The King has been very ill; lost forty ounces of blood. Vesey is better, but has no chance of going on with his office. The general opinion seems to be that Herries will succeed him. I do not believe he knows anything of the business of the Board of Trade. Charles Mills told me yesterday that a proposal was lately made by Government to the East India Company to reduce their dividends, and that at the very time this was done Rothschild, who had £40,000 East India stock, sold it all out, and all his friends who held any did the same. The matter was eventually dropped, but he says nobody doubts that N---- gave notice to Rothschild of the proposed measure. The Company are mightily satisfied with Lord William Bentinck, who has acted very handsomely by them in this business by the reduction of the pay of the troops. He has written some very trimming letters to Lord Combermere, who is coming home, and if he had not been, would probably have been recalled. The Duke, as well as the Company, is furious with Combermere for the part he has acted in the affair.
[Page Head: LEOPOLD AND THE THRONE OF GREECE]
Leopold's election to the throne of Greece seems to be settled, and while everybody has been wondering what could induce him to accept it, it turns out that he has been most anxious for it, and has moved heaven and earth to obtain it; that the greatest obstacle he has met with has been from the King, who hates him, and cannot bear that he should become a crowned head. He may think it 'better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,' but I should have thought he had a better prospect here, with £50,000 a year and as uncle to the heiress apparent, than to go to a ruined country without cities or inhabitants, and where everything is to be created, and to sit on such a wretched throne as the nominee of the Allied Powers, by whom he will be held responsible for his acts; however, 'il ne faut pas disputer des goûts.'
George Bentinck told me that Lady Canning is not satisfied with Stapleton's book, particularly with that part of it in which he attempts to answer Lord Grey's speech, which she thinks poor and spiritless; he is not disposed to be very severe on Lord Grey, being in a manner connected with him. She is persuaded that that speech contributed to kill Canning; his feelings were deeply wounded that not one of his friends said a word in reply to it, although some of them knew that the facts in Lord Grey's speech were incorrect. He vehemently desired to be raised to the peerage, that he might have an opportunity of answering it, and he had actually composed and spoken to Mrs. Canning the speech which he intended to make in the House of Lords. A great part of this she remembers. It seems, too, that to the day of his death this was the ruling desire of his mind, and he had declared that the following year, when he should have carried the Corn Bill through the House of Commons, he would go to the House of Lords and fight the battle there.