August 6th, 1828
About three weeks ago I went to Windsor to a Council. The King had been very ill for a day or two, but was recovered. Rob Adair7 was sworn in Privy Councillor, and he remained in the room and heard the speech, which he ought not to have done. The Duke attacked me afterwards (in joke) for letting him stay; but I told him it was no business of mine, and his neighbour ought to have told him to go. That neighbour, however, was Vesey Fitzgerald, who said it was the first time he had attended a Council, and he could not begin by turning another man out. I brought Adair back to town, and he told me a great many things about Burke, and Fox, and Fitzpatrick, and all the eminent men of that time with whom he lived when he was young. He said what I have often heard before, that Fitzpatrick was the most agreeable of them all, but Hare the most brilliant. Burke’s conversation was delightful, so luminous and instructive. He was very passionate, and Adair said that the first time he ever saw him he unluckily asked him some question about the wild parts of Ireland, when Burke broke out, ‘You are a fool and a blockhead; there are no wild parts in Ireland.’ He was extremely terrified, but afterwards Burke was very civil to him, and he knew him very well.
He told me a great deal about the quarrel between Fox and Burke. Fox never ceased to entertain a regard for Burke, and at no time would suffer him to be abused in his presence. There was an attempt made to bring about a reconciliation, and a meeting for that purpose took place of all the leading men at Burlington House. Burke was on the point of yielding when his son suddenly made his appearance unbidden, and on being told what was going on said, ‘My father shall be no party to such a compromise,’ took Burke aside and persuaded him to reject the overtures. That son Adair SIR ROBERT ADAIR’S ANECDOTES. described as the most disagreeable, violent, and wrong-headed of men, but the idol of his father, who used to say that he united all his own talents and acquirements with those of Fox and everybody else. After the death of Richard Burke, Fox and Burke met behind the throne of the House of Lords one day, when Fox went up to Burke and put out both his hands to him. Burke was almost surprised into meeting this cordiality in the same spirit, but the momentary impulse passed away, and he doggedly dropped his hands and left the House.
Adair told me that Lord Holland has written very copious memoirs of his own time, and particularly characters of all the eminent men who have died, in the delineation of which he excels. Soon after Pitt’s resignation in 1801 there was an attempt made to effect a junction between Pitt and Fox, to which they were neither of them averse. The negotiation was, however, entrusted to subordinate agents, and Adair said that he had always regretted that they had not met, for if they had he thought the matter would have been arranged. As it was the design was thwarted by the King through the intervention (I think he said) of Lord Loughborough.
There was another Council about a week ago. On these occasions the King always whispers to me something or other about his racehorses or something about myself, and I am at this moment in high favour. We had Howley and Bloomfield8 at this Council, with the latter of whom I made acquaintance, to the great amusement of the Duke. He laughed at seeing me conversing with this bishop.
I hear from Frederick Lamb that the Duke is greatly alarmed about Ireland. By-the-by he, Frederick,9 is come back from Portugal, thinking that our Government have acted very ill and very foolishly, first encouraging and then abandoning these wretched Constitutionalists to their fate, and he is no particular friend to Liberalism.
Notes
7 [Right Hon. Sir Robert Adair, the friend of Fox, formerly ambassador at Constantinople and Vienna. It was he whom Canning once called ‘Bobadare-a-dool-fowla.’]
8 [The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London.]
9 [Sir Frederick Lamb, afterwards created Lord Beauvale, and who became Lord Melbourne on the death of his brother William.]