April 21.

Called on Sir H. Hardinge at Richmond.  He told me the Duke had at first great reluctance to have anything to do with the Whigs.  By his account he must have principally contributed to lead the Duke to adopt that view which he has now of admitting Rosslyn, &c.

April 22.

The Duke of Norfolk called, and, not finding me, left a note begging me to ascertain privately from the Duke of Wellington whether the King would be pleased if the English Catholics presented an address to him thanking him for the Relief Bill.

Received a letter from the Duke of Wellington expressing a decided opinion against any address from the Roman Catholics.  He says, ’Everything has been done that is possible to efface all distinctions between the King’s subjects on the score of religion, and this with a view to the general benefit, and not to that of a particular body.  I confess I shall think that this measure has failed in attaining its object if there should be any general act of a particular body.

’In respect to the King himself I am certain that the most agreeable thing to him would be that all should remain quiet.

’We must have no distinct body of Roman Catholics except in the churches and in affairs of religion.  The less we act inconsistently with the principle the better.’

I so entirely agree in opinion with the Duke of Wellington that, having for my own amusement written an address for the Roman Catholics in the event of their making any to the King, the first sentence I imagined was this:  ’The Roman Catholics of England approach your Majesty for the last time as a body distinct from the rest of your Majesty’s subjects.’

April 25.

I had a good deal of conversation as to the next Director.  There are three city men candidates, but none are good—­Lyall, Ellice, and Douglas.

Of Ellice no one knows anything.  He is brother to the Ellice who married Lord Grey’s sister.  Lyall is, or was, Chairman of the Committee of Shipowners.  Douglas is brother to Lord Queensbury.  They say his is not a very good house.

April 28.

Read the correspondence between the Duke and Lord Anglesey.  Then read a memorandum of the Duke’s in reply to one of Hardinge’s on the subject of the discipline of the British army.  Hardinge wished to introduce the Prussian [Footnote:  Which did not include capital punishment.  See Wellington Correspondence, vol. v. p. 932.] discipline into ours.  The Duke shows that with our discipline we have more men fit for duty in proportion to our numbers than the Prussians in the proportion of two to one.  That in Prussia the army is everything.  There is no other profession.  All are soldiers—­the officer lives much with his men—­they are always in masses, always in fertile countries.

In our service the worst men in the community enter the army.  The officers are gentlemen.  They cannot mix with the men.  Without discipline our army would be inferior to others.  It is not even now the favourite profession.  There is much jealousy of it.  It is not popular with the common people.  It is difficult to find recruits even in times of distress.