The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852Greville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901
At Newmarket all this past week. Nothing of consequence occurred
here except the debate in the House of Lords upon Brougham's
motion for the production of naval instructions about Sardinian
ships, which was only lost by the numbers being equal. The Duke
of Wellington, according to his custom, refused to be factious,
and when Melbourne said that it would be highly inconvenient to
produce any instructions, he declared against the motion and left
the House. Brougham was furious, and many of the high Tories
greatly provoked. Brougham said, 'Westminster Abbey is yawning
for him.' Ellenborough, Mansfield, and Harewood stayed and voted,
Aberdeen went away. After all their fury, however, the Tories are
beginning (as I was told last night) to come to their senses. The
Duke was quite in the right; there is no doubt that some very
unwise and improper instructions have issued from the Admiralty,
and their purport has got abroad by the indiscretion of somebody,
but we only know, or rather suspect from public rumour, that such
is the case; they have never been acted upon if they do exist; no
overt act has been done, and the production of this document
might be attended with very seriously inconvenient consequences.
Brougham cares for nothing but the pleasure of worrying and
embarrassing the Ministers, whom he detests with an intense
hatred; and the Tories, who are bitter and spiteful, and hate
them merely as Ministers and as occupants of the places they
covet, and not as men, are provoked to death at being baulked in
the occasion that seemed to present itself of putting them into a
difficulty. The Duke, whose thoughts are steadily directed to the
public good, and to that alone, will lend himself to no such
vexatious purposes; he looks at the position of the Government in
relation with foreign powers, and deals with it as a national and
not as a party question. It is in this spirit that he constantly
and inflexibly acts, though not failing to give Ministers a
pretty sharp lecture every now and then. His forbearance has
annoyed his own supporters to such a degree that they keep up a
continual under-growl, and are always lamenting the decay of his
faculties, and if they dared and knew how, they would gladly
substitute some other leader for him. The 'ardor prava jubentium'
has, however, no effect whatever on him: it neither ruffles his
serenity nor shakes his purpose. The Whigs laud him to the skies,
which provokes the Tories all the more, nor does their praise
spring in all probability from a purer or more unselfish source
than the complaints of their adversaries, for they are more
rejoiced at finding so often this plank of safety than struck
with admiration at his magnanimity. Wise, moderate, and impartial
men of all parties view the Duke's conduct in its true light, and
render him that justice the full measure of which it is reserved
for history and posterity to pay. No greater contrast can be
displayed than between the minds of the Duke of Wellington and
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