e
talked to me a great deal about his acceptance of the Great Seal
and of the speculation it was. He was Master of the Rolls with
L7,000 a year for life when it was offered to him; he debated
whether it was worth while to give this up to be Chancellor for
perhaps only one year, with a peerage and the pension. He talked
the matter over with his wife, and they agreed that if it only
lasted one year (which he evidently thought probable) it was
worth while, besides the contingency of a long Chancellorship. He
asked me if the Government was popular and reckoned strong. I
told him it was apparently popular and reckoned strong, because
there was no Opposition and little chance of any. I said that
however hazardous his speculation might have been, it had turned
out well, for he had a good chance of being Chancellor as long as
his predecessor had been, there being so few candidates for the
office. He said this was true, and then he talked of his Court,
and said it was impossible for one man to do the business of it.
In talking of the speculation he had made, political opinions and
political consistency seemed never to occur to him, and he
considered the whole matter in a light so business-like and
professional as to be quite amusing. He talked of the Duke, said
he was a good man to do business with, quick and intelligent, and
'how well he managed that little correspondence with Huskisson,'
which was droll enough, for Huskisson dined there and was in the
room.

[Page Head: SIR ROBERT ADAIR'S ANECDOTES.]

August 6th, 1828 {p.136}

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
Adair[7] 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 an