The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852Greville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901
_September 22nd._--Peel is going on skirmishing in the House of
Commons, where a Whig or a Radical every now and then fires a little
shot at the new Government. John Russell is gone into the country.
The grand topic of complaint is the refusal of Government to bring
forward any measures of relief to the suffering interests, and any
financial projects, before the usual period of meeting next year.
But the Opposition have made no case, though perhaps Peel would
have done wisely to call Parliament together again in November. The
appointments are most of them completed, except the diplomatic posts,
which are still uncertain, and the Governor-Generalship of India.
This was offered to Haddington, who refused it, and it is a curious
circumstance that a man so unimportant, so destitute not only of
shining but of plausible qualities, without interest or influence,
should by a mere combination of accidental circumstances have had at
his disposal three of the greatest and most important offices under
the Crown, having actually occupied two of them, and rejected the
greatest and most brilliant of all. He has been Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, he refuses to be Governor General of India, and he is First
Lord of the Admiralty. To the list of the discontented I find one may
be added in the person of Chief Justice Burke, who came over here to
bargain for his retirement and solicit a peerage. He has held on that
a Conservative Government might dispose of his office, and he thinks
he has a good claim to be made a peer. But he has not only not got
what he wants, but complains that Peel has been wanting in courtesy in
not having any personal communication with him. He expected Peel would
send for him, but he did not, and the Chief is gone back to Ireland
with a strong sense of neglect and ill-usage.
[Sidenote: A POLITICAL FORECAST.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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