rogeneous body he is at the head of.
Tavistock came to me yesterday morning, and told me his brother
had sent for him, 'finding himself in difficulties.' He did not
particularise them, but said that naturally, in a situation of
such novelty, he found considerable difficulties to contend with.
He owned that the meeting at Lichfield House, which O'Connell had
attended by invitation, had alarmed and disgusted many of the old
Whigs, and it was settled there should be no more such meetings.
Then there has been some little correspondence between Ward and
Lord John about the Irish Church question, the former wishing to
manage the matter, which he brought forward last year, and he
wrote to John about it, who replied rather shortly, that he
himself intended to submit a motion on the subject. This is a
trifle, but trifles like these contribute to form an aggregate of
importance, and the moment there is any beginning of disunion or
weakness in such a party, a very short time will make it fall to
pieces.

[Page Head: POSITION OF LORD STANLEY.]

Lord Stanley assembled his followers again yesterday to the
number of about fifty; other adhesions, and half-adhesions,
occurred in the course of the evening, and the result is an
expectation that the boasted majority of thirty or forty will
dwindle down to four or five, or perhaps be no majority at all.
The erection of this standard will therefore, in all probability,
save the Government, and defeat the factious designs of the great
Whig and Radical coalition; but I distrust Stanley himself, and
see the great chance there is of his vanity and selfish ambition
producing other difficulties, the pressure of which, though he
may not feel it now, will some time hence become heavy to him.
His object at present is to gather to himself the largest party
he can; but though he may lead them, he can only lead them the
way they are minded to go, and the design of his friends is to
show themselves Conservatives without being Tories, to save this
Government, not from love to it, but from fear of its opponents
and of the alternative. He certainly may have the appearance of
being the arbiter of all great questions, and actually be so to a
certain degree, but as his ultimate object must be his return to
office, he can only hope to return (at least with any prospects
of success) with Peel and the Tories. It is, therefore, egregious
folly in him, by an affectation of neutrality and independence,
to shock