At Court yesterday to swear in Erskine,[5] Brougham's new Chief Judge in Bankruptcy and Privy Councillor. The Chancellor is in a great rage with me. There is an appeal to the Privy Council from a judgment of his (in which he was wrong), the first appeal of the kind for above a hundred years;[6] I told him it was ready to be heard, and begged to know if he had any wish as to who should be summoned to hear it. He said very tartly, 'Of course I shall have somebody to hear it _with me_.' I said, 'Do you mean to hear it yourself, then?' 'And pray why not? don't I hear appeals from myself every day in the House of Lords? didn't you see that I could not hear a case the other day because Lord Lyndhurst was not there? I have _a right_ to hear it. I sit there as a Privy Councillor.' 'Oh,' I said, 'you have certainly _a right_ if you choose it.' 'You may rely upon it I shall do nothing unusual in the Privy Council,' and then he flounced off in high dudgeon. I told Lord Lansdowne afterwards, who said he should not allow it to be heard by _him_, and should make a point of summoning all the great law authorities of the Privy Council. This was the case of Drax _v._ Grosvenor, which excited great interest, in which Brougham tried to play all sorts of tricks to prevent his judgment being reversed, which tricks I managed to defeat, and the judgment was reversed, as is described farther on. I never had the advantage of seeing the Chancellor before in his sulks, though he is by no means unfrequently in them, very particularly so this time last year, when he was revolving in his mind whether he should take the Great Seal, and when he thought he was ill-used, so Auckland told me. [5] [Right Hon. Thomas Erskine, a son of Lord Chancellor Erskine, Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, and afterwards a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas.] [6] [It was an Appeal in Lunacy. No other appeals save in Lunacy lie from the Court of Chancery to the King in Council, and these are very rare. Drax _v._ Grosvenor is reported in Knapp's 'Privy Council Reports.'.] The cholera is on the decline at Sunderland, but in the meantime our trade will have been put under such restrictions that the greatest embarrassments are inevitable. Intelligence is already come that the Manchester people have curtailed their orders, and many workmen will be out of work. Yesterday a deputation from Coventry came to Auckland, and desired a categorical answer as to whether Government meant to resume the prohibitory system, because if they would not the glove trade at Coventry would discharge their workmen. December 11th, 1831 {p.224} Yesterday Harrowby had an interview with Lord Grey, the result of which I do not know; walked with Stuart (de Rothesay) in the morning, who had seen the Duke of Wellington the day before. I said I was afraid he was very obstinate. He said 'No, he thought not, but that the Duke fancied Wharncliffe had gone too far.'