JET. 44.] PROSPECTS OF THE OPPOSITION. 447 



Duncannon that the ministry were lost if they took 

 him. But his own manner and language are enough. 

 I agree with you that there is a chance of his being 

 more tractable if he once got in ; but his part would 

 be very ticklish. 



"Your account of Lord Eosslyn not having been 

 asked to Dalkeith surprises me, rather because I saw 

 the contrary in all the newspapers than because it is 

 unlikely ; for certainly he is far from popular with 

 the Court. I have all along noted this, and ascribed 

 it to their annoyance that a soldier and a Court-bred 

 man that is, one connected with old Loughborough 

 should have turned out so very little of a courtier. 

 It is just possible that Lady Mary's connection with 

 the Princess of GLOSTER may have tended the same 

 way.* 



" Now, with regard to the POSSIBLE event (as it 

 certainly is) of either now, or some months hence, 

 a negotiation being begun, I quite agree that you do 

 most perfectly right to be considering it, in order that 

 you may not be taken unprepared. Of course you 

 will be on your guard against their accustomed trick 

 of insincere overtures, in order to put you in the 

 wrong, and have a pretext for telling the Parliament 

 and country that the weakness of the Government is 

 not their fault ; and will, if it is to go off, take care it 

 shall do so upon clear, high, and, above all, intelligible 

 grounds, requiring no refinement, and, if possible, not 

 on any point of constitutional etiquette, which the 

 people are stupid enough not to apprehend, and, I 

 fear, wrong enough not to value if they did. I would 



* Lady Mary Erskine, Lord Rosslyn's sister, was Lady to the Princess 

 Sophia of Gloster. 



