red to
provide for Ponsonby and do anything which could relieve the King
from trouble. Ponsonby was sent to Buenos Ayres forthwith, and
the letters were bought up. From this time Canning grew in
favour, which he took every means to improve, and shortly gained
complete ascendancy over the King.

[Page Head: CANNING AND THE LIVERPOOL ADMINISTRATION.]

Arbuthnot said that Canning and Castlereagh had always gone on
well together after their reconciliation, but that Lord
Liverpool's subjection to him arose more from fear than
affection. Liverpool told Arbuthnot that he earnestly desired to
resign his office, that his health was broken, and he was only
retained by the consideration that his retirement might be the
means of breaking up a Government which he had (through the
kindness of his colleagues to him) been enabled to hold together;
that Canning worked with a twenty-horse power; that his
sensitiveness was such that he [Canning] felt every paragraph in
a newspaper that reflected on him, and that the most trifling
causes produced an irritation on his mind, which was always
vented upon him (Lord Liverpool), and that every time the door
was opened he dreaded the arrival of a packet from Canning.
Arbuthnot had been in great favour with the King, who talked to
him and consulted him, but he nearly cut him after the disunion
consequent on Canning's appointment. Knighton came to Arbuthnot
and desired him to try and prevail on the Duke to consent to
Canning's being Prime Minister, which he told him was useless,
and from that time the King was just civil to the Duke and that
was all. The Duke had always suspected that Canning wanted all
along to be Prime Minister, and that when he sent him to Russia
to congratulate Nicholas it was to get him out of the way, and he
was the more convinced because Canning proposed to him to go on
to Moscow for the coronation, which he positively refused, having
promised his friends to be back in April, which he accordingly
was. Canning never had a great opinion of Huskisson, nor really
liked him, though he thought him very useful from being
conversant with the subjects on which he was himself most
ignorant--trade and finance; but he did not contemplate his being
in the Cabinet, and had no confidence in his judgment or his
discretion; and this tallies with what Lady Canning told me,
though certainly he did not do Huskisson justice in any way,
which Arbuthnot admitted. Knighton behaved exceedingly