them when they were in
difficulty, was considered to have made a sacrifice, and he
demanded as its reward that he should step into Poulett Thomson's
place, and his seat in the Cabinet. Melbourne wanted to offer the
Board of Trade to Clarendon, and wrote to him to beg he would not
go abroad without seeing him, and intimated that he had something
to propose to him. On the other hand, Howick put in a claim for
Charles Wood, and argued that as he had long taken a labouring
oar in the boat, and in this Session, when they had got into a
scrape about the Navy, Wood had successfully defended the
Government in the House of Commons in a very good speech,--this
eminent service, together with a long career of usefulness, gave
him a superior claim to promotion. The details of the contest
between these various candidates I do not know, but the result
was that Labouchere got the place, Howick and Charles Wood both
resigned, and Clarendon had a conversation with Melbourne, in
which the latter informed him, not without embarrassment, that he
had been in hopes he should have had the Board of Trade to offer
him, but that Labouchere's claim had been deemed not postponable,
and all he had to offer him was the Mint without the Cabinet.
Clarendon refused this with perfect good humour, though certainly
not much flattered at the offer, and he took the opportunity of
putting Melbourne in possession of his thoughts, both as to his
own position and intentions, and the condition and prospects of
the Government, with respect to which he did not mince matters,
or fail to paint them in their true colours. He explained his own
desire to try himself more in debate than he had been yet enabled
to do, to see what he was fit for, and in the meantime owned that
he had no particular desire to associate himself with such a
rickety concern. The conversation was frank and characteristic,
and must have been amusing. Melbourne acknowledged that he was
quite right, and that the position of his Government was such as
Clarendon described it.

[Page Head: POULETT THOMSON SENT TO CANADA.]

Nothing strikes one more forcibly in the contemplation of these
things, than the manner in which the public interests are
complimented away for the sake of individual pretensions, and
even in this there is an apparent caprice which is inexplicable.
Glenelg, an honourable and accomplished man, is thrust out under
very humiliating circumstances. Poulett Thomson, we are told,
'mus