For the last few days the accounts from the country have been better; there are disturbances in different parts, and alarms given, but the mischief seems to be subsiding. The burnings go on, and though they say that one or two incendiaries have been taken up, nothing has yet been discovered likely to lead to the detection of the system. I was at Court on Wednesday, when Kemp and Foley were sworn in, the first for the Ordnance, the other Gold Stick (the pensioners). He refused it for a long time, but at last submitted to what he thought _infra dig_., because it was to be sugared with the Lieutenancy of Worcestershire. There was an Admiralty report,[3] at which the Chief Justice was not present. The Chancellor and the Judge (Sir C. Robinson) were there for the first time, and not a soul knew what was the form or what ought to be done; they did, however, just as in the Recorder's reports. Brougham leans to mercy, I see. But what a curious sort of supplementary trial this is; how many accidents may determine the life or death of the culprit. In one case in this report which they were discussing (before the Council) Brougham had _forgotten_ that the man was recommended to mercy, but he told me that at the last Recorder's report there was a great difference of opinion on one (a forgery case), when Tenterden was for hanging the man and he for saving him; that he had it put to the vote, and the man was saved. Little did the criminal know when there was a change of Ministry that he owed his life to it, for if Lyndhurst had been Chancellor he would most assuredly have been hanged; not that Lyndhurst was particularly severe or cruel, but he would have concurred with the Chief Justice and have regarded the case solely in a judicial point of view, whereas the mind of the other was probably biassed by some theory about the crime of forgery or by some fancy of his strange brain. [3] [The High Court of Admiralty had still a criminal jurisdiction, and the capital cases were submitted to the King in Council for approval.]