_Savernake, May 11th._--I have been out of town all the last week, at Chester, and came here on Saturday. While I was at Chester the Duke of Bedford sent me a note he had received from Lord John, which looked like the beginning of a _rapprochement_ between him and Palmerston, though it did not amount to a great deal, and may lead to nothing. I was obliged to return it, and was too much occupied to copy the contents of it here. I refer so often to this subject, because it appears to be the one upon which the existence of the present Government depends, for as soon as the Liberals can come to an understanding and act in concert, the doom of the Ministry will be sealed. Without their committing any great faults they seem to be falling into greater contempt every day.
[Sidenote: LORD CANNING'S OUDE PROCLAMATION.]
The only point of attack the Opposition have found has been the affair of Canning's recent Proclamation.[1] Canning has not been lucky in his Proclamations, the first having been severely criticised for its clemency, and the second for its severity. The complaint against the Government is for having made public their disapproval of it and their censure of his acts. I think their disapprobation quite right, and that they were right in conveying it to Canning, but they might have refused to express any opinion or to publish or half publish any of the correspondence that passed, though it cannot be doubted that such refusal would have drawn upon them all sorts of attacks and reproaches, but it would have been the proper course for them to adopt. It is, however, certainly premature to express any definite opinion upon an act of which we are not yet furnished with an explanation.
I went yesterday to see Littlecote House, Mr. Popham's, a very curious, interesting old house, and the scene of the Wild Dayrell story and murder, the tradition of which has been often narrated, but the truth never ascertained. I saw all the rooms, including the one in which the murder is supposed to have been committed, but they have been much altered. There is a fine old hall, hung round with the armour and buff coats of Colonel Popham's troopers, and it is a remarkable fact that they are all so small that no man of ordinary size could wear them, a clear proof that the present generation are much bigger than our ancestors of two centuries ago. King William III. slept at Littlecote for two or three nights in 1689 (while King James was at Salisbury), and he seems to have left behind him a good many papers, which have ever since been preserved in the house. There is also a large collection of miscellaneous letters of the time of the Civil War, more or less curious, which were preserved by a lucky accident. Popham told me that his father told him there was a mass of papers in an old box under the roof of the house which had better be destroyed. His son went up for the purpose, and discovered the contents of the box, saved the papers, and had them arranged in a book. I urged him to publish them, and I hope he will. I had only time to look over a few of them; as autographs alone they are valuable.[2]