JET. 40.] DISTURBANCES. 331 



TO EARL GEEY. 



"October 1817. 



" DEAR LORD GREY, I enclose a letter, which I have 

 just received from a Colonel Rook, whom I don't 

 know, but it confirms the favourable accounts, and 

 contains information respecting the proceedings of 

 Government as to the Independents. Pray return it. 



"A number of people have been speaking about a 

 subscription (confined to small sums, as 3 or 5) 

 for the persons confined under the suspension, who 

 are really (I believe) in the greatest distress at this 

 season. I said the bullying way in which Cobbett had 

 taken it up made one averse to it, but I promised to 

 write to you. The proposition did not come from any 

 of the lower class of reformers, but from some friends. 

 Pray say how it strikes you. I have great doubts, 

 chiefly because we shall not be able to raise anything 

 considerable. 



" As for next session, I know as little of it as of the 

 next world ; but I think the best chance we have of a 

 fair muster is to leave things alone, and not to seem at 

 all anxious indeed it would be difficult to be very 

 anxious about what our friends do. Any efforts one 

 makes only slacken people, and make them angry or 

 suspicious ; and they really treat you for trying to 

 serve them as if you were serving yourself. I think 

 Burke once remarked that no man ever busied himself 

 for the party without incurring this suspicion; but 

 now they wish you not to do anything, from a shabby 

 fear of its keeping them out of place place of all 

 things ! Yours ever, H. B." 



Early in November, the union between the Princess 

 Charlotte and Leopold, which royal though it was 



