There is a preferment amongst our people for dissolution,' Lord M.added.The feeling in the country good.

I asked Lord M., 'Must they resign directly, the next day, after the division (if they intended resigning) ?' 'Why,' he said, 'it was awkward _not_ to do so if Parliament was sitting; if the division were only to take place on Friday, then they needn't announce it till Monday,' which we hope will be the case, as we agreed it wouldn't do for me to have a ball the day Lord M.had resigned, and before I had sent for anybody else, and therefore I hoped that it could be managed that the division did not take place till Friday.

Lord M.said that in case they resigned, he wished Vernon Smith[27] to be made a Privy Councillor; the only addition to the Peers he mentioned the other day he wished to make is Surrey;[28] we agreed that too many Peers was always a bad thing." [Footnote 26: To Lord Sandon's resolution on the Sugar Duties.] [Footnote 27: Robert Vernon Smith (1800-1873), Under-Secretary for War and the Colonies, afterwards Lord Lyveden.] [Footnote 28: The Earl of Surrey (1791-1856) was now M.P.

for West Sussex, and Treasurer of the Household, and was afterwards thirteenth Duke of Norfolk.] _Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._ _11th May 1841._ ...

I am sure you will forgive my writing a very short letter to-day, but I am so harassed and occupied with business that I cannot find time to write letters.