It is quite impossible to doubt that there is in the country a strong Conservative reaction, and it is the more valuable from not being more strongly pronounced. It is great enough to prove that our institutions are safe, but not great enough to bring the Tories back into power and to turn their heads, ready as they always are to be puffed up with every returning gale of success. The Tories have made one good exchange in the article of whippers-in, for they have got Planta and Holmes instead of Bonham and Ross. [5] [It was found that the Liberals replaced by Tories amounted to 66, and the Tories replaced by Liberals to 53. The Government therefore lost 13 seats in the boroughs.] [6] [Mr. Grote was returned by a majority of only six, but he was not turned out.] Everything that could be said in praise of the Queen, of her manners, conduct, conversation, and character, having been exhausted, we now hear no more of her. It is an interesting speculation to conjecture how soon she will begin to think and to act for herself upon higher matters, as she has at once done on all minor points connected with her domestic arrangements. It is generally believed that she is perfectly independent of any influence in these things, and while in all political concerns she has put herself implicitly in Melbourne's hands, in all others she is her own mistress. From the beginning she resolved to have nothing to do with Sir John Conroy, but to reward him liberally for his services to her mother. She began by making him a baronet, and she has given him a pension of L3,000 a year; but he has never once been invited to the Palace, or distinguished by the slightest mark of personal favour, so that nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the magnitude of the pecuniary bounty and the complete personal disregard of which he is the object. The Queen has been extremely kind and civil to the Queen Dowager, but she has taken no notice of the King's children, good, bad, or indifferent. Lord Munster asked for an audience to deliver up the keys of the Castle which he had, and was very graciously received by her, but she did not give him back the keys. Adolphus FitzClarence has lost his Lordship of the Bedchamber, but then they only retained Peers, and he keeps the command of the Royal yacht. He has had no intimation whether his pension and his Rangership of Windsor Park are to be continued to him. [In the end, however, they retained everything, and the Queen behaved with equal liberality and kindness towards them all.] July 29th, 1837 {p.015}