480 HOME POLITICS. [1809. 



" I dined yesterday at Kensington, and the princess 

 produced Canning's statement, which was read aloud, 

 and pretty fully discussed. She affirmed it was 

 quite satisfactory, and vindicated Canning entirely ; 

 and asked me bluntly enough if I did not think so 

 too ; which obliged me to say I thought it quite the 

 contrary, and that it left Canning altogether in 

 the wrong. Drummond very gallantly came to my 

 assistance, and Lord Henry Fitzgerald took the same 

 side as far as he durst. The only other person there, 

 Lady Charlotte Lindsay, was of the same opinion, and 

 the princess had all the defence to herself. She abuses 

 every one of the ministers, chiefly Eldon, Lord Liver- 

 pool, and Lord Camden, and is canvassing for Lord 

 Grenville as hard as she can. 



" Canning's statement is plain, and not either 

 clearly or forcibly written. It is carefully castigated 

 by some discreet person, who has kept out everything 

 like a Canningism. It praises the Duke of Portland 

 in extravagant terms ; among other epithets it calls 

 him a great patriot. But this is general, and in the 

 detail it throws much of the concealment on him. 

 Canning positively denies that he ever wished Castle- 

 reagh to be turned out, and asserts that he only 

 wished for a change in the war department, or rather 

 in one branch of it. He was put off from day to day 

 by his colleagues, who proposed various expedients, 

 to which he successively agreed first, that part of 

 the war correspondence should be transferred to the 

 Foreign Department, and the Board of Control joined 



