gion is greatly
diminished by the influence of sea air, for which reason I doubt
that it will be brought here across the water. If it does come it
will pass through France first. The King of Prussia has at last
insisted upon a rigid execution of the quarantine laws in his
dominions. Marshal Paskiewitch was detained on his road to take
the command of the army, and sent a courier to the King to
request he might be released forthwith, urging the importance of
the Emperor to have his report of the state of the army; but the
King refused, and sent word that the Emperor himself had
submitted to quarantine, and so his aide-de-camp might do the
same.

July 14th, 1831 {p.162}

The effects of Peel's leaving the party to shift for itself were
exhibited the night before last. He went away (there was no
reason why he should not, except that he should have stayed to
_manage_ the debate and keep his people in order), and the
consequence was that they went on in a vexatious squabble of
repeated adjournments till eight o'clock in the morning, when
Government at last beat them. The Opposition gradually dwindled
down to twenty-five people, headed by Stormont, Tullamore, and
Brudenell, while the Government kept 180 together to the last;
between parties so animated and so led there can be no doubt on
which side will be the success. The Government were in high
spirits at the result, and thought the fatigue well repaid by the
display of devotion on the part of their friends and of factious
obstinacy on that of their enemies. After these two nights it is
impossible not to consider the Tory party as having ceased to
exist for all the practical and legitimate ends of political
association--that is, as far as the House of Commons is
concerned, where after all the battle must be fought. There is
still a rabble of Opposition, tossed about by every wind of folly
and passion, and left to the vagaries and eccentricities of
Wetherell, or Attwood, or Sadler, or the intemperate zeal
of such weak fanatics as the three Lords above mentioned;
but for a grave, deliberative, efficient Opposition there seem to
be no longer the elements, or they are so scattered and disunited
that they never can come together, and the only man who might
have collected, and formed, and directed them begs leave to be
excused. It is a wretched state of things and can portend no
good. If there had not been prognostications of ruin and
destruction to the State in all times,