ts opposers, if it has not produced all the benefits
expected by its supporters--as having upon the whole worked better than
could have been expected in so short a time and under such circumstances.

The disturbances he thinks confined to the counties of Tipperary, Clare,
and Roscommon; in the first produced by too high rents; in the second by
late collision and the want of proper management on the part of the
gentlemen; in the last by attempts to convert the Catholics, and the zeal
of new converts. The Catholic Union is dissolved. The great body of the
Catholics have abstained from the ostentation of triumph.

_Monday, February 1._

Bankes called this morning, but I did not see him. He saw Henry. He came to
say he was out, and S. Wortley in his place. When he understood Lord
Chandos did not take the Mint, he went to the Duke and offered to remain,
thinking his going out, with Lord Chandos's declining to come in, might,
taken together, embarrass the Government. However, the arrangement was
already made.

Read Lushington's minute on the Neilgherry hills. He wants to make an
English colony there. If he had, every man would make some excuse, desert
his duty in the hot months, and go to the Neilgherry hills.

Read the first volume of Gamba's 'Travels in South Russia.' He was Consul
of France, but writes like a Russian. He talks of restoring the commercial
communication with Asia by the Phasis, Caspian, and Oxus. All this is
absurd. Unless indeed the Russians, after occupying China, turn the Oxus
into its old course, and thus enable themselves to carry goods by water
carriage to the foot of the Himalaya, or rather within 250 miles of Cabul.

_February 5._

Received last night a note from the Duke asking me, if I could, to have a
Cabinet to-day on Batta. If I could not, to send Peel the letters of
Malcolm, &c.

I determined to have the Cabinet. Peel had not read till the day before
yesterday the Batta papers, and, although inclining to the opinion that the
present orders must be maintained, he thinks it, as it is, a serious
question for the Government to decide after the minutes of Lord William
Bentinck and the members of council, with the apprehension of a mutiny as
the possible result of our standing firm. I said if we gave way the other
armies would bring forward their demands--that it was a question, not only
between the Home Authorities and the army, but the Home Authorities and the
Local Government which had