We twaddled a great deal over the speech.  It was proposed by Peel to insert a paragraph referring to the disturbed state of the country.  He will write it, and we shall consider it in a Cabinet at St. James’s to-morrow at one, before the Council.

Lord Bathurst is more alarmed than any one; but Peel is a good deal alarmed too.

There is danger, for there are many to attack and few ready to risk anything in defence.  It was otherwise in 1793.

The Duke thinks that with every disposition to do mischief there is no conspiracy, or we should have heard of it.

November 1.

Cabinet at St. James’s at one.  The Lord-Lieutenant has prohibited, by Proclamation, the meeting of the Volunteer Society.  Very properly and consistently.  It was a much more dangerous society than the other.  He is a firm man, not to be turned from the course he thinks right.

O’Connell has not been spoken to in the clubs he has entered.  At Brookes’s they turned their backs upon him.

There was no meeting at Maidstone.  Probably they had intimation of the movements of troops.  Lord Beresford told me there were 3,000 artillerymen at Woolwich, enough to serve guns for an army.

Went through the speech again.  Aberdeen is the most obstinate man I ever saw, about the mere words of his part of the speech.  We lost half an hour at least in talking about words to-day.  Peel read his concluding sentence, which is very good.  He laments the outrages, and the attempt to disturb the concord between portions of the empire whose union is essential to their mutual strength and happiness, declares the King’s determination to exert the powers confided to him by the Law and the Constitution for the punishment of sedition, and ends by expressing a firm reliance on the loyalty of the great body of the people.

As far as I could judge by the King’s countenance when the speech was read, he acquiesced, and thought it right, but was pained at being obliged to hold such language.

I had prepared a paragraph to be used in case it had been thought right to say anything about India.  For my own part I thought it better not.  We could not produce a measure this year, and it would hardly be fair by the Court to declare to Parliament that we thought the monopoly must be put an end to without having previously acquainted them with our determination.  The Duke said he had seen nothing yet to satisfy him that the revenues of India could meet the expenditure without the China trade.  I think his reluctance increases to put an end to the present system.  My disposition to terminate the existence of the Company increases the more I see of them.

November 2

House at five.  Lord Bute made a very long, heavy speech.  Lord Monson a very little one, not bad.  The stuff would do; but he has neither stature nor voice.