I don't know what to make of the Duke and his conduct. The Catholic question and the Corn Laws and Canning rise up before me, and make me doubt whether he is so pure in his views and so free from vindictive feelings as I thought and hoped he was. When Lords Grey and Brougham went down to the King after the defeat, they did not talk of Peers, and only proposed the short answer to the Lords, to which he consented at once. His Majesty was very indignant with the Duke, and said it was the second time he had got him into a scrape, he had made a fool of him last year, and now wanted to do the same thing again. Some pretend that all this indignation is simulated; the man is, I believe, more foolish than false. June 19th, 1833 {p.380} The King dined with the Duke at his Waterloo dinner yesterday, which does not look as if he had been so very angry with him as the Government people say. The Duke had his windows mended for the occasion, whether in honour of his Majesty or in consequence of H.B.'s caricature I don't know. I had a long conversation with Sir Willoughby Cotton on Sunday about Jamaica affairs. He is Commander-in-Chief, just come home, and just going out again. He told me what he had said to Stanley, which was to this effect: that the compensation would be esteemed munificent, greater by far than they had expected; that they had looked for a loan of fifteen millions at two per cent interest, but that the plan would be impracticable, and that sugar could not be cultivated after slavery ceased; that the slave would never understand the system of modified servitude by which he was to be nominally free and actually kept to labour, and that he would rebel against the magistrate who tried to force him to work more fiercely than against his master; that the magistrate would never be able to persuade the slaves in their new character of apprentices to work as heretofore, and the military who would be called in to assist them could do nothing. He asked Stanley if he intended, when the military were called in, that they should fire on or bayonet the refractory apprentices. He said no, they were to exhort them. He gave him to understand that in his opinion they could do nothing, and that the more the soldiers exhorted the more the slaves would not work. With regard to my own particular case he was rather encouraging than not, thought they would not molest me any more,[10] that the Assembly might try and get me out, but that the Council considered it matter of loyalty to the King not to force out the Clerk of his Privy Council, but that if anything more was said about it, and I went out to Jamaica, I might be sure of getting leave again in a month or six weeks. [20] [This refers to Mr. Greville's holding the office of Secretary of the Island of Jamaica with permanent leave of absence. The work of the office was done by a deputy, who was paid by a share of the emoluments which were in the shape of fees.]