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LETTER FROM EARL GREY.

The following letter has been addressed to the Editor of this Review by Lord Grey:

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13, Carlton House Terrace, May 25th, 1871. 'In the article in the last number of the "Edinburgh Review" on "Lord Broughton's Recollections of a Long Life," I find some statements which I consider so inaccurate, and so injurious to my father and to myself, that I feel it necessary to contradict them, and to ask you to insert my contradiction in the next number of the Review. The most material of the statements to which I refer are to be found in p. 306, and the three following pages of the Review,-in which my father is represented as having been inclined in February 1832 to retract the resolution which had previously been adopted, to carry the Reform Bill by the creation of peers, and Lord Broughton's account of a conversation he had with me is quoted in support of this statement. No one who was acquainted with Lord Broughton can have the slightest doubt of his having intended to give a perfectly true description of all that passed in that very remarkable crisis, but in a time of such extreme excitement, when events followed each other so quickly, and men's opinions varied from day to day, it was exceedingly difficult, even for those who were in the Cabinet, to arrive at a full and accurate knowledge of all that was going on. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that Lord Broughton, who was not then a member of the Cabinet, should have failed to obtain such information, and I can most confidently affirm, from my own knowledge and recollection, that the account of these transactions contained in the Review is very far from correct. My father never for a moment hesitated in his conviction that it was his duty to resort to a creation of peers, to whatever extent might be necessary, to carry the second Reform Bill, nor did he ever falter in his determination to fulfil this duty. But he believed it to be of the very highest importance for the future welfare of the nation, that the necessity for having recourse to this measure should be averted; and he was not less convinced that even if it were certain that it could not in the end be avoided, it ought to be deferred as long as possible, because to resort to it prematurely would defeat its object, and the ultimate success of the Bill was most likely to be secured by keeping this last resource in reserve, till it should become indispensable to use it.

'My father's correspondence with the King which I have published contains ample evidence that this is the correct account of the view he took of the subject, and that he steadily acted upon it. On reference to this correspondence (vol. ii. p. 96), it will be found that so early as the 13th of January, 1832, a minute was agreed to by the Cabinet in which the unanimous opinion of its members was expressed, that it was necessary for them to have the power of making an addition to the peerage for the purpose of carrying the Reform Bill, and that the expediency of making such an addition depended upon His Majesty's

being prepared to allow them "the power of carrying it to the full extent which might be necessary to secure the success of the Bill." The correspondence that followed between my father and the King shows that the power asked for was given to the full extent, that my father firmly refused to be limited to any number, however large, of peers to be brought into the House of Lords, and that he adhered without variation to his original determination, to recommend as large an addition to the House as might be necessary for the success of the Bill, whenever that necessity arose, but not sooner. His correspondence with his colleagues is all to the same effect, and shows that he had no little difficulty in keeping them together in adherence to the line of policy he had laid down, which some of them were anxious to depart from on one side, and some on the other.

But it is not difficult to understand how Lord Broughton was led to believe that my father's resolution was giving way. At the time he is speaking of (February 1832) there was an almost unanimous opinion among my father's most trusted friends, that he was deferring the creation of peers too long, and the pressure that was brought upon him to have recourse to that measure without delay was so strong that few men would have been able to resist it. I have recorded this, with my father's own explanation of his conduct, in a note on his letter to Sir Herbert Taylor of the 10th of February, 1832 (Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 195), of which I will here insert the conclusion:-"This general concurrence of opinion had produced so much effect upon my own mind that I took the opportunity one evening when we were alone in the dining-room after the ladies had left it, to express to him the great fear I entertained lest he might be making a mistake in deferring a measure so generally regarded by his friends and supporters as being urgently necessary. He answered that he had considered the question most deeply; that he was quite aware of its extreme importance both to the nation and to himself; that as to himself the loss of the Reform Bill a second time in the House of Lords would be fatal to his character as a public man, and make his whole long political life a failure; but he must play the game his own way; that he was convinced a premature creation of peers instead of securing the passing of the Bill would diminish the chances of its success; and that he would not suffer himself to be driven into acting until in his own judgment the proper time for doing so was come. I answered that I was quite content with the assurance that he had considered the matter thus carefully; that I was sure his judgment upon the question was more to be relied upon than that of any of his advisers, and that I hoped he would continue to act upon it." With reference to the subject of this letter I will now add (what I did not think it necessary to mention when the above note was written) that in the conversation referred to, my father explained to me the grounds of his opinion that for the final success of the Bill it was necessary to defer the creation of Peers as long as possible. To the best of my recollection what he said was to the following effect:-He considered that the motive which was likely to induce Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, and those who agreed with them, to vote in favour of the second reading of the Bill

