ng your Majesty.

The Duke of Sussex acquainted Lord Melbourne and took his opinion
before he issued his cards for the dinner. Lord Melbourne does not
think that he can have any idea of playing the part to which Lord
Erroll alluded. It is better that a dinner should be given somewhere.
He having nothing of the kind would look too much like giving up
the whole business and disbanding the party. Lord Melbourne entirely
agrees with your Majesty as to the political conduct which ought to be
pursued by the members of the Royal Family, but he remembers no time
in which they have been induced to act with so much prudence and
propriety. Your Majesty will see in Adolphus the very prominent share
which the Duke of Cumberland,[9] the General of Culloden, took in the
Party contentions of those days. He was a strong partisan and in a
great measure the founder of the Whig party. Lord Melbourne has often
heard George IV. converse upon that subject, and he used to contend
that it was quite impossible for a Prince of Wales in this country to
avoid taking an active part in politics and political contentions. The
fact is, that George III. did not discourage this in his own family
sufficiently, and the King of Hanover always said that his father had
encouraged him in the active part which he took, and which certainly
was sufficiently objectionable.

The assassination of Drummond is indeed a horrible event. Lord
Melbourne does not see as yet any clear, distinct, and certain
evidence of what were the real motives and object of the man. But we
shall hear upon his trial what it is that he urges. Your Majesty will,
of course, recollect that the Jury acquitted Oxford, and there then
was nothing to do but to acquiesce in the verdict. If the Jury should
take a similar view of this man's crime, it will be impossible for
the Government to do anything to remedy the evil which Lord Melbourne
thinks will be caused by such a decision. Lord Melbourne knew Mr
Drummond pretty well. He used formerly to be much in Hertfordshire,
both at Hatfield and at Gorhambury, and Lord Melbourne has often met
him at both places, and thought him with all the rest of the world, a
very quiet, gentlemanly, and agreeable man. Lord Melbourne very well
remembers the murder of Mr Perceval and Bellingham's trial. Lord
Melbourne was then in the House of Commons, but was not present at the
time the crime was perpetrated. There were differences of opinion as
to the manner in which