Althorp's retirement seems certain, and if the Government goes on Stanley will be leader, but unless he puts it all on a different footing it must break up, and unless the Government people can be brought under better discipline it will fall to pieces, for nobody will support it on that motion of Wrottesley's for a call of the House. Both Stanley and Althorp deprecated it in the strongest way, in the name of their colleagues as well as their own, with whom Stanley said they had consulted, and that they felt it would materially embarrass the Government if persisted in, and after this Duncannon, Kennedy, and Charles Grey voted for the call, Ellice and Poulett Thomson stayed away. The other night (I forget on what question) Ellice voted one way and Stanley the other, and the former said to the latter as he was going out of the house, 'You will see if the boys don't go with me instead of with you.' The vote of the night before last against sinecures was carried in a thin house, only one Cabinet Minister present (Althorp), no pains taken to secure a majority, and he (Althorp) saying that it signified more to the Tories than to him, and they ought to have come down and rejected it. Peel thinks it of great importance, and very difficult to get out of. However, it will be got out of by some particular case being tried, on which Hume, or whoever brings it forward, will be beaten, and then it will sleep for a time; but there stands and will stand the resolution on the journals, and the House of Commons has admitted the principle of dealing with actual vested interests, and not confining their operation to the future. There seems every probability of Stanley's West India Bill being thrown out. The Saints, who at first had agreed to support it, object to pay the twenty millions for emancipation to take place twelve years hence, and the present condition of the question seems to be that all parties are dissatisfied with it, and there is nearly a certainty that it will be received with horror by the planters, while the slaves will no longer work when they find the fiat of their freedom (however conditional or distant the final consummation may be) has at length gone forth. July 20th, 1833 {p.013}