_November 24th, 1841._--If I do not vary the nature and enlarge the scope of this Journal, I shall very soon be completely aground and have nothing whatever to put down, for I am placed in very different circumstances with the present and the late Government. I have no intimacy or social habits with any of these people, and the consequence is that I know little or nothing of what is going on. I have, for a long time past, accustomed myself to what is, I believe, a very foolish, unprofitable way of writing. I have almost entirely given up entering anything except such scraps of political information as I have picked up by one means or another, and consequently have grown very idle, and my entries have often had long intervals between them. Somebody remarked the other day what innumerable things were lost for want of some curious observer and chronicler, who would be at the trouble of recording and hoarding them in something less voluminous, and therefore more accessible than the columns of a newspaper. I was struck with the truth of this, and thought how many anecdotes, verses, _jeux d'esprit_, and miscellanies of various kinds I might have rescued from oblivion, but had never thought of doing so, because they had appeared in newspapers. Partly, therefore, because it may be more or less interesting and amusing, and partly because I think I shall have no political facts or circumstances to record, I have resolved to fill my pages with more general matter, although, such is the inveterate force of habit, I am anything but sure that I shall adhere to my resolution. The other night I heard how the Exchequer Bill affair was first discovered. Some merchant in the City wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and told him that there was some great negligence in the Exchequer Bill Office, for he was in possession of two bills, both of the same number. Goulburn sent for Maule, and told him to go to the Exchequer and enquire into this. He went and told his errand, on which Smith asked him to go with him into the next room. He went, when Smith said, 'The fact is, one of these bills is forged. There has been a system of forgery going on for many years, and I am guilty of being concerned in it.' Maule asked him if he had any objection to repeat this confession in the presence of his clerk, who was below, and he said, none whatever. He might easily have got away, but now they think his confession was a stroke of policy, and that he made it, believing that no law will reach him. [Sidenote: THE FORGERY OF EXCHEQUER BILLS.]