was their desire to prevent what they considered the great evil of creating peers to carry it, but as soon as that step had been taken, this motive would cease to operate, and they would naturally vote, in accordance with their opinion, against the Bill, and might be followed by no small number of peers who, though supporters of the Government, were known to be averse to any large addition to the House of Lords. Hence the probability of carrying the second reading of the Bill would be diminished instead of being increased by at once making peers, unless the number made were very large indeed. He added that there was another consideration which was not to be lost sight of. After a very large creation of peers to carry the second reading, it would scarcely be possible again to resort to a similar measure if difficulties should arise in the subsequent progress of the Bill, and considering how notoriously some of its important provisions were disliked by many of those who supported it as a whole, there would be great danger that in the Committee the Government might experience defeats, which would prevent the measure from passing in a shape that would give satisfaction to the country. On the other hand, if the Government succeeded in carrying the second reading without having created peers, keeping their power to do this in reserve, there was a strong probability that the fear of its being used might have so much effect in the House, as to prevent their incurring a defeat on any vital point, while even if they should do so, such a defeat would not be fatal, since an adverse vote in the Committee might be rescinded in the next stage of the Bill, and the Government would retain in their hands the means of securing this.

'A letter addressed by my father to Lord Althorp on the 11th of March, 1832, which will be found in his correspondence with the King (vol. ii. p. 262), states nearly on the same grounds his firm determination not to advise a large creation of peers before the second reading of the Bill, notwithstanding his having been very strongly urged to do so by Lord Althorp himself, Lord Holland, and Lord Brougham, whose judgment had probably more weight with him at that time than that of any other three persons that could be named.

'Such was the view of the subject taken by my father, and the result clearly proved that he was right, nor can I doubt, from having very carefully watched the progress of the Bill, that it would have been shipwrecked, and irreparable mischief produced by a premature creation of peers. But it was very natural that those who were not aware of the grounds on which my father acted, and only knew that he firmly refused to take the course which the great majority of his best friends, and some of his colleagues, believed to be necessary for the success of his great measure, should have attributed his refusal, like Lord Broughton, to weakness and infirmity of purpose. And this mistake, with regard to the motives of my father's conduct, may also explain what clearly must have been another mistake of Lord Broughton's as to his conversation with myself. I do not remember to have had such a conversation with him at all. I have, however, no doubt that it must have taken place as Lord Broughton says so, but it is quite certain that he must have much misunderstood what I

said. It is totally impossible from what I distinctly remember of my opinions and feelings at the time that I could have meant to say what Lord Broughton attributes to me. I could not have said that my father "was not aware of the consequences of rejecting the Bill, or of the paramount importance of the measure itself," because this would have been directly the reverse of what I well know to be the truth; but before I had had with him the full conversation to which I have just referred, I certainly shared in the general opinion of his friends, that he was not sufficiently alive to the greatness of the danger that the Bill would be lost in the second reading unless peers were previously created, and I believed that he was making a mistake which would have very fatal consequences. I dare say that in this belief I may have urged Lord Broughton, as a person whose judgment would have weight with my father, to press upon him the opinion held by both of us, that the creation of peers ought not to be deferred. And I can easily conceive that what I may have said with this view, being referred by Lord Broughton to what he had heard from other quarters, might have been misunderstood by him in the manner he has stated.

