ence they had with him. He said the Chancellor's
being for making Peers was not enough to carry the question; that
if it was done it must be by a minute of the Cabinet, with the
names of the dissentients appended to it; and then the King must
determine; that if the dissentients seceded upon it it would be
impossible. He recollected, when there was a question of making
Peers on the Catholic question by the Duke of Wellington, that he
and some others had resolved, should it have been done, to avail
themselves of the power of the House to come down day after day
and move adjournments before any of the new Peers could take
their seats; that the same course might be adopted now, though it
would produce a revolution. I told him that I had little doubt
there were men who would not scruple to adopt any course, however
violent, that the power of Parliament would admit of; that there
were several who were of opinion that the creation of Peers would
at once lay the Constitution prostrate and bring about a
revolution; that they considered it would be not a remote and
uncertain, but a sure and proximate event, and if by accelerating
it they could crush their opponents they would do so without
hesitation.

In the meantime the cholera has made its appearance in London, at
Rotherhithe, Limehouse, and in a ship off Greenwich--in all seven
cases. These are amongst the lowest and most wretched classes,
chiefly Irish, and a more lamentable exhibition of human misery
than that given by the medical men who called at the Council
Office yesterday I never heard. They are in the most abject state
of poverty, without beds to lie upon. The men live by casual
labour, are employed by the hour, and often get no more than four
or five hours' employment in the course of the week. They are
huddled and crowded together by families in the same room, not as
permanent lodgers, but procuring a temporary shelter; in short, in
the most abject state of physical privation and moral degradation
that can be imagined. On Saturday we had an account of one or more
cases. We sent instantly down to inspect the district and organise
a Board of Health. A meeting was convened, and promises given that
all things needful should be done, but as they met at a
public-house they all got drunk and did nothing. We have sent down
members of the Board of Health, to make preparations and organise
boards; but, if the disease really spreads, no human power can
arrest its progress t