[19] [Lord Bexley as Mr. Vansittart had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, from 1812 to 1823.]
The Whigs are satisfied of the candour, fairness, and plain dealing of Goderich, but dissatisfied with his facility and want of firmness. The King is grasping at power and patronage, and wants to take advantage of the weakness of the Government and their apparent dependence upon him to exercise all the authority which ought to belong to the Ministers. The Whigs are not easy in their places. They feel that they are not treated with the consideration to which they are entitled. But they have got too far to recede, and they evidently are alarmed lest, if they exasperate the King, he should accept their resignation and form a Government by a junta of the old Tories with the rest of his Administration, by which their exclusion would be made certain and perpetual. I find that the Duke of Portland was likewise named by the King himself. They do not object to the Duke, on the contrary, but they object greatly to his being so appointed. All this I have from Tierney, who added, if the Duke had been proposed to the King by Lord Goderich, not a member of the Cabinet would have objected, but they don't like his being named by the King. At the end of the Council, on Friday, Lord Anglesey arrived, having travelled day and night, and brought with him the Duke of Wellington's acceptance of the command of the army. Altogether it was a day of unusual interest, and unlike the dulness of ordinary Councils.
Since the Council on the 17th the affair of Herries has still been going on. It appears that when Goderich went into the King (at the Council) to announce to him the objection that had been raised, his Majesty was very angry, angry at having been so committed and at being obliged to give up a nomination he liked. Herries naturally felt himself very ill treated and nettled by the attacks upon him in the newspapers. He has ever since insisted upon being admitted to the Cabinet as the only thing which could afford due reparation to his honour, and prove that he had not been rejected for the reasons which had been assigned. This the Ministers opposed, and it was at length determined that this matter should rest till Huskisson's return. Huskisson agreed with his colleagues about Herries, went to the King, and spoke to him openly and firmly on the subject. The King consented that another arrangement should be made; the one proposed was, that Sturges Bourne should be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Herries take the Woods and Forests without a seat in the Cabinet. Herries, who had constantly refused to accede to any arrangement by which he was to be excluded from the Cabinet, said he would consider of it; but in the meantime Sturges took fright, and refused to take the Exchequer. In vain Huskisson offered to take all the trouble on himself, and they all tried to persuade Sturges. He would not do it, and so this arrangement fell to the ground. They went again to the King yesterday to report progress and state to him what had occurred. When they came back (Goderich, Huskisson, Sturges, Herries, and the Chancellor) Goderich wrote a long letter to Lord Lansdowne, and he is to go to the King again this evening.