n that subject, Huskisson
and Dudley being in favour of the French expedition, and the Duke
and the rest against it, but that the moment Huskisson and his
party resigned the Duke gave way and agreed to the measure. This
affords another example of his extraordinary mode of proceeding,
that of opposing the views and plans of others violently, and
when he finds opposition fruitless, or likely to become so,
turning short round and adopting them as his own, and taking all
the credit he can get for doing so. He did so in the case of the
recognition of the South American colonies, of the Test and
Corporation Acts, the Catholic question, and in this instance.
Then his conduct on the Corn Bill is only the converse of the
same proposition--begins by being a party to it and then procures
its rejection. Greece and Portugal, if well handled, would afford
two great cases against the Duke's foreign policy, and they serve
as admirable commentaries on each other. The raising the siege of
Previsa, and the respect paid to Miguel's blockade, and
compulsion exercised on the Terceira people are enough to prove
everything.

Ashley told me a curious thing about Sir Thomas Lawrence the
other day. His father kept the inn at Devizes,[2] and when Lord
Shaftesbury's father and mother were once at the inn with Lord
Shaftesbury, then a boy, the innkeeper came into the room and
said he had a son with a genius for drawing, and, if they would
allow him, his little boy should draw their little boy's picture;
on which the little Lawrence was sent for, who produced his chalk
and paper, and made a portrait of the young Lord.

[2] [Sir Thomas Lawrence's father at one time kept the
'Black Bear' at Devizes. In 1775 Lord and Lady Kenyon
had the young prodigy (as he was called) introduced to
them there. Lawrence was then only six years old.]

[Page Head: GALLATIN]

December 21st, 1829 {p.257}

At Roehampton from Saturday; Maclane, the American Minister,
Washington Irving, Melbourne, Byng, and on Sunday the Lievens to
dinner. Maclane a sensible man, with very good American manners,
which are not refined. Even Irving, who has been so many years
here, has a bluntness which is very foreign to the tone of good
society. Maclane gave me a curious account of Gallatin. He was
born at Geneva, and went over to America early in life, possessed
of nothing; there he set up a little huxtering shop--in I forget
what State--and fell