504 THE WELLINGTON GOVERNMENT. [1828. 



Brougham with Stuart and James ; and when I went 

 there after the circuit (which was just over), I found 

 that the messenger who was in quest of them, both 

 Bosslyn and James, was still there, but of course I 

 refused to give him any information as to where they 

 were concealed they were hidden in what was called 

 the Priest's Hole : it being, moreover, quite evident 

 that the whole proceeding was only intended to give 

 trouble, that only Stuart was really to be tried, and 

 the two others to be called as witnesses ; which they 

 were when Stuart was tried. He was most trium- 

 phantly acquitted, on the ground of the gross pro- 

 vocation he had received, and of the perfect fairness 

 of the duel. It is a curious but perfectly authentic 

 fact, that till he shot Boswell through the head he 

 had never before fired a pistol. 



Boswell was a very clever man, of violent ultra- 

 Tory prejudices as might be expected in a son of 

 James Boswell (Bozzy) and of some eccentricity. He 

 once called on Sidmouth at the Home Office when he 

 was Secretary of State, and the conversation turning 

 on his political songs, he sung one of them to Sid- 

 mouth. The affair of the duel increased Bosslyn 's 

 intimacy with James and his confidence in him, and 

 they had much intercourse on party matters ever 

 afterwards. 



In the autumn of 1828, while communicating with 

 Bosslyn, I sent him the result of the best considera- 

 tion I could give the case of the Catholic question, and 

 the opinions of Althorpe, Abcrcromby, and others, on 

 the subject itself, and on the course respecting it which 

 the Duke, upon whom everything now depended, was 



