Sefton told me that a correspondence has taken place between Lord Glenelg and Sir Herbert Taylor about that speech of the King's at the Council on Wednesday se'nnight. Glenelg felt himself called upon to enquire whether the blow was aimed at him, and it was evident from the tenor of the reply that it was. I heard from Stephen a day or two afterwards the real truth of this matter. It was Lord Glenelg that the King intended to allude to in his speech. Lord Melbourne spoke to his Majesty on the subject, remonstrated, and said it was impossible to carry on the government if he did such things. He said that he was greatly irritated, and had acted under strong feelings in consequence of what Glenelg had said to him. Melbourne rejoined, 'Your Majesty must have mistaken Lord Glenelg.' 'Not at all,' said the King, and he then went into a dispute they had had about the old constitution of Canada--I forget what, but something the King asserted which Glenelg contradicted. He repaired to the Colonial Office and told Stephen, who informed him that the King was right and he was wrong. (The King, in fact, had got it up, and had the thing at his fingers' ends.) This was awkward; however, it ended in the King's making a sort of apology and crying _peccavi_ for the violence of his language, and this will probably be somewhat of a lesson to him, though it will not diminish the bitterness of his sentiments towards his Ministers. I expressed my astonishment that any man could consent to stay in office after receiving such an insult as this was, to which Stephen replied that they were all thoroughly aware of their position relatively to the King and of his feelings towards them; but they had undertaken the task and were resolved under all circumstances to go through with it, and, whatever he might say or do, they should not suffer themselves to be influenced or shaken. This is the truth; they do not look upon themselves as _his_ Ministers, and perhaps they cannot do otherwise as things now are. It is, however, a very melancholy and mischievous state of affairs, and does more to degrade the Monarchy than anything that has ever occurred: to exhibit the King publicly to the world as a cypher, and something less than a cypher, as an unsuccessful competitor in a political squabble, is to take from the Crown all the dignity with which it is invested by that theoretical attribute of perfection that has been so conveniently ascribed to it. Both King and Ministers have been greatly to blame, the one for the egregious folly which made him rush into this sea of trouble and mortification without calculation or foresight; the other for the unrelenting severity with which they resolved to gratify their revenge and ambition, without considering that they could not punish him without degrading the throne of which he is the occupant, and that the principle involved in his impunity was of more consequence in its great and permanent results than any success of theirs.