the most serious manner, in having allowed him to retain his office and undertake that melancholy expedition, five months after he had declared him so incapable that he put his own resignation upon his dismissal, that to ally with such a man could be only lowering themselves in public esteem without gaining anything but a hollow support.  I would inform Canning myself, he added, that this was my protest, if he asked me.”

The heads of the “great Whig families,” however, were more sanguine, and hoped, or at least were occupied, to the last.  Their treatment by the Prince was characteristic; and one can fancy the magnates at Adam’s announcement in the following extract: 

“What most offended them was the manner in which the Prince announced his resolution.  They were in the very act of forming the Administration, filling offices, &c., &c., when Adam came in from the Prince.  They said they could not be disturbed; he said he must disturb them, for he had a message from the Prince:  they replied that it was for the Prince they were at work, for they were making the Government; Adam told them to spare all trouble, for no Government was to be made.  This was on Friday the 1st, in the evening; and what affronted them was, that after having had such a task committed to them, the Prince should have presumed to take a counter resolution by himself without first consulting them.”

This is a characteristic trait of the Duke of Wellington’s way of getting through, business.

“He was fond of relating, that soon after the Duke’s appointment, he was leaving his office at the usual hour, when, on coming out at the Park entrance, he perceived his new chief just in the act of getting on horseback.  He went up to the Duke, and mentioned that there were some matters connected with the department on which he would like to communicate with him when he had time.  ‘No time like the present,’ said the Duke, and, at once dismissing his horse, returned with Mr. Ward into the Ordnance Office.  There, then, he remained closeted with the Duke till past eight, listening to and answering his pertinent queries upon manifold points connected with the department.  From that moment the Duke appeared to be au fait of the business in hand, and ready to cope with the details as they from time to time presented themselves.”

The Duke seems to have been more alarmed at the state of the nation about 1819 than the nature of the case justified; deceived, probably, by the official “reports” of Messrs. Castles and Co.  The following remark, however, exhibits his penetration: