The night before last there was an illumination, got up by the foolish Lord Mayor, which of course produced an uproar and a general breaking of obnoxious windows. Lord Mansfield and the Duke of Buccleuch went to Melbourne in the morning and remonstrated, asking what protection he meant to afford to their properties. A gun (with powder only) was fired over the heads of the mob from Apsley House, and they did not go there again. The Government might have discouraged this manifestation of triumph, but they wished for it for the purpose of increasing the popular excitement. They don't care what they do, or what others do, so long as they can keep the people in a ferment. It is disgusting to the last degree to hear their joy and exultation at the success of their measures and the good prospects held out to them by the elections; all of which may turn out very well, but if it does not 'who shall set hoddy-doddy up again?' Lord Cleveland has subscribed £10,000 to the election fund.
Lord Yarborough, by a very questionable piece of political morality, has given the Holmes boroughs in the Isle of Wight to Government; they are the property of Sir L. Holmes's daughter, whose guardian he is as well as executor under the will. In this capacity he has the disposal of the boroughs, and he gives them to the Ministers to fill with men who are to vote for their disfranchisement. A large price is paid for them--£4,000--but it makes a difference of eight votes, and if the Bill is carried they will be worth nothing. The elections promise well for Government even in the boroughs, as I was persuaded they would. O'Connell has put forth a proclamation entreating, commanding peace, order, and support of the Bill's supporters. Tom Moore called on me yesterday morning. He said that he was a Reformer and liked the Bill, but he was fully aware of all that it might produce of evil to the present system. He owned frankly that he felt like an Irishman and that the wrongs of Ireland and the obstinacy of the faction who had oppressed her still rankled in his heart, and that he should not be sorry at any vengeance which might overtake them at last. I hear renewed complaints of Peel, of his selfish, cold, calculating, cowardly policy; that we are indebted to him principally for our present condition I have no doubt--to his obstinacy and to his conduct in the Catholic question first, to his opposition and then to his support of it. Opposing all and every sort of Reform _totis viribus_ while he dared, now he makes a death-bed profession of acquiescence in something which should be more moderate than this. All these things disgust people inconceivably, and it is not the less melancholy that he is our only resource, and his capacity for business and power in the House of Commons places him so far above all his competitors that if we are to have a Conservative party we must look to him alone to lead it.