The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IVGreville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- George IV, 1820-1830; Great Britain -- History -- William IV, 1830-1837
The King was very civil to the Duke of Dorset, and repeatedly
told him that what had passed would make no difference in their
private friendship. In the meantime the Corn Bill has been thrown
out, and I think political animosities are full as strong as
ever, though they have taken rather a sulky than a violent tone.
I had a long conversation with Duncannon yesterday, who is fully
possessed of the sentiments of all the Whigs, and by what he says
it is clear that they are extremely dissatisfied; they want
Canning to display his power by some signal act of authority, and
to show that he is really supported cordially by the King. The
opposite party are persuaded that the King is secretly inclined
to them and averse to his present Government, and this opinion
obtains more or less with the public in consequence of the
impunity with which Canning has been braved by the Chancellor in
Ireland. The appointment of Doherty as Solicitor-General has
never yet passed the Great Seal, and Lord Manners refuses to
sanction it; he has likewise refused to put Sir Patrick Bellew (a
Catholic) in the Commission of the Peace, though he is a
respectable man and he has been strongly pressed to do it even by
Protestants. This refusal so disgusted Duncannon that he was very
near withdrawing his name from the Commission, and if he had his
example would have been followed by many others, but Lord Spencer
dissuaded him from doing so. Lord Grey is in such a state of
irritation that he will hardly speak to any of his old friends,
and he declares that he will never set his foot in Brooks's
again. All this is the more extraordinary, and the vivacity of
his temper the more unaccountable, because he has constantly
declined taking an active part in politics when invited to do so
for a long time past; and whenever Duncannon has asked his advice
or consulted his opinions or wishes, he has invariably referred
him to Lord Lansdowne as the person whom his friends were to look
upon as their leader, asserting that he had withdrawn himself
from public life and would have no more concern with politics.
More than this, when first overtures were made by Canning to the
Whigs, it was the unanimous opinion of all those who have since
joined the Government that Lord Lansdowne and his friends could
not join an Administration of which Peel was to be a member (for
at that time the resignation of Peel was not contemplated as a
probable event), and this opinion was warmly combated by Lord
Grey, who contended that there was no reason why they should not
coalesce with Canning and Peel. What induced him to alter his
opinion so decidedly and to become so bitter an enemy to the
present arrangements does not appear, unless it is to be
attributed to a feeling of pique and resentment at not having
been more consulted, or that overtures were not made to himself.
The pretext he took for declaring himself was the appointment of
Copley to be Chancellor, when he said that it was impossible to
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