MT. 34.] WARD, CANNING, MELBOURNE. 25 



they do not like ; and not being men of very great 

 minds (though very good and clever men one part of 

 them, at least), they would fain at all costs be with 

 him. First they move heaven and earth to get him and 

 you together, and then, when the clay and gold won't 

 unite, they go after the former. Depend on it, this is 

 at the bottom of it all. I know the men, and have 

 sounded them for years ; of this I never saw a mo- 

 ment's reason to doubt. But this feeling prevails in 

 different strength in them. In "Ward it is predomi- 

 nant, and he follows it. He does not like our House 

 of Commons leaders, and particularly objects (as many 

 others do, and, in my fair and candid opinion, with 

 much reason) to Tierney, whose errors and fears really 

 do mightily diminish his acknowledged merits. You 

 know, among other great blunders, he is a general 

 discourager, and does nothing to bring forward or 

 protect the young ones. He throws cold water on all 

 that is proposed ; and it is proved to the satisfaction 

 of every man who knew anything of the progress of 

 the question, that had he had his own way, in any one 

 particular, of the many in dispute among us, [that of] 

 the Orders in Council would have failed almost entirely 

 possibly they might never have been brought for- 

 ward, certainly by me they never could, though I don't 

 know who he had in his eye. But I speak of his 

 general habit of discouraging the very reverse of Fox's 

 and yours. He always forgets that an Opposition can 

 hardly be too active or adventurous, and he acts as if 

 he were in the Cabinet. My answer to all this is (and 

 so I told Ward), that we look not to Tierney but to 

 you, and to George Ponsonby as your friend. Then 

 he objects to our leader's not being in the House of 



