nt a charter it
required much consideration to decide under what restrictions and
regulations it should be conceded, and Lord Grey declared that if
he was called upon, without reference to any proceedings
elsewhere, to decide upon the arguments they had heard at the
bar, he should decide against giving the charter, but if he were
called upon to advise the Crown what under all the circumstances
it was expedient to do, his advice might be very different.
Graham said he could not divest his mind of the knowledge he
possessed of what had passed in the House of Commons, and he
thought the Government ought to advise the Crown on its own
responsibility what course it was expedient to adopt. After
wasting an hour and a half in a very fruitless and not very
interesting discussion (everybody looking bored to death except
Brougham, who was talking all the time) the Council broke up
without doing anything, and agreed to meet again on Friday next.
Old Eldon was very busy and eager about it, and had all the
papers sent to him; he could not attend, being wholly disabled by
the gout. Of course the charter (at least _a_ charter) will be
given, because the House of Commons in the plenitude of their
ignorance, but of their power, have so decided.

June 14th, 1835 {p.262}

[Page Head: THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY.]

Taken up with Epsom since I last wrote, and indisposed to
journalising, besides having nothing to say. I did not attend the
second meeting at the Privy Council on the London University
question. Lord Eldon came to it, and there was some discussion,
but without any violence; it ended by a report to the King,
requesting he would dispense with the advice of the Council; so
the matter remains with the Government. It is clear that they
would have advised against granting the charter but for the
answer which the King made to the address of the House of
Commons, which was in fact a _promise_ to grant it. This answer
was the work of Peel and Goulburn, and I can't imagine what
induced them to put such an one into his Majesty's mouth, when
they might have so properly made him say that he had referred the
matter to the Privy Council, and was waiting for their report.

The calm and repose which have succeeded to the storms of the
early part of the session are really wonderful; all parties seem
disposed to lay aside their arms for the present, one reason of
which is that parties are so evenly balanced that neither wishes
to try its stre