t awful state of things, if anybody undertook to be
useful to him on any other footing, or even gave rise to the delay
of an hour in deciding on that alternative by countenancing hopes
of any third arrangement.

The House of Commons is totally unmanageable in any such view. The
whole weight of the Ministers there, combining their aid as they
now do, is, as you see, hardly sufficient to carry on the ordinary
public business from day to day. I very much question whether all
the weight that the Opposition could unite for the same purpose, if
the task were committed into their hands, would be much, if at all,
more adequate to it. What hopes, then, could a third party
entertain of doing this in opposition to both?

I can easily see in what course your assistance and support might
be very useful indeed to strengthen his Government, into whatever
hands he may finally determine to commit it; and in the present
state of things I should, as far as my own wishes went, be most
anxious that, in whatever hands it shall be vested, it should
possess whatever of strength and efficiency it can receive. But as
for undertaking any principal or leading part in the formation of a
new Government, to the exclusion of the most considerable persons
in this, and of the whole of the other party (who will doubtless on
this occasion act with perfect union and concurrence among
themselves), I hold the success impossible, and the undertaking
much too desperate to be reconciled to any just sense of prudence
or duty. And if the fact be so, it is most important that he should
be as speedily, and as distinctly as possible, apprized that so it
is. And you and Charles would much injure your own reputation and
weight by appearing to tamper with a case in which you cannot be of
any real use.

I do not wonder that he feels hurt at Canning's speech, such as it
is reported; but this is not the first occasion, nor will it be the
last, in which the Sovereign of this country must suppress such
feelings, and bear with the faults of those who, on the whole,
taking all things together, can serve him most usefully; and the
manner in which the Opposition have of late years, most
unfortunately for themselves and for the country, been drawn on to
mix themselves up with projects of reform, and with the countenance
and defenc