MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS. (Hansard, 15 May 1832)

§ Earl Grey
As there is no other important business before your Lordships, I move that this House do adjourn over till Thursday. I do so in consequence of a communication which I have this day had from his Majesty.

Lord Kenyon
wished to know whether the House and the public were to understand from the noble Earl's declaration, that he and his colleagues were to be restored to their official stations?

§ Earl Grey
was sure that the House would see, that it would be indiscreet in him to offer any further explanation, under the circumstances in which he then stood. He had stated that he had had a communication from his Majesty: of course their Lordships understood that that communica- 983 tion could only refer to the affairs of the State, so far as they were affected by the resignation of himself and his colleagues. It had, besides, been made to him so recently, that it would be impossible to afford further information, or to say more than this, that nothing decisive had ensued, and that it was not in his power to state what it was plain the noble Baron was so anxious to extort—namely, that it was decided that the present Government should retain office. He was not then authorized to state more, and therefore proposed that they should adjourn over to-morrow, in order to afford time for the completion of some arrangements.

Lord Kenyon
was quite satisfied with the noble Earl's second statement, and felt it would be unreasonable, in the present stage of the proceedings, to press him further.

§ Earl Grey
was persuaded that his first explanation was to the full as explicit as his second—both amounting only to this—that he had had a communication from his Majesty, which had as yet led to no decided consequences.

The Lord Chancellor
rose to prevent any misunderstanding on the part of the noble Baron (Kenyon) as to there being any difference between his noble friend's first and second explanations, and to prevent a repetition of such irregular questions as that put by him to his noble friend. It was highly irregular to ask a Minister the precise character of any confidential communication which he might have had from his Sovereign; and though his noble friends and colleagues had tendered a resignation of their respective offices to his Majesty, which his Majesty had been graciously pleased to accept, still he stood there as a servant of the Crown, to whom all communications from the Crown must necessarily be confidential. His noble friend, therefore, was not at liberty to state more than the fact that he had had a communication from his Majesty; and he was at a loss to know by what subtilty of interpretation the noble Baron could persuade himself that he had obtained more information from the second explanation of his noble friend than from the first. He had listened attentively to both, and could state, that if he knew no more of the communication than it was fair to presume the noble Baron and the House generally knew, he should not have been better acquainted with its purport by the second statement than by the first statement of his noble friend; and he was convinced that the first 984 simple declaration, that he had had a communication from the Crown, derived no increase of strength or explicitness from the second. As his noble friend had stated, every noble Lord must have understood the communication to refer to the state of public affairs. Further than this it would be improper to state—that it had led to no positive consequences, and might have no consequences.

The Marquis of Salisbury
differed from the noble and learned Lord as to the perfect identity of the noble Earl's two statements. This important fact was elicited from the second explanation, which the first by no means imported—namely, that it was by no means a decided consequence of the King's communication that the noble Earl and his colleagues would be restored to office.