event,
but a Cabinet will of course be summoned early this morning, and Lord
Melbourne cannot conceal from your Majesty that in his opinion the
determination of the Cabinet must be that the relative numbers upon
this vote, joined to the consideration of no less than nine members
of those who have hitherto invariably supported the Government having
gone against it now, leave your Majesty's confidential servants no
alternative but to resign their offices into your Majesty's hands.
They cannot give up the Bill either with honour or satisfaction to
their own consciences, and in the face of such an opposition they
cannot persevere in it with any hope of success. Lord Melbourne
is certain that your Majesty will not deem him too presuming if
he expresses his fear that this decision will be both painful and
embarrassing to your Majesty, but your Majesty will meet this crisis
with that firmness which belongs to your character, and with that
rectitude and sincerity which will carry your Majesty through all
difficulties. It will also be greatly painful to Lord Melbourne to
quit the service of a Mistress who has treated him with such unvarying
kindness and unlimited confidence; but in whatever station he may be
placed, he will always feel the deepest anxiety for your Majesty's
interests and happiness, and will do the utmost in his power to
promote and secure them.

[Footnote 30: The numbers are apparently incorrectly stated.
The division was 294 to 289.]

[Pageheading: RESIGNATION IMMINENT]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

_7th May 1839._

The present circumstances have been for some time so probable, or
rather so certain, that Lord Melbourne has naturally been led to weigh
and consider maturely the advice which, if called upon, he should
tender to your Majesty when they did arrive. That advice is, at once
to send for the Duke of Wellington. Your Majesty appears to Lord
Melbourne to have no other alternative. The Radicals have neither
ability, honesty, nor numbers. They have no leaders of any character.
Lord Durham was raised, one hardly knows how, into something of a
factitious importance by his own extreme opinions, by the panegyrics
of those who thought he would serve them as an instrument, and by the
management of the Press, but any little public reputation which he
might once have acquired has been entirely dissipated and destroyed by
the continued folly of his conduct in his Canadian Governmen