"There is another matter adverted to in the article which I must also notice. I refer to the account of the circumstances that led to my father's retirement from office in 1834, which is to be found in pages 312-314 of the Review. The Reviewer, partly on the authority of Lord Broughton's recollections, partly on that of other information communicated to him, gives the following account of what occurred. He says, "A Bill for the renewal of the Coercion Act, in all its extent, was contemplated when Mr. Littleton stated to Lord Wellesley, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in a letter dated 19th of June, 1834, that in his opinion the Irish Government was not likely to require any other extraordinary powers than those that were directed against agrarian disturbances. This suggestion was made at the instigation of Lord Brougham, the Lord Chancellor, who wrote himself to Lord Wellesley to the same effect the same day. It was therefore proposed to omit from the Bill the clauses empowering the Lord-Lieutenant to prohibit public meetings, and the Court Martial clauses which constituted half the Act, from a belief that the introduction of those clauses would endanger the passing of the Tithe Bill, and would provoke O'Connell to resort to agitation and opposition to the Government. Lord Wellesley replied to this letter on the 21st of June:'I entirely agree with you, and have written to Lords Grey, Brougham, and Melbourne accordingly.' He did so write in a very able and important official despatch of the same date." The Review then gives a long account, which it is unnecessary for me to quote, and which I therefore omit, of the conduct, and of the communications with each other of different members of the Government, after which it proceeds to say (p. 314), "Lord Grey justified his own refusal to concede anything on the ground of a private letter from Lord Wellesley, but that letter was written some days previous to the official letter of the 21st of June." Such is the statement in the Review, but from the most authentic contemporary record it appears (see Hansard, 3rd

series, vol. xxiv. p. 1019) that the question of renewing the Coercion Act was brought under the consideration of the Government by the Lord-Lieutenant, in an official despatch addressed to the Secretary of State on the 18th of April, 1834. In this despatch (quoted by my father when introducing the Bill for the renewal of the Coercion Act on the 1st of July) Lord Wellesley transmitted to the Government the replies of the officers at the head of the Irish police, to queries he had put to them as to whether it would be right to renew the Coercion Act, and if so, whether any changes ought to be made in it. After observing that all the replies from these officers were in favour of renewing the Act, Lord Wellesley added, "that it was almost superfluous to say that he approved of the opinions stated by them, and that he anxiously desired to see the Act renewed." This despatch was included in the papers laid before Parliament by His Majesty's command, and its actual words are still stronger than its purport as given by my father in the above quotation from his speech. The same papers also include a longer despatch of Lord Wellesley's of the 15th of April, in which he said, "These disturbances have been in every instance excited and inflamed by the agitation of the combined projects for the abolition of tithes, and the destruction of the Union with Great Britain. I cannot employ words of sufficient strength to express my solicitude that His Majesty's Government should fix the deepest attention on the intimate connexion marked by the strongest characters in all these transactions between the system of agitation, and its inevitable consequence, the system of combination leading to violence and outrage. They are inseparably cause and effect, nor can I (after the most attentive consideration of the dreadful scenes passing under my view) by any effort of my understanding separate one from the other in that unbroken chain of indissoluble connexion."

'In accordance with the opinion thus expressed by the Lord-Lieutenant it was decided by the Government that the Act should be renewed with no change except the omission of the Court Martial clauses which had never been made use of, and which it had therefore been agreed to omit, while no other alteration in the measure had been suggested. Accordingly on the 19th of June (Hansard, vol. xxv. p. 119) my father gave directions to the Attorney-General to prepare the Bill in this form, in the firm belief that he was acting with the full concurrence of the whole Cabinet. Up to the 23rd of June my father said (Hansard, vol. xxiv. p. 1307, and xxv. p. 119) that he had no reason to believe that any doubt upon the subject of renewing the Coercion Act in the above shape was entertained by any member of the Cabinet; it was the opinion of himself and of all his colleagues that in consequence of the despatches received from Ireland, it was indispensable that the Act should be thus renewed. "But," he added, "on the 23rd of June I received a letter from the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland-a private and confidential letter which I never would have mentioned out of the Cabinet had I not been obliged to do so by the necessity of the circumstances in which I am placed, in which letter the Lord-Lieutenant did appear to take a new view of the subject, and which, therefore, I did think it necessary should be laid before my colleagues. This

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