Dined at Boodle's with the Master of the Rolls and Charles Grant, who talked about Peel and the reconstruction of the Tory party; that Peel and Wetherell do not _yet_ speak, but that the parties have joined, and at the meeting at Wetherell's Herries went to represent Peel with sixteen or eighteen of his friends. Ross, another of Peel's _ames damnees_, told me the same thing and that they would soon come together again. Grant said he knew that the Duke of Wellington had expressed his readiness to take any part in which it was thought he could render service, either a prominent or a subordinate one or none at all. If so he will be a greater man than he has ever been yet. Grant talked long and pathetically about the West Indies, and told me a curious anecdote on the authority of Scarlett, who was present. When Wilberforce went out of Parliament he went to Canning and offered him the lead and direction of his party (the Saints), urging him to accept it, and assuring him that their support would give him a strength which to an ambitious man like him was invaluable. Canning took three days to consider it, but finally declined, and then the party elected Brougham as their chief; hence the representation of Yorkshire and many other incidents in Brougham's career. [Page Head: THE FIRST SIR ROBERT PEEL.] Grant gave me a curious account of old Sir Robert Peel. He was the younger son of a merchant, his fortune (very small) left to him in the house, and he was not to take it out. He gave up the fortune and started in business without a shilling, but as the active partner in a concern with two other men--Yates (whose daughter he afterwards married) and another--who between them made up L6,000; from this beginning he left L250,000 apiece to his five younger sons, L60,000 to his three daughters each, and L22,000 a year in land and L450,000 in the funds to Peel. In his lifetime he gave Peel L12,000 a year, the others L3,000 and spent L3,000 himself. He was always giving them money, and for objects which it might have been thought he would have undervalued. He paid for Peel's house when he built it, and for the Chapeau de Paille (2,700 guineas) when he bought it. March 10th, 1831 {p.125}