cs in the event of
their making any to the King, the first sentence I imagined was this: 'The
Roman Catholics of England approach your Majesty for the last time as a
body distinct from the rest of your Majesty's subjects.'

_April 25._

I had a good deal of conversation as to the next Director. There are three
city men candidates, but none are good--Lyall, Ellice, and Douglas.

Of Ellice no one knows anything. He is brother to the Ellice who married
Lord Grey's sister. Lyall is, or was, Chairman of the Committee of
Shipowners. Douglas is brother to Lord Queensbury. They say his is not a
very good house.

_April 28._

Read the correspondence between the Duke and Lord Anglesey. Then read a
memorandum of the Duke's in reply to one of Hardinge's on the subject of
the discipline of the British army. Hardinge wished to introduce the
Prussian [Footnote: Which did not include capital punishment. See
_Wellington Correspondence_, vol. v. p. 932.] discipline into ours. The
Duke shows that with our discipline we have more men fit for duty in
proportion to our numbers than the Prussians in the proportion of two to
one. That in Prussia the army is everything. There is no other profession.
All are soldiers--the officer lives much with his men--they are always in
masses, always in fertile countries.

In our service the worst men in the community enter the army. The officers
are gentlemen. They cannot mix with the men. Without discipline our army
would be inferior to others. It is not even now the favourite profession.
There is much jealousy of it. It is not popular with the common people. It
is difficult to find recruits even in times of distress.

I was in an army, the Duke concludes, which cannot be governed on the
Prussian principle. You cannot treat the English soldier as a man of
honour.

The Duke had been with the King, who was in very good humour. He had not,
however, got to close quarters with him as to the changes.

_April 29._

Cabinet at 12. A letter has been received from Lord Heytesbury, from which
it is clear that Russia will very soon resume altogether the exercise of
her belligerent rights in the Mediterranean.

Nesselrode communicated to him the blockade of Candia. Lord Heytesbury only
observed that 'it was a resumption of belligerent rights.' This Count
Nesselrode did not deny, and he said they could not long remain in the
false position in which they now were in the Mediterranean.

Count Heyden a