ter and cheaper than
the last, which occupied the whole day and cost L240,000.

July 8th, 1831 {p.156}

The second reading of the Reform Bill was carried at five in the
morning by 136 majority, somewhat greater than the Opposition had
reckoned on. Peel made a powerful speech, but not so good as
either of his others on Reform. Goulburn told me that the speech
in answer to the Lord Advocate on the Irish Bill, when not 100
people were in the House, was his best. The coronation fixed for
the 23rd. Breakfasted with Rogers; went afterwards to the Duchess
of Bedford's, where I met Lady Lyndhurst. I desired her to tell
Lyndhurst all the Duke had said to me about him, for in these
times it is as well they should draw together. He will be a match
for Brougham in the House of Lords, for he can be concise, which
the other cannot, and the Lords in the long run will prefer
brevity to art, sarcasm, and anything else.

[Page Head: CONTEST IN POLAND.]

People are beginning to recover from their terror of the cholera,
seeing that it does not come, and we are now beset with alarms of
a different kind, which are those of the Scotch merchants for
their cargoes. We have a most disagreeable business on our hands,
very troublesome, odious, and expensive. The public requires that
we should take care of its health, the mercantile world that we
should not injure their trade. All evidence proves that goods are
not capable of bringing in the disorder, but we have appointed a
Board of Health, which is contagionist, and we can't get them to
subscribe to that opinion. We dare not act without its sanction,
and so we are obliged to air goods. This airing requires more
ships and lazarets than we have, and the result is a perpetual
squabbling, disputing, and complaining between the Privy Council,
the Admiralty, the Board of Health, and the merchants. We have
gone on pretty well hitherto, but more ships arrive every day;
the complaints will grow louder, and the disease rather spreads
than diminishes on the Continent. This cholera has afforded
strong proofs of the partiality of the Prussians in the contest
between the Russians and the Poles. The quarantine restrictions
are always dispensed with for officers passing through the
Prussian territory to join the Russian army. Count Paskiewitch
was allowed to pass without performing any quarantine at all, and
stores and provisions are suffered to be conveyed to the army,
with every facility afforded by t