Lady Cowper has since told me that Madame de Lieven has been to blame in all this business, that Palmerston was provoked with her interference, that her temper had got the better of her, and she had thought to carry it with a high hand, having been used to have her own way, and that he had thought both _she_ and her _Court_ wanted to be taken down a peg; that she had told Nesselrode she could prevent this appointment, and, what had done more harm than anything, she had appealed to Grey against Palmerston, and employed Durham to make a great clamour about it. All this made Palmerston angry, and determined him to punish her, who he thought had meddled more than she ought, and had made the matter personally embarrassing and disagreeable to him. [Page Head: LORD GREY'S COERCION BILL.] Last night Lord Grey introduced his coercive measures in an excellent speech, though there are some people who doubt his being able to carry them through the House of Commons. If he can't, he goes of course; and what next? The measures are sufficiently strong, it must be owned--a _consomme_ of insurrection-gagging Acts, suspension of Habeas Corpus, martial law, and one or two other little hards and sharps.[1] [1] [In the debate on the Address O'Connell had denounced the coercive measures announced in the Speech from the Throne as 'brutal, bloody, and unconstitutional.' But the state of Ireland was so dreadful that it demanded and justified the severest remedies. Lord Grey stated in the House of Lords that between January 1st and December 31st 9,000 crimes had been committed--homicides 242, robberies 1,179, burglaries 401, burnings 568, and so on. The Bill gave the Lord-Lieutenant power to proclaim disturbed districts, to substitute courts-martial for the ordinary courts of justice, to prohibit meetings, and to punish the distributors of seditious papers. Such were the powers which Lord Wellesley described as more formidable to himself than to the people of Ireland, for the greater part of them were never exercised. The Act produced the desired effect. In a year Ireland was pacified; and the abandonment of several of the most important clauses in the Act (contrary to Lord Grey's wishes) was the cause which led to the dissolution of the Ministry in the month of June 1834.] London, February 22nd, 1833 {p.359}