y secure. He
desired his private secretary to have everything ready to quit
the Foreign Office at a moment's notice. However, at dinner
yesterday at Peel's (a great dinner to all the Ambassadors and
twenty-six people) he said to me, 'It is very bad, but I consider
the country _on its legs again_.' 'Do you?' I said, 'I am glad
you think so.' 'Oh, yes, I think that, however this may end; I
think the country is on its legs again.'

The Whigs are resolved to push their victory with all their
energies, and they appear to have no doubt of ousting the
Government, and as they are determined to proceed by any and
every means in their career, and the others are equally resolved
to fight the battle while any means of resistance remain, the
strife must be deadly, and such as to extinguish any hope of a
coalition between moderate men of both sides for the simple
reason that moderation has ascended to Heaven, and such men will
no longer be found.

February 23rd, 1835 {p.216}

[Page Head: FIERCE OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT.]

The Opposition mean to move an amendment to the Address, which
they expect to carry by a larger majority than the last. Their
tactics are completely arranged, and their understanding with
O'Connell and all the Radicals so good that they think there is
no danger of any indiscreet ebullition in any quarter. Discarding
every prospective consideration, and prepared to encounter all
consequences, they concentrate all their energies upon the single
object of turning out the Government, in which they have no doubt
of succeeding. It is the first time (as far as I know) that any
great party ever proceeded upon, and avowed, such a principle as
that which binds these people together and puts them in action;
namely, to destroy the King's Ministry, without any reference to
the measures that Ministry may propose, and without waiting to
see how they may intend to carry on the Government. Not only do
they throw out of their consideration the conduct of the
Administration, but they are resolved to accomplish its
destruction, without being prepared to substitute any stronger
Government in its room, and with a perfect knowledge that its
dissolution must necessarily produce a state of extraordinary
embarrassment, from which they do not pretend to have the power
of extricating the country. All that they ever condescend to say,
in answer to any such remonstrances, is this: 'The King exercised
his prerogative in a most extraordi