e Government must go out, though not else;
but it is next to impossible they should venture on this.

March 31st, 1837 {p.393}

[Page Head: APPROPRIATION CLAUSES ABANDONED.]

So I thought upon the 18th of March, but so I do not think now. In
the first place, I hear from those who are well informed that the
Lords have made up their minds to throw out this Bill. Lord John
Russell has made up his to resign if they do, and in that case
Peel has made up his to come in. It does not appear, however, that
the great body of the Whigs are at all prepared to go out. Some
doubt the Lords rejecting the Bill, others that the Tories would
take office, or that Melbourne and his friends would so certainly
resign it. Lord Spencer wrote to John Russell, and told him that
if the Lords did throw out the Bill, he thought that (being still
supported by a majority of the Commons) he ought not to resign,
but Lord John wrote him back decisive and convincing reasons why
his retention of office under such circumstances would be
impossible. The fact is that there is a great change in the face
of affairs. The small majority on the Church rate Bill, the
unpopularity of the measure, and the discredit which attends our
foreign relations (since Evans's defeat in Spain more especially),
have had a material effect upon the moral efficacy of the
Government. It is now known that Government have abandoned the
appropriation clauses in the Tithe Bill, and this has grievously
offended many of their violent, thick and thin supporters, more
especially as it was the particular question on which they turned
Peel out; and the grand principle, therefore, on which the
Government was bound in honour and consistency to stand. The
Ministers none of them possess any public confidence in their
individual or official capacities; the King detests them, the
country does not care for them, and the House of Commons supports
them in a lukewarm spirit. If they do resign there will be no
repetition of the scenes of their former expulsion and triumphant
return to power. The same enthusiasm could not be raised, nor the
same union brought about. I hear men in office talk of Peel going
on without a dissolution, and the most interested adherents of
Government (Tavistock for example) of a fair trial, and of his
having a better right to it now than he had on the former
occasion. Peel's undoubted fitness for office, his vast
superiority to all the other public men of the day, will