u Loch (one of
the wildest and loneliest spots of the Highlands) at four o'clock
yesterday afternoon. We hurried home to Allt-na-Giuthasach, and to-day
here, where it became important to settle with Lord Derby the mode of
providing for the command of the Army, and the filling up of the many
posts and places which the Duke had held.

[Footnote 40: The Duke passed away at Walmer on the 14th of
September, in his eighty-fourth year.]

I had privately prepared a list of the mode in which this should be
done, and discussed it with Victoria, and found, to both Lord Derby's
and our astonishment, that it tallied in _every_ point with the
recommendations which he had thought of making.

I explained to Lord Derby the grounds upon which I thought it better
not to assume the Command myself, and told him of the old Duke's
proposal, two years ago, to prepare the way to my assuming the Command
by the appointment of a Chief of the Staff, on Sir Willoughby Gordon's
death, and the reasons on which I then declined the offer. Lord Derby
entirely concurred in my views, and seemed relieved by my explanation;
we then agreed that for the loss of _authority_ which we had lost with
the Duke, we could only make up by increase in _efficiency_ in the
appointments to the different offices. That Lord Hardinge was the only
man fit to command the Army.

He should then receive the Command-in-Chief. The Ordnance which
he would vacate should be given to Lord Fitzroy Somerset,
hitherto Military Secretary (with the offer of a peerage).[41] The
Constableship of the Tower to Lord Combermere; the Garter to Lord
Londonderry; the Grenadier Guards and the Rifle Brigade to me; the
Fusiliers vacated by me to the Duke of Cambridge (or the Coldstream,
Lord Strafford exchanging to the Fusiliers); the 60th Rifles vacated
by me to Lord Beresford; the Rangership of the Parks in London to
George (Duke of Cambridge); the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports to Lord
Dalhousie; the Lieutenancy of Hampshire to Lord Winchester. I reserved
to me the right of considering whether I should not assume the command
of the Brigade of Guards which the Duke of York held in George IV.'s
time, to which William IV. appointed himself, and which has been
vacant ever since Victoria's accession, although inherent to the
Constitution of the Guards.

[Footnote 41: He became Lord Raglan.]

Lord Derby had thought of George for the Command-in-Chief, as an
alternative for Lord Hardinge,