h perfectly _au fait_ of the arrangement
which is desired, and the motive for proposing it. Canning is most
anxious, by any means, to procure my resignation of my present
appointment, in order that it may fall to Huskisson, who
particularly desires it. Last night I received the enclosed from
C----, together with the letter from Lord G----, which I also send
to you,[97] and this morning met L---- and C---- accordingly. The
former told us that he had, as he anticipated, received a decided
refusal from Scotland, and we then entered on the discussion of the
different candidates. C---- said that in his conversation with the
Directors, when he informed them of his resignation, he found that
their first preference would be for Lord Melville; 2ndly, very
strongly in favour of Lord W. B----;[98] 3rdly, Lord Amherst; that
if none of these were offered to them they would accept the
Speaker, but that it was clear that no other candidate would go
down without a considerable struggle. I expressed my own opinion of
the insufficiency of the Speaker for a post of so much importance,
and my fear that a man naturally indolent, would in so indolent a
climate be wholly inefficient, and rather recommended Lord W.
B----. C----, in reply, dwelt not on Sutton's fitness for India,
but his unfitness for the Chair. Perceiving his drift, I suggested
the possibility for replacing him there by William Courtenay, but
C---- immediately said, that unless it would lead to my accepting
the Chair, he did not think that there was any reason to make it
worth while to remove S----. I adverted to some of the reasons,
which we have already talked over, which indisposed me to the
change, and they then desired me to take a week to consider the
subject, and if I liked it to talk to Lord Grenville after his
return from Elton.

I hear from other quarters, that there is a strong party among the
Directors disposed to object to me if I am proposed for India. It
is, indeed, possible that if I held that out as the only condition
upon which I would give up this office, Canning might, by the
exertion of his personal influence among them, carry the question;
but I doubt much whether, even supposing I was more anxious to
obtain it than I am, it would be creditable to me or to any
President of the Board of Control, to have his nominat