Ellis told me yesterday morning that he had received a
letter from Brougham a day or two ago, in which he said that he
was going to Liverpool, and hoped there to sign a treaty with
Huskisson, so that it is probable they would have joined to
oppose the Government. As to the Duke of Wellington, a fatality
attends him, and it is perilous to cross his path. There were
perhaps 500,000 people present on this occasion, and probably not
a soul besides hurt. One man only is killed, and that man is his
most dangerous political opponent, the one from whom he had most
to fear. It is the more remarkable because these great people are
generally taken such care of, and put out of the chance of
accidents. Canning had scarcely reached the zenith of his power
when he was swept away, and the field was left open to the Duke,
and no sooner is he reduced to a state of danger and difficulty
than the ablest of his adversaries is removed by a chance beyond
all power of calculation.

[Page Head: CHARACTER OF HUSKISSON.]

Huskisson was about sixty years old, tall, slouching, and
ignoble-looking. In society he was extremely agreeable, without
much animation, generally cheerful, with a great deal of humour,
information, and anecdote, gentlemanlike, unassuming, slow in
speech, and with a downcast look, as if he avoided meeting
anybody's gaze. I have said what Melbourne thought of him, and
that was the opinion of his party. It is probably true that there
is no man in Parliament, or perhaps out of it, so well versed in
finance, commerce, trade, and colonial matters, and that he is
therefore a very great and irreparable loss. It is nevertheless
remarkable that it is only within the last five or six years that
he acquired the great reputation which he latterly enjoyed. I do
not think he was looked upon as more than a second-rate man till
his speeches on the silk trade and the shipping interest; but
when he became President of the Board of Trade he devoted himself
with indefatigable application to the maturing and reducing to
practice those commercial improvements with which his name is
associated, and to which he owes all his glory and most of his
unpopularity. It is equally true that all the ablest men in the
country coincide with him, and that the mass of the community are
persuaded that his plans are mischievous to the last degree. The
man whom he consulted through the whole course of his labours and
enquiries was Hume,[8] who is now in the Board