Saw the Duke.  Suggested to him Sir J. Malcolm’s being made provisional successor to Lord W. Bentinck for the reasons I have mentioned.  He thought well of the suggestion; but said we must consider it, and mention it in Cabinet, as Lord William was a great card, and we must not do anything to offend unnecessarily him and his connection.  The objection occurred to him that had occurred to me, that Sir J. Malcolm would die if he went to Calcutta.  I hope he would not go there, that he would remain in the upper provinces.  But I look to the effect of the nomination upon the conduct of people in India, and that of Lord William himself, more than to his actual succession.

The Duke then said we must look not to India only, but to all Asia, and asked me if I had read Evans’s book.  I told him I had; that in forty-eight hours after I read it I had sent a copy to Macdonald and another to Malcolm.  I told him all the views I had with regard to the navigation of the Indus and the opening of a trade with Cabul and Bokhara.  He said our minds appeared to have been travelling the same way.  We must have good information of what the Russians might be doing there.  I reminded him I had desired the Government a year ago to obtain information as to all the countries between the Caspian and the Indus, and I intended now to give a more particular direction.  He said Macdonald should have his eye upon the Caspian, and information as to those countries would be best obtained through natives.  I reminded him that that had been the suggestion in my letter of last year.  The Duke’s opinion is that it is a question of expense only.  That if the Russians got 20,000 or 30,000 men into Cabul we could beat them; but that by hanging upon us there they could put us to an enormous expense in military preparation, and in quelling insurrections.  They could not move in that direction without views hostile to us, and by threatening us there they would think to embarrass us in Europe.  I proposed that in the event of the Russians moving in that direction we should permit the Government of India to act as an Asiatic Power.  By money at least, he allowed, without further orders, not to move in advance without instructions.  But the Duke is ready to take up the question here in Europe, if the Russians move towards India with views of evident hostility.

He approves of a message going at once with orders to Macdonald.

December 18.

Chairs.  They will consider favourably Mrs. Hastings’s case; but she must address her representation to them.

I told them of my suggestion of making Malcolm provisional successor to Lord William, and the reasons for it.  They seemed to like the idea; but the same objection occurred to them which had occurred to the Duke and to me—­ that if Malcolm went to Calcutta he would die.  I said I did not want him to go.  I did not look to his going.  I looked to the moral effect of the appointment upon Lord William and upon all their servants in India.  They want to get some political man of high rank and talents and determined character to go.  They are heartily sick of Lord William.  Whom they want to send I do not know.