid the King was greatly excited, or something to this effect, but seemed embarrassed and not very willing to talk about it. The result, however, was that the Duke went to him on Friday, and was with him six hours, and spoke to his Majesty so seriously and so firmly that he will now be quiet. Why the Duke does not insist upon his not seeing the Duke of Cumberland I cannot imagine. There never was such a man, or behaviour so atrocious as his--a mixture of narrow-mindedness, selfishness, truckling, blustering, and duplicity, with no object but self, his own ease, and the gratification of his own fancies and prejudices, without regard to the advice and opinion of the wisest and best informed men or to the interests and tranquillity of the country. March 3rd, 1829 {p.180}