CHESHAM PLACE, December 17, 1845

I want a security that I shall be able to carry a total repeal of the Corn Laws without delay, and that security must consist in an assurance of Sir Robert Peel’s support.  Unless I get this, I give up the task.

    Lady John to Lord John Russell

    MINTO, Sunday, December 21, 1845

It is difficult to write while our suspense lasts....  It does not seem unlikely that Lord Grey [25] will have yielded, and all be smooth, or smoother, again.  Papa tells me not to wish it even on public grounds.  On private ones I certainly do not; but I should be ashamed if at such a time my anxieties were not chiefly for you as a statesman, not as my husband, and for my country more than for myself.  If it turns out that the interests of the statesman and the country and the wife agree, why then let us be thankful; if not, why then let us be thankful still that we can make some sacrifice to duty.  You see that my “courage mounteth with occasion”; and though I have low and gloomy fits when I think of my ill-health and its probable consequences, I am sure that, on the whole, I shall not disgrace you.  Oh, what a week of toil and trouble you have had, and how gladly I would have shared them with you to more purpose than I can do at this terrible distance....  It is so pleasant to write to you.  When I have finished my letter I always grow sad, as if I was really saying good-bye to you.  How have you been sleeping? and eating? and have you walked every day? ...  Good-bye, Heaven bless you, my dearest love.  I trust that this has been a day of rest to you, and that God hears and accepts our prayers for one another.

[25] Third Earl Grey, son of the Prime Minister.

Lord John wrote daily to his wife, and the following three letters to her show what he felt during this anxious time: 

    CHESHAM PLACE, December 19, 1845

It is all at an end.  Howick [Lord Grey] would not serve with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary, and it was impossible for me to go on unless I had both.  I am very happy ... at the result.  I think that for the present it will tend much to our happiness; and power may come, some day or other, in a less odious shape.

    CHESHAM PLACE, December 20, 1845

I write to you with a great sense of relief on public affairs.  Lord Grey’s objection to sitting in a Cabinet in which Palmerston was to have the Foreign Office was invincible.  I could not make a Cabinet without Lord Grey, and I have therefore been to Windsor this morning to resign my hard task.  The Queen, as usual, was very gracious....  I have left a paper with her in which I state that we were prepared to advise free trade in corn without gradation and without delay; but that I could support Sir Robert Peel in any measure which he should think more practicable.

    CHESHAM PLACE, December 21, 1845