September 30.

The Consul at Antwerp writes a long foolish letter in much alarm.

Mr. Cartwright’s reports are come.  He describes a horrible carnage.  The events much as we know them.  Sir A. Bagot says his Russian colleague has, with the consent of the King and the Dutch Ministers, written home to say Belgium can only be preserved by foreign aid.

At dinner at the Duke of Wellington’s met Talleyrand and Vaudreuil.  The others there were Aberdeen, Goulburn, Herries, Murray, Beresford, Lord F. Somerset, and Rosslyn.

Talleyrand is not altered since 1815, except that he speaks thick.  He has not even changed his hairdresser or his tailor.

Lord Rosslyn showed me a letter from Lady Janet, who was in Brussels during the fight.  She walked about frequently, and was treated with civility by the armed burghers.  A few grape-shot fell into the courtyard, and she picked up one.  She was at the Hotel de Brabant in the Rue Neuve.  There was no pillage, nor any riot.  The loss of the people was great.  She left the town on Sunday (I think) with a passport from Count Hoogwoorst, and got round to Antwerp.

The troops are said to have lost only 600 men.  Prince Frederick is about two leagues from Brussels, on the road to Louvain, waiting for heavy guns.  This is the report.  I suspect he will retreat altogether.

October 1.

On consideration thought it would be better to have a secret letter on the press, authorising the Government to allow their servants to be connected with the press.  To this letter I thought it advisable to add an exhortation to redoubled zeal on the part of the Company’s servants on account of the unsettled state in which the minds of men must be until it was decided under what form the future Government of India should be administered, and I directed the Government to make all thoroughly understand that no possible change could effect the public debt, or the rights of the natives or the just expectations of the European servants.  My reason for thinking the officers of Government should be permitted to be concerned in the press is this, that if none but those who are unconnected with the Government, and who, according to the existing system, cannot be connected with it, manage the press, the probability is that everything will be said against the Government and nothing for it.

I showed the proposed letter to the Duke.  He thought it would be better to pay people for writing than to employ the Company’s servants, and that the concluding paragraphs would lead the Government to suppose it was quite decided that the Company should be put an end to.  It is wonderful the sort of prejudice he has in favour of the Company.  He thinks that unless Directors selected writers and cadets we should have an inferior sort of people in India.  I have no objection to the patronage being in a corporate body, but I am satisfied the present system leads to a degree of delay which is more mischievous than misdirection.  He acknowledges, however, that the service is much changed.  The exhibition made by Courtenay Smith has produced a strong impression upon his mind.  He has done more injury to the Company in his mind than all the evidence.  He still seems unwilling to make his opinion up against the continuance of the monopoly.  It must fall, however.