pursue it If the Committee
is appointed, and if you do attend it, I am sure you will in that
case feel the absolute necessity of your declining any confidential
communication, either on foot or on horseback, with any person not
upon that Commission, in reference to the business of it. Even the
conversation of the table, and the ears of those who sit at it with
you, must on every account be most cautiously guarded upon this
peculiar topic. You must not start at these suggestions; you know
the affectionate motives that prompt them; and nothing but the
extreme importance of the nicest attention to them, under your
particular position, could have called for them both from Lord
G---- and me.

I would not unnecessarily prolong this letter, because you have
enough to think of; but I feel confident that the more you reflect
upon your own position, the more you must be confirmed in the
persuasion that while, on the one hand, you have thought it
necessary to withdraw from the Opposition, on the other hand, you
will most effectually be enabled to support the constitutional
principles of the Monarchy by maintaining an absolute independence,
and by taking care not to put yourself within the reach of the
imputation of favouritism, which, once established against you,
will render your means of real and effectual assistance useless, by
discrediting your station in the country, and by depriving it of
its best recommendation, its absolute independence.

It will be seen from the foregoing communication how extremely anxious
were Lord Buckingham's uncles, at this crisis, that he should act with
the utmost circumspection on every possible contingency.

THE MARQUIS WELLESLEY TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

MY DEAR LORD,

Many thanks for your note by Lord Cassilis; I do not credit any of
the rumours to which you refer. I believe that all is now quiet in
those quarters. I understand that the Secret Committee is to meet
in our House on Wednesday, and on its Report a Bill is to be
introduced; in the Commons, a delay of ten days is to be proposed,
for the purpose of waiting for our Bill. You have heard of the
proceedings in our House to-night: a petition from the Queen,
praying against a Secret Committee, and for a delay of any
proceedings, in order to enable her to collect her witnesses;
Brougham an