impossible
to trust him.

[Page Head: CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.]

March 4th, 1829 {p.180}

Nothing could exceed the consternation which prevailed yesterday
about this Catholic business. The advocates of the Bill and
friends of Government were in indescribable alarm, and not
without good cause. All yesterday it was thought quite uncertain
whether the Duke's resignation would not take place, and the
Chancellor himself said that nothing was more likely than that
they should all go out. On Sunday the King sent for the
Chancellor; he went, and had an audience in which the King
pretended that he had not been made aware of all the provisions
of the Bill, that the securities did not satisfy him, and that he
could not consent to it. The Chancellor could do nothing
with him; so instead of returning to town he went on to
Strathfieldsaye, where the Duke was gone to receive the Judges.
There he arrived at three in the morning, had a conference of two
hours with the Duke, and returned to town quite exhausted, to be
in the House of Lords at ten in the morning. The Duke called at
Windsor on his way to town on Monday, and had a conversation with
the King, in which he told him it was now impossible for him to
recede, and that if his Majesty made any more difficulties he
must instantly resign. The King said he thought he would not
desert him under any circumstances, and tried in vain to move
him, which not being able to do, he said that he must take a day
to consider his final determination, and would communicate it.
This he did yesterday afternoon, and he consented to let the Bill
go on. There was a Cabinet in the morning, and another in the
evening, the latter about the details of the Bill, for Francis
Leveson and Doherty were both present.

I met Lord Grey at dinner, and in the evening at Brookes' had a
great deal of conversation with Scarlett, Duncannon, and Spring
Rice. They are all much alarmed, and think the case full of
difficulties, not only from the violence and wavering of the
King, but from the great objections which so many people have to
the alteration of the elective franchise. Duncannon says nothing
shall induce him to support it, and he would rather defeat the
whole measure than consent to it; Spring Rice, on the contrary,
is ready to swallow anything to get Emancipation. The object of
the anti-Catholics is to take advantage of this disunion and of
the various circumstances which throw difficulties in the way of
Go