more successful ambassador than the foreign secretary. The answer he brought back was, that, in the view which the duke of Wellington took of the matter, Mr. Huskisson's letter was an absolute and formal resignation, and could not be looked upon in any other light whatever. Even this was not sufficient to recal the placeman to a sense of self-respect. Two ambassadors had failed: he tried the effect of a written explanation of his own, in the following terms.

"Downing Street,

"May 20, 1828, half past 6 p. m. "My dear duke,-Having understood from lord Dudley and lord Palmerston, that you had laid my letter of last night before the king under a different impression from that which it was intended to convey, I feel it due both to you and to myself to say, that my object in writing that letter was, not to express any intentions of my own, but to relieve you from any delicacy which you might feel towards me, if you should think that the interests of his majesty's service would be prejudiced by my remaining in office, after giving a vote, in respect to which, from the turn which the latter part of the debate had taken, a sense of personal honour left me no alternative." The duke's answer placed the matter on its true footing; the footing on which Mr. Huskisson's self-love must have hoped and intended that it should be placed, although the issue had so unluckily disappointed his expectations. It was in these terms:

as leaving me any, except that of submitting myself and his majesty's government to the necessity of so liciting you to remain in your office, or of incurring the loss of your valuable assistance to his majesty's service. However sensible I may be of this loss, I am convinced that, in these times, any loss is better than that of character, which is the foundation of public confidence.

In this view of the case, I have put out of it altogether every consideration of the discredit resulting from the scene of last night; of the extent of which you could not but have been sensible when you thought proper, as a remedy for it, to send me the offer of "placing your office in other hands."

Still another attempt was to be made; and Mr. Huskisson, next day, dispatched another apologetic epistle to his grace, vowing that he had never intended to resign; that, in truth, he had never expected to be taken at his word.* His grace's

* "Colonial Office, May 21, 1828. "My dear Duke,-In justice to myself, I cannot acquiesce for a moment in the construction which your letter of last night puts upon my conduct.

knowing the motives of my own actions; "You cannot refuse to me the right of and I solemnly declare that, in both my letters, I was actuated by one and the same feeling. It was simply this:That it was not for me, but for you, as head of the government, to decide how far my vote made it expedient to remove me from his majesty's service. I felt that I had no alternative, consistently with personal honour (in a difficulty not of my own seeking or creating), but to give that vote; that the question, in itself, was one of minor importance; that the disunion was more in appearance than in reality; but I also felt that, pos sibly, you might take a different view of (as I had done on a similar occasion with it, and that, in case you should, I ought, lord Liverpool), to relieve you from any

answer was in the same clear and decided style as before, that it was impossible to put any other rational meaning on the letter than that of a resignation; and that to have inter

difficulty, arising out of personal consideration towards me, in deciding upon a step to which you might find it your public duty to resort on the occasion.

"It was under this impression alone, that I wrote to you immediately upon my return from the House of Commons.

"If you had not misconceived that impression, as well as the purport of my second letter, I am persuaded that you could not suppose me guilty of the arrogance of expecting that you and his majesty's government should submit yourselves to the necessity of soliciting me to remain in my office,' or do me the injustice of believing that I could be capable of placing you in the alternative of choosing between the continuance of my services, such as they are, and the loss to your administration of one particle of character, which I agree with you, is the foundation of public confidence.

"If, understanding my communication as I intended it to be understood, you had, in any way, intimated to me, either that the occurrence, however unfortunate, was not one of sufficient moment to render it necessary for you, on public grounds, to act in the manner in which I had assumed that you possibly might think it necessary, or that you were under that necessity, in either case there would have been an end of the matter. In the first supposition, I should have felt that I had done, what in honour and fairness towards you, I was bound to do; but it never would have entered my imagination, that I had claimed or received any sacrifice whatever from you or any member of his majesty's government.

