It seems to me they are running after trifles.  Russia adheres to us as to the Prince, or rather remains neutral, thinking I have no doubt that France and England will quarrel about the feather.

The secret instruction which it was proposed to give to the Ambassadors is now abandoned, France having objected.  They were to have been ordered to insist upon Turkey taking one of two things of which she was to have ostensibly the pure option.  Now they are only clearly to intimate their wish.  However, it seems Russia will take a million of ducats less if Turkey will make Greece independent.  That is, she will give up a claim to what she cannot get in order to effect that she has no right to ask.

The French Government have, by giving new rates of pension, got 1,600 old officers out of the army, and filled important stations with friends of their own.  They think they shall stand.

I forgot to mention the Archduke Maximilian of Modena as one of the persons talked of for Greece.  It seems uncertain whether any one of these Princes would take the coronet.

November 14, Saturday.

Cabinet room.  Rosslyn and afterwards Lord Bathurst there.  Read the Irish papers, that is, Lord Francis Leveson’s private letters to Peel and Peel’s to him, with a letter from Peel to Leslie Foster, asking his opinion as to education and Maynooth, and Foster’s reply.  The latter is important.  He thinks the political and religious hostility of the two parties is subsiding.  The chiefs alone keep it up.  The adherents are gradually falling off.  To open the questions of education, &c., now, would be to open closing wounds, nor would anything be accomplished.  The priests would resist everything proposed, and the Protestants would not be satisfied.  The Kildare Street Society, however defective, does a great deal of good, more than could be expected from any new system we could carry at this moment.

As to Maynooth, to withdraw the grant would not diminish the funds, while it would increase the bad feeling.

The increased prevalence of outrage, arising more from a disorganised state of society than from politics or religion, and the assassination plan, must be met by an extensive police, directed by stipendiary magistrates; and the expense of this police, and the indemnity to sufferers must be paid by the barony in which the outrage takes place.

All Peel’s letters are very sensible.  Lord Francis Leveson’s are in an odd style, rather affected occasionally, and his ideas are almost always such as require to be overruled.  He is a forward boy; but I see nothing of the statesman in him.  We ought to have had Hardinge there.

Dined at the Duke’s.  A man of the name of Ashe is writing letters to the Duke of Cumberland threatening his life if he does not give up a book in MS.

This book of Ashe’s is a romance detailing all sorts of scandals of the Royal Family, and of horrors of the Duke of Cumberland.  The book is actually in the possession of the Duke of Wellington.