or shall he;' and at the same
time eludes the essential question 'whether he will support in
Committee.' So much for Tory candour. As to the Duke, he is
evidently piqued and provoked to the quick; his love of power and
authority are as great as ever, and he can't endure to see anybody
withdrawn from his influence; provoked with himself and with
everybody else, his mind is clouded by passion and prejudice, and
the consequences are the ill-humour he displays and the abominable
nonsense he writes, and yet the great mass of these Tories follow
the Duke, go where he will, let the consequences be what they may,
and without requiring even a reason; _sic vult sic jubet_ is
enough for them. One thing that gives me hopes is the change in
the language of the friends of Government out of doors--Dover, for
instance, who has been one of the noisiest of the bawlers for
Peers. I walked with him from the House of Lords the night before
last, and he talked only of the break-up of the 199, and of the
activity of Harrowby and Wharncliffe and its probable effects.

February 14th, 1832 {p.254}

On Saturday evening I found Melbourne at the Home Office in his
lazy, listening, silent humour, disposed to hear everything and to
say very little; told me that Dover and Sefton were continually
_at_ the Chancellor to make Peers, and that they both, particularly
the latter, had great influence with him. Brougham led by Dover
and Sefton!! I tried to impress upon him the necessity of giving
Harrowby credit, and not exacting what was not to be had, viz.,
the _pledges_ of the anti-Reformers to vote for the second
reading. He owned that in their case he would not pledge himself
either. I put before him as strongly as I could all the various
arguments for resisting this desperate measure of making Peers (to
which he was well inclined to assent), and pressed upon him the
importance of not exasperating the Tories and the Conservative
party to the last degree, and placing such an impassable barrier
between public men on both sides as should make it impossible for
them to reunite for their common interest and security hereafter.

[Page Head: CONVERSATION WITH LORD PALMERSTON.]

In the evening I got a message from Palmerston to beg I would
call on him, which I did at the Foreign Office yesterday. He is
infinitely more alert than Melbourne, and more satisfactory to
talk to, because he enters with more warmth and more detail into
the subject. He began by r