yndhurst as a Tory
leader--Angry Debates on Church Rates--The Government on the
brink of resignation--Sir R. Peel's prospects--The King and
Lord Aylmer--Death of Mrs. Fitzherbert--Ministerial
Compromise--Westminster Election--Majority of the Princess
Victoria--The King's illness--The King's letter to the
Princess--Preparations for the Council--Sir R. Peel on the
prospects of the New Reign--Prayers ordered for the King's
Recovery--Affairs of Lord Ponsonby--Death of King William IV.--
First Council of Queen Victoria--The Queen proclaimed--
Character of William IV.

* * * * *

1837.

January 6th, 1837 {p.376}

[Page Head: FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES.]

I met Robarts at dinner yesterday, who gave me an account of the
alarm which has recently pervaded the City about monetary
matters, from the low state of the exchanges, the efflux of gold,
and the confusion produced by the embarrassments of the Great
Northern and Central Bank. These financial details are not
peculiarly interesting in themselves, and are only worth noticing
from the light they throw upon the capacity of our rulers, and
the estimation in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is held
among the great moneyed authorities.[1] Nothing can in fact be
lower than it is. Robarts, a staunch Whig and thick and thin
supporter of Government, told me that he was quite unequal to the
situation he held; that these embarrassments had been predicted
to him, and the remedy pointed out long ago by practical men;
that the most eminent bankers in the City--Patterson the Governor
of the Bank, Grote, Glyn, himself, and others--had successively
been consulted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and they had
all expressed the same opinion and given the same advice; but
that he had met their conclusions with a long chain of reasoning
founded upon the most fallacious premises, columns of prices of
stocks and exchequer-bills in former years, and calculations and
conjectures upon these data, which the keen view and sagacious
foresight of these men (whose wits are sharpened by the magnitude
of their immediate interest in the results, and whose long habits
make them so familiar with the details) detected and exposed, not
without some feelings both of resentment and contempt for the
Minister who clung to his own theories in preference to their
practical conclusions. What they originally advised Ric