What everybody enquires is what line Peel will take, and though each party is confident of success in this question, it is thought to depend mainly upon the course he adopts and the sentiments he expresses. Hitherto he has cautiously abstained from committing himself in any way, and he is free to act as he thinks best, but he certainly occupies a grand position when he has _omnium oculos in se conversos_, and the whole House of Commons looking with unalterable anxiety to his opinions and conduct. Such has the course of events and circumstances made this man, who is probably yet destined to play a great part, and it may be a very useful one. God knows how this plan may be received in the country, and what may be its fate in Parliament. The Duke of Wellington, however, is right enough when he says that the great present danger is lest people should be too much afraid, for anything like the panic that prevails I never saw, the apprehension that enough will not be done to satiate the demon of popular opinion, and the disposition to submit implicitly to the universal bellow that pervades this country for what they call Reform without knowing what it is. As to this measure, the greatest evil of it is that it is a pure speculation, and may be productive of the best consequences, or the worst, or even of none at all, for all that its authors and abettors can explain to us or to themselves. O'Connell made his explanation the other night, which was wretched, and Stanley's was very good, but it matters not; he will tell the people in Ireland that he had a victory, and they will believe him. Nevertheless his defeat in Kilkenny is an excellent thing, and will contribute greatly to destroy the prestige of his power. March 3rd, 1831 {p.123} Last night the debate went on, nobody remarkably speaking but Macaulay and Wetherell; the former very brilliant, the latter long, rambling, and amusing, and he sat down with such loud and long cheering as everybody agreed they had never heard before in the House of Commons, and which was taken not so much as a test of the merits of the speech as of an indication of the disposition of the majority of the House. Wetherell was very good fun in a conversation he imagined at Cockermouth between Sir James Graham and one of his constituents. It is thought very strange that none of the Ministers have spoken, except Althorp the first night. The general opinion is that the Bill will be lost in the House of Commons, and that then Parliament will be dissolved, unless the King should take fright and prefer to change his Ministers. March 5th, 1831 {p.123}