do his duty. The result of our deliberations was, that I should refuse to accept anything which I could have any idea of ever purchasing; and I therefore, in returning my thanks for the kindness of the Glasgow men, said that I would only take it in the form of a gold inkstand. I heard no more of it for nearly five years, and supposed that the person in whose hands the money was, had failed. In 1817, when a deputation waited on me with the service of plate which Birmingham had voted in 1812, one of them (I think Attwood) said he desired it to be understood that this had reference to the Orders in Council of 1812, and to nothing that had passed since. I called back another of the deputation to ask whether anything in my conduct subsequently had displeased my friends, as I conceived that the defeat of the income-tax in 1816 had been of more general importance than even the success of 1812. But the answer was, that the spokesman's firm were bankers to the receiver of the county, and had suffered by the diminution of his balance from the defeat of the tax. Happening the day after to see Dr Shepherd, I recited this as a remarkable anecdote, when he said. that perhaps I had never understood why the Glasgow gold inkstand never reached me. He stated that, on the refusal of the offer to return one and one (Canning and me), and the increase of the expenses, the committee on our side had taken the very unwarrantable step of writing to Glasgow, that the best application of the fund subscribed was sending it to Liverpool, in order to meet the expenses of my election. And this was done at the very time when they had refused nearly three times as much on my urging them to take it from me. This conduct was extremely blamable—

not the writing to Glasgow, which was only a want of proper delicacy, but the not informing me, both that I might have the option of receiving the gift voted, paying the price, and especially suffering the Glasgow men to remain under the imputation of not performing their promise to me.

There was much resemblance between this Liverpool popular proceeding and the generous intentions of Queen Caroline eight years after; and the parallel shows how little courtly and popular levity and want of consideration may occasionally differ.

Upon the defeat of the bill for divorcing the Queen, I waited upon her to communicate the event, and tender my congratulations. She said, "There is a sum of £7000 at Douglas Kinnaird's" (her banker's), "which I desire you will accept for yourself, giving £4000 of it to the other counsel." This I of course refused, saying that we all received, or should receive, the usual fees, and could not take anything further. She insisted on my telling my colleagues, which I said I should, as a matter of course, but that I was certain they would refuse, as I had done. Next day, when I again waited upon her, she recurred to the subject, and asked if I had told them that she laid her com

mands upon us. I said I had told them so distinctly, and that they all refused with the greatest respect, and a full sense of her kind intentions. She asked what could be the reason of it all; and I endeavoured to explain that professional etiquette made it impossible. She still was disconcerted, and said lawyers were unaccountable people. A few weeks after, Kinnaird, when he took his account to her, suggested that the salaries of her law officers were in arrear, never hav

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ing been paid. She refused peremptorily to have them paid, saying the Queen must pay her debts before she pays her Attorney and Solicitor General. The sum due was under £200, and she had been pressing £7000 upon us! This arrear, as well as all the other professional emoluments, but on the ordinary scale, were paid by the Treasury after her death, among the expenses of the cause. In consequence of the absurd reports spread in the country that a room at Brougham had been built by the Queen after the trial (there having been not a room built, but only a battlement added to a very ancient room), I may add, that I never received any present whatever from her, except a magnificent copy of Dante (the great Florentine edition), on which Dr Parr wrote an inscription that has been the subject of much criticism.

I have mentioned the votes of plate in different parts of the country. They were chiefly of things which I should not have thought of buying, being, with the exception of the Birmingham service, more for show than use. From other places there were cups of various kinds, and from Huddersfield a pair of blankets which I handed over to my friend Whitbread, as a present to his daughter Elizabeth, just about to be married to William Waldegrave. On the Reform Bill passing in 1832, there was a penny subscription for four silver-gilt cups to be presented to Grey, Althorpe, John Russell, and myself. In those days. the practice said to have prevailed latterly, of distributing shares in railway and other companies among members of the two Houses, had not been discovered; and as the shares bore a premium at the time of distribution, a more objectionable practice cannot

be imagined. I have known members of both Houses reject the offer with indignation; but some there were who accepted them, justifying the practice by contending that it was nothing more than the custom of giving shares of loans to different persons; but if these were given to any one having a discretion in settling the terms of the loan, it would be liable to the same objections as giving shares to members while the bill was in progress through Parliament. The only time I ever held any shares, except in University College, was when, a qualification being required as a director in a company got up for the benefit of the negroes, I purchased the number required at a considerable loss of money.

Among the patriotic gifts for services in regard to the Orders in Council and commercial policy generally, as well as respecting the income-tax, but certainly not on account of the negroes and the abolition of the slavetrade as well as slavery, may be reckoned the kindness of a very respectable man in the county of Durham, Mr Shakespeare Reed, who, about the year 1828, wrote to inform me that he had, after providing for his widow and his near relations, left me his property in consideration of my public services. I inquired about this good man of my friend Lambton (Lord Durham), and found that he was a very wealthy person; but, from my friend's way of talking, evidently not agreeing with him in county politics. A few years after, I received a letter, in which he called upon me, from the relation he said subsisting between us, as his heir, to put down "the political set of pretended philanthropists who were seeking the emancipation of slavery in the West Indies." He appealed to me, on the above

mentioned consideration, "to use my influence, official as well as personal, to put them down; for, said he, I can assure you that the peasantry on your estate in Barbadoes are fully better off than those on your Durham estates," so little had he understood our English history. I answered that "I was sorry to say he had applied to a wrong quarter; for that I was one of the principal leaders of those whom he wanted to put down. But I hoped he would form a better opinion of us and of our measures, by reading the report of the House of Lords' committee, under my friend the Duke of Richmond," which I sent him, as it had just been printed. I received no answer, and concluded that he had altered his will. He died in 1837, and I have since found that my conjecture was well founded. His will was made seven years after our correspondence.

The state of our relations with America had become exceedingly alarming, in consequence of the delay in recalling the Orders in Council, and the manner of the recall. There appeared in the United States Government signs of a disposition to precipitate a rupture. Letters I received at this time from my ally, Baring, showed how much he shared in the alarm. The following gives also the course which he recommended our commercial and manufacturing bodies to take :—

FROM ALEXANDER BARING.

"CARSHALTON, August 1, 1812. "DEAR BROUGHAM,-Since you wrote your letter you will have seen the American declaration of war, which renders the situation of our traders more embarrassing. I am obstinate in my opinion that the