"On the other hand, nothing can be further from my intention than to express an opinion that the occasion was not one in which you might fairly consider it your duty to advise his majesty to withdraw from me the seals of office, on the ground of this vote. I do not, therefore, complain; but I cannot allow that my removal shall be placed on any other ground. I cannot allow that it was my own act, still less can I admit, that when I had no other intention than to relieve the question on which you had to decide VOL. LXX.

preted it otherwise would have exposed the government to very painful misconstructions. In the mean time, Mr. Huskisson, when he found that these repeated and humble

from any personal embarrassment, this step, on my part, should be ascribed to feelings the very reverse of those by which alone I was actuated, either towards you or his majesty's government." This Letter produced the following answer from his grace;

"London, May 21, 1828.

"My dear Mr. Huskisson,-In consequence of your last letter, I feel it to be necessary to recal to your recollection the circumstances under which I received your letter of Tuesday morning.

"It is addressed to me at two o'clock in the morning, immediately after a debate and division in the House of Commons. It informs me that you lose no time in affording me an opportunity of placing your office in other hands, as the only means in your power of preventing an injury to the king's service, which you describe. It concludes by regretting the necessity for troubling me with this communication.'

6

"Could I consider this in any other light than as a formal tender of the resignation of your office, or that I had any alternative but either to solicit you to remain in office contrary to your sense of duty, or to submit your letter to the king?

"If you had called on me the next morning after your vote, and had explained to me in conversation what had passed in the House of Commons, the character of the communication would have been quite different, and I might have felt myself at liberty to discuss the whole subject with you, and freely to give an opinion upon any point connected. But I must still think that if I had not considered a letter, couched in the terms in which that letter is couched, and received under the circumstances under which I received it, as a tender of resignation, and had not laid it before the king, I should have exposed the king's government and myself to very painful misconstructions. My answer to your letter will have informed you that it surprised me much, and that it gave me great concern. I must consider, therefore, the resignation of your office as your own act, and not as mine."

[C]

entreaties, which he miscalled explanations, had no effect on the hard-hearted duke, requested an interview with the king, in the hope, no doubt, of finding his royal master more placable: for, as he expressed it, "when it had been stated to his majesty that he had written a letter containing his complete resignation, and when he could tell his sovereign that it had been written with no such intention that it was marked private and confidential-and that the supposed resignation of his office was not accompanied by expressions of gratitude for the favours which he had received at his majesty's hands,that the letter in question did not contain a single expression of regret at withdrawing from the service of his sovereign, that, in fact, there was nothing in it of those genuine feelings which it became a minister to utter upon such an occasion, and towards such a king, -when he should have stated such circumstances, he (Mr. Huskisson) believed that he should have set the royal mind right upon the subject, and that he should have made his majesty conscious that he (Mr. Huskisson) was not forgetful of the confidence with which he had been honoured while in his majesty's service." The duke of Wellington, however, did not think proper to advise his majesty to grant an audience to Mr. Huskisson, till the correspondence between him and his grace should be at an end, by arrangements being made to fill up his office; but he allowed him to be informed through lord Dudley, that a door of escape was still open. "Hus kisson is a man of sense," said the duke," and knows well what should be done to settle the whole matter and bring it to an end;"

meaning that he should withdraw his letter, which, while it remained, was a recorded resignation. But Mr. Huskisson was either too dull to take the duke's hint, or too proud to act upon it; where pride, after so much humility, was very much out of place. On the 25th of May, the duke of Wellington informed him, that his majesty had given instructions to supply the vacancy occasioned by his resignation.*

Mr. Huskisson, in giving what

The following is the sequel of the correspondence, the earlier part of which has already been quoted. The first letter was returned by the duke of Wellington un-opened, from a feeling that, as his majesty had been advised to supply Mr. Huskisson's place, it would be improper to learn its contents without the consent of Mr. Huskisson, who had written it in ignorance of that fact. The contrast is striking between the explicit manner of the duke, and the loaded verbiage of the secretary.

The following are the Letters alluded to:

"Downing Street, 25th May, 1828. "My dear Duke,-On Tuesday last I wrote to the king to solicit an audience. His majesty has not yet been pleased to grant me this honour.

