Sefton gave me an account of the dinner in St. George's Hall on the King's birthday, which was magnificent--excellent and well served. Bridge[3] came down with the plate, and was hid during the dinner behind the great wine-cooler, which weighs 7,000 ounces, and he told Sefton afterwards that the plate in the room was worth L200,000. There is another service of gold plate, which was not used at all. The King has made it all over to the Crown. All this plate was ordered by the late King, and never used; his delight was ordering what the public had to pay for. [3] [Of the house of Rundell and Bridge, the great silversmiths and jewellers of the day.] September 9th, 1830 {p.043} [Page Head: GLOOMY FOREBODINGS.] Came from Stoke the day after the Egham races, and went to Brocket Hall on Saturday last; returned the day before yesterday. Nothing can exceed the interest, the excitement, the consternation which prevail here. On Saturday last the funds suddenly fell near three per cent.; no cause apparent, a thousand reports, and a panic on the Stock Exchange. At last on Monday it appeared that the Emperor of Russia had, on the first intelligence of the revolution in France, prohibited the tricoloured cockade and ordered all Russian subjects to quit France. As we went down on Saturday Henry told me that there had been alarming accounts from the manufacturing districts of a disposition to rise on the part of the workmen, which had kept Lord Hill in town; and this I fancied was the cause of the fall, but it was the Russian business. They have since, however, rallied to nearly what they were before. At Brocket I had a long conversation with my brother-in-law,[4] who is never very communicative or talkative, but he takes a gloomy view of everything, not a little perhaps tinctured by the impending ruin which he foresees to his own property from the Liverpool Railroad, which is to be opened with great ceremony on the 15th; moreover he thinks the Government so weak that it cannot stand, and expects the Duke will be compelled to resign. He has already offered him his place, to dispose of in any way that may be useful to him. I said that I thought one of the Duke's greatest misfortunes was his having no wise head to consult with in all emergencies; this he said was very true, for there was nobody who would even speak to him about anything; that Peel, who was the man who might naturally be expected to put himself forward, never would; and that repeatedly he had got him (Francis) to go to or write to the Duke about some matter or other on which it was necessary to refer to him. In the business of Huskisson, Huskisson himself was most anxious to have it made up, and wished Peel to speak to the Duke; but Peel would not stir, nor would Dudley, and it ended in Francis' being charged with the negotiation, the result of which everybody knows.