ce, which may make them
stronger than their antagonists in that House. Otherwise they
would not be so averse to all questions of conciliation, express
their disbelief in conversions, and trumpet forth their
conviction that any individual of the late majority will vote
just the same way again. The earnest desire of the moderate party
in the Cabinet is that those who will vote for the second reading
shall make haste to declare their intention, and I have written
to Lady Harrowby to endeavour to get Lord Harrowby to take some
such step. I had already written to De Ros, urging him to speak
to Wharncliffe, and get him to take an opportunity of giving the
King to understand that the necessity for a creation of Peers is
by no means so urgent as his Ministers would have him believe.

Panshanger, January 13th, 1832 {p.231}

Returned here yesterday; found Melbourne, Lamb, the Lievens, the
Haddingtons, Luttrell, the Ashleys, John Ashley, and Irby. While
I was at Gorhambury I determined to write to Wharncliffe and urge
him to speak to the King, and accordingly I did so. I received a
letter from him saying that De Ros had already spoken to him,
that he had had a conversation with Sir Herbert Taylor, which he
had desired him to repeat to the King and to Lord Grey, that he
had intended to leave the matter there, but in consequence of my
letter he should ask for an audience. This morning I have heard
again from him. He saw the King, and was with him an hour; put
his Majesty in possession of his sentiments, and told him there
would be no necessity for creating Peers if the Government would
be conciliatory and moderate in the Committee of the House of
Commons; he promised to tell me the particulars of this interview
when we meet.

Last night Frederick Lamb told me that Lord Grey had sent word to
Melbourne of what Wharncliffe had said to Sir Herbert Taylor, and
Lord Grey assumed the tenour of Wharncliffe's language to have
been merely an advice to the King not to make Peers, whereas all
I suggested to him was to explain to the King that the creation
was not necessary for the reasons which have been assigned to his
Majesty by his Ministers, viz., the intention of all who voted
against the second reading last year to vote against it this. In
the meantime the dispute has been going on in the Cabinet, time
has been gained, and several incidents have made a sort of
cumulative impression. There is a petition to the King, got up by
Lord