"In the expectation (not unnatural for me to entertain in the situation which I hold) of being afforded an opportunity of waiting upon his majesty, I have deferred acknowledging your letter of the 21st, which, passing by altogether all that is stated in mine of the same date you conclude in the following words:

I must, therefore, consider the resignation of your office as your own act, and not as mine.'

"I will not revert to the full explanation which I have already given you on this subject. Not denying that my first letter might be capable of the construction which you put upon it, I would ask you whether it be usual, after a construction has been from the first moment explicitly disavowed, to persist that it is the right one? It being, however, the construction to which you adhere, I fore his majesty, that you advised his must assume, as you laid the letter bemajesty upon it, and that his majesty is,

he called his explanation of these Occurrences in the House of Commons, insinuated that he

therefore, under the same misapprehen sion as yourself of what I meant: the more especially, as I have no means of knowing whether any subsequent letters have been laid before his majesty.

It was for the purpose of setting right any erroneous impression on the royal mind, that I sought to be admitted as soon as possible into his majesty's presence.

"I was then, as I am still, most anxious to assure his majesty that nothing could have been further from my intention, than that the letter in question should have been at all submitted to his majesty, to make known to his majesty the circumstances and feelings under which it had been written-to point out to him that I had taken the precaution (usual between ministers in matters of a delicate and confidential nature, when it is wished to keep the subjects as much as possible confined to the respective parties) of marking the letter 'private and confidential,' that I understood that this letter, so marked specially to guard its object, had been, without previous communication of any sort with me, in respect to the transaction referred to, but not explained in the letter itself, laid before his majesty, as conveying to the foot of the throne my positive resignation.

"I should further have had to state to his majesty the great pain and concern which I felt at finding that a paper should have been submitted to his majesty, and describing to him as conveying my resignation of the seals, in a form so unusual, and with a restriction so unbe coming towards my sovereign, as is implied in the words 'private and confidential;' that in a necessity so painful (had I felt such a necessity) as that of asking his majesty's permission to withdraw from his service, my first anxiety would have been to lay my reasons, in a respectful, but direct, communication from myself at his majesty's feet, but that, most certainly, in whatever mode conveyed, the uppermost feeling of my heart would have been to have accompanied it with those expressions of dutiful attachment and respectful gratitude which I owe his majesty for the many and uniform proofs of confidence and

had been made a peace-offering to gain the support of persons who would join the ministry

kindness with which he has been graciously pleased to honour me since I have held the seals of the colonial department.

"If I had been afforded an opportunity of thus relieving myself from the painful position in which I stand towards his majesty, I should then haveentreated of his majesty's goodness and sense of justice to permit a letter, so improper for me to have written (if it could have been in my contemplation that it would have been laid before his majesty as an act of resignation) to be withdrawn. Neither should I have concealed from his majesty my regret, considering the trouble which has unfortunately occurred, both to his majesty and his government, that I had not taken a different mode of doing what, for the reasons fully stated in my letter of the 21st, I found myself bound in honour to do, so as to have prevented, perhaps, the misconception arising out of my letter, written immediately after the debate.

"I have now stated to you frankly, and without reserve, the substance of all that I was anxious to submit to the king. I have done so in the full confidence that you will do me the favour to lay this statement before his majesty; and that I may be allowed to implore of his majesty that he will do me the justice to believe that, of all who have a right to prefer a claim to be admitted to his royal presence, I am the last who, in a matter relating to myself, would press that claim in a manner unpleasant to his majesty's wishes or inclinations.I bow to them with respectful deference, still retaining, however, a confidence founded on the rectitude of my intentions, that in being removed from his majesty's service, I may be allowed the consolation of knowing that I have not been debarred from the privilege of my office in consequence of my having incurred his majesty's personal displeasure."

"London, May 25, 1828.

"My dear Huskisson.-It is with great concern that I inform you that I have at last attended his majesty, and have received his instructions respecting an arrangement to fill your office.