Soult-Guizot Cabinet was accordingly formed.]

[Pageheading: SIR ROBERT PEEL]

_Memorandum of Mr Anson's last secret interview with Sir R. Peel._
(No. 4.)

_Sunday, 23rd May 1841._

Called upon Sir Robert Peel this morning. I said I could not feel
satisfied without seeing him after the very unexpected course which
political affairs had taken. I wished to know that he felt assured,
though I trusted there could be no doubt upon his mind, that there
had been perfect honesty of purpose on my part towards him, and more
especially upon the part of those with whose knowledge I had been
acting. I assured Sir Robert that H.M. had acted in _the most perfect
fairness towards him_, and I was most anxious that there should be no
erroneous impression upon his mind as to the conduct of either H.M. or
the Prince.

I said (quoting the Prince's expression), "that the Queen has a
natural modesty upon her constitutional views, and when she receives
an advice from men like the Lord Chancellor, Lord John Russell, Mr
Baring, Mr Labouchere, and Lord Clarendon, and knows that they have
been weighing the question through so many days, she concludes that
her judgment cannot be better than theirs, and that she would do wrong
to reject their advice."

The Prince, I said, however strongly impressed for or against a
question, thinks it wrong and impolitic, considering his age and
inexperience and his novelty to the country, to press upon the Queen
views of his own in opposition to those of experienced statesmen. Sir
Robert said he could relieve my mind entirely; that he was convinced
that all that had taken place had been with the most perfect honesty;
that he had no feeling whatever of annoyance, or of having been
ill-used; that, on the contrary, he had the feeling, and should always
retain it, of the deepest gratitude to the Queen for the condescension
which Her Majesty had been pleased to show him, and that it had only
increased his devotion to Her Majesty's person. He said that much of
the reserve which he had shown in treating with me was not on _his
own_ account, but that he felt from his own experience that events
were by no means certain, and he most cautiously abstained from
permitting her Majesty in any way to commit herself, or to bind
herself by any engagement which unforeseen circumstances might render
inconvenient. Sir Robert said it was very natural to try and remove
obstacles which had before created so much conf