m sit down and said, 'Lord Foley, you
are a young man.' 'Sir, I am afraid I cannot flatter myself that I
have any right to that appellation.' 'Oh, yes; you are a young
man--at all events in comparison with me--and you will probably
come into office again; but I am an old man, and I am afraid I
shall not have the pleasure of seeing you there.' It is supposed
that this _coup_ has been preparing for some time. All the Royal
Family, bastards and all, have been incessantly _at_ the King, and
he has probably had more difficulty in the long run in resisting
the constant importunity of his _entourage_, and of his womankind
particularly, than the dictates of his Ministers; and between this
gradual but powerful impression, and his real opinion and fears,
he was not sorry to seize the first good opportunity of shaking
off the Whigs. When Lord Anglesey went to take leave of him at
Windsor he was struck with the change in his sentiments, and told
Lady Anglesey so, who repeated it to my brother.

It is gratifying to find that those with whom I used to dispute,
and who would hear of nothing but rejecting the second reading,
now admit that my view was the correct one, and Vesey Fitzgerald,
with whom I had more than one discussion, complimented me very
handsomely upon the justification of my view of the question
which the event had afforded. The High Tories, of course, will
never admit that they could have been wrong, and have no other
resource but to insist boldly that the King never would have made
Peers at all.[5]

[5] [Everyone knows how short-lived were the expectations
caused by the temporary resignation of Lord Grey's
Government. It will be seen in the following pages how
soon the vision passed away; but the foregoing passages
are retained precisely because they contain a vivid and
faithful picture of the state of opinion at the
moment.]

London, May 17th, 1832 {p.298}

[Page Head: WELLINGTON'S EFFORTS TO FORM A MINISTRY.]

The events of the last few days have passed with a rapidity which
hardly left time to think upon them--such sudden changes and
transitions from rage to triumph on one side, and from foolish
exultation to mortification and despair on the other. The first
impression was that the Duke of Wellington would succeed in
forming a Government, with or without Peel. The first thing he
did was to try and prevail upon Peel to be Prime Minister, but