his friends, what steps the
Government were enabled to take with a view of forming a connexion
with them.

The great and material point to which the Government looked was
strength in the House of Commons, and therefore whatever changes
would take place in the Cabinet were to be grounded on this
consideration alone. The vacancies that would take place in the
Cabinet arose from the retirement of Lord Sidmouth, and by the
opening of the Presidentship of the Board of Control. It was
intended, in the event of Lord Hastings' return from India, that
Mr. Canning should succeed him, but not belong to the Cabinet
previous thereto. That Mr. Peel should hold a very prominent
situation (which I took for granted meant Lord Sidmouth's office),
and that the Board of Control or the Secretaryship of War, with a
seat in the Cabinet, could be offered to Mr. Charles Wynn; that
knowing Lord Buckingham's and Lord Grenville's anxious wishes for
Mr. Henry Wynn, the appointment to Switzerland was now open to him,
and a seat at one of the principal Boards for any friend whom Lord
Buckingham might recommend. That it was right to advert to the
situation of Ireland, and I must be aware of the confidential
communication he had had with Mr. Plunket when he was last in
England; that since that time the King had satisfied himself that
measures might be pursued which would keep the Catholic question in
a state in which neither of the contending parties would
preponderate, and that in this spirit of conciliation he had
communicated lately with Mr. Plunket, and had reason to think he
was satisfied with the views of Government on this subject, and
would be disposed to accede to an arrangement which was now in
progress for making him Attorney-General of Ireland, retaining his
seat in Parliament, and taking an active part in the House of
Commons. That in his communications with the King, knowing what had
been the object of the late Marquis of Buckingham and of the
present, and also the conditional engagement which had been made by
the late King of a Dukedom in case any Duke were created, the King
had authorized him to tell Lord Buckingham, that although he had
not meant to grant that dignity, and did not now mean to create
any other person, he was willing to grant the dignity to Lord
Buckingham on the present occ