I rejoice at the prospect of your being here early this year, when we shall, I trust, spend many hours together, the more so if I become a member of Brooke’s,[J] where the “Bear”[K] took me to dinner one day, against all rules and principles, and then said I ought to become a member, and put down my name, and the good lord of this house[L] gladly seconded it, and I suppose no one will object to me as far as I can guess. As to the important part of your letter, respecting public affairs and the late hubbub, I, first of all, agree with you that, although things _have not gone quite right_, they are not so bad as some thought (they don’t think so now, and will think better of them every day, after the first week of the session). It seems to me evident, whatever may be said by those whose ambition or greediness warps the judgment, that the Whigs ought not to have taken office if they could help it. It is better that the world should see that it is they, out of office and on principle, who help a government to carry _their_ (I mean the opposition’s) measures, than that they, the Whigs, should be at the mercy of their opponents for going on at all. Peel would have brought them about 25 members, and with those, and great exertions and excitement, the Corn Laws might have been repealed; but then would they not have been in their enemies’ hands on all other questions, and on the most trifling measure unpalatable to the Tories? Would not Peel then have left them? And do you think that he would not have made his peace with the Tories, and be brought back by them and by those who would attribute, though Tories, the carrying of the good measure repealing the Corn Laws, to his support _out of office_, of his opponents? For you must not forget there are many friends of Peel who are against the Corn Laws; whereas there is not one Corn Law friend who is a friend of the Whigs, and who would, soon at all events, forgive them for repealing that Corn Law. The Whigs who join the Tories on this question would, unquestionably, have joined them in opposing Lord John’s Government, now and for some time to come; then, had you Whigs failed even in carrying the repeal of the Corn Laws, and being obliged to resign _reinfecta_, you would have been the object of universal hatred and contempt from both friends and enemies. From the former for having done too little, from the latter for having done too much, and shown you are not either powerful friends or terrible enemies.