June 18th, 1828
The Duke of Wellington’s speech on the Catholic question is considered by many to have been so moderate as to indicate a disposition on his part to concede emancipation, and bets have been laid that Catholics will sit in Parliament next year. Many men are resolved to see it in this light who are anxious to join his Government, and whose scruples with regard to that question are removed by such an interpretation of his speech. I do not believe he means to do anything until he is compelled to it, which if he remains in office he will be; for the success of the Catholic question depends neither on Whigs nor Tories, the former of whom have not the power and the latter not the inclination to carry it. The march of time and the state of Ireland will effect it in spite of everything, and its slow but continual advance can neither be retarded by its enemies nor accelerated by its friends. In the meantime men affect to consider his expressions as of importance enough to influence their conduct in taking or refusing office. Frankland Lewis,6 who refused the Irish Secretaryship, said that after that speech he regretted his refusal and would be glad to take it, and now he wants to join the Government again. Certainly at this moment the Tories are triumphant, and so far from the Duke’s Government having any difficulty in standing, there does not appear to be a disposition in any quarter to oppose it. Not only in Parliament there is no Opposition, but the press is veering round and treating him with great civility. The Government seem well disposed to follow up the Liberal policy, to which they have been suspected of being adverse, and have already declared that they do not intend to deviate either in their foreign or domestic policy from the principles on which the Government was understood to act previous to the separation. Arbuthnot told my father yesterday that they all regret now having resigned in 1827, and Huskisson owned to A. that he had acted with unfortunate precipitancy.
Notes
6 [Right Hon. T. Frankland Lewis, a member of the Grenville and Canning section of the Tory party; made a baronet by Sir Robert Peel; the father of the Right Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis.]