Lord Wharncliffe, to his great joy, was sent for by Peel yesterday, and very civilly invited to join the new Cabinet. He thought it necessary to enquire if he meant to be liberal, and on receiving an assurance to that effect he at once consented. Graham was with Peel, having come up to town on getting his letter, but he declined joining. Wharncliffe told me that the correspondence between Peel and Stanley was extremely civil. The Cabinet is now pretty nearly completed; they all dined together at Peel's yesterday. I asked Wharncliffe how Sir Edward Knatchbull was to be converted into a Liberal, and he said, 'Oh, there will be no difficulty; he is very reasonable.' It would be (to me) a bitter pill to swallow to take Knatchbull; he is the man who led that section of High Tories which threw out the Duke's Government in 1830. The Whigs are sorry that Graham does not join, for they hate him and want to be rid of him. They are also discomposed at a letter of Stanley's in reply to an address to the King from Glasgow that has been forwarded to him to present, in which his sentiments appear to be alarmingly Conservative. Stanley and Graham will support the Government, and it now appears that the Duke of Wellington is the real obstacle to their joining. To Peel Stanley has no objection; he has spoken of him in the highest terms; but after the speech which the Duke made when Lord Grey went out, in which he attacked him and his Government with a virulence which gave great disgust at the time, Stanley feels that he could not with any regard to his own honour, and compatibly with his respect and attachment for Lord Grey, form a part of this Government. So there is another evil resulting from one of those imprudences which the Duke blurts out without reflection, thinking only of the present time and acting upon his impulse at the moment. Spring Rice, whom I met yesterday, said that their great object (in which they hoped to succeed) was to keep the whole of their party together--their party in the House of Commons, of course. Whether he included Stanley in this or not I don't know, but if he did he reckons probably without his host. December 15th, 1834 {p.176} [Page Head: DUKE OF RICHMOND AND SIR E. KNATCHBULL.]