APPENDIX to the CHRONICLE. 507 



times ; and had requested that, un- 

 less some change should be effected 

 in it, he might be permitted to re- 

 sign his office. — It is equally true, 

 that in the course of the discussion, 

 which arose out of this represenia- 

 tion, it was proposed to Mr. Can- 

 ning, and accepted by him as the 

 condition of his consenting to retain 

 the seals of the foreign office, that 

 a change should be made in the war 

 department. 



But it is not true that the time 

 at which that change was ulti- 

 roatelj' proposed to be made, was 

 of Mr. Canning's choice ; and it is 

 not true that he was party or con- 

 senting to the concealment of that 

 intended change from lord Castle- 

 reagh. 



With respect to the concealment, 

 Mr. Canning, some short time pre- 

 vious to the date of lord Castle- 

 reagh's letter, without the smallest 

 suspicion of the existence of any 

 intention on the part of lord Cas- 

 tlereagh to make such an appeal 

 to Mr. Canning as this letter con- 

 tains, but upon information that 

 some misapprehension did exist as 

 to Mr, Canning's supposed concur- 

 rence in the reserve which had been 

 practised towards lord Castlereagh, 

 transmitted to one of lord Castle- 

 reagh's most intimate friends, to 

 be communicated whenever he 

 might think proper, the copy of a 

 letter addressed by Mr, Canning to 

 the duke of Portland, in the month 

 of July, In which Mr. Canning re- 

 quests, " in justice to himself, that 

 it may be remembered, whenever 

 hereafter this concealment shall be 

 alleged (as he doubts not that it 

 will) against him, as an act of in- 

 "ustice towards lord Castlereagh, 

 that it did not originate in his sug- 

 gestion ;— that, so far from desiring 



it, he conceived, however errone- 

 ously, lord Camden to be the sure 

 channel of communication to lord 

 Castlereagh ; and that up to a very 

 late period he believed such com- 

 munication to have been actually 

 made." 



The copy of this letter, and of 

 the duke of Portland's answer to 

 it, *' acknowledging Mr. Canning's 

 repeated remonstrances against the 

 concealment," are still in the pos- 

 session of lord Castlereagh's friend. 



The communication to lord 

 Camden, to which this letter re- 

 fers, was made on the 28th April, 

 with Mr. Canning's knowledge, 

 and at his particular desire. Lord 

 Camden being the near connexion 

 and most confidential friend of lord 

 Castlereagh, it never occurred to 

 Mr. Canning, nor was it credible 

 to him till he received the most po- 

 sitive asseverations of the fact, that 

 lord Camden had kept back such a 

 communication from lord Castle- 

 reagh. 



With respect to the period at 

 which the change in the war de- 

 partment was to take place, Mr. 

 Canning was induced, in the first 

 instance, to consentto its postpone- 

 ment till the rising of parliament, 

 partly by the representations made 

 to himself, of the inconveniences 

 of any change in the middle of a 

 session, but principally from a con- 

 sideration of the particular circum- 

 stances under which lord Castle- 

 reagh stood in the house of com- 

 mons after Easter ; circumstances 

 which would have given to his re- 

 moval at that period of the session, 

 a character which it was certainly 

 no part of Mr. Canning's wish that 

 it should bear. 



Mr. Canning, however, receiv- 

 ed the most positive promise, that 



a change. 



