Chapter 65: Wellington and Peel’s Calculations
Chapter 65 Wellington and Peel’s Calculations
London, Borough of Westminster, Whitehall Street, Home Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Inside the office of the Ministry of the Interior, Sir Peel sat in his office chair, his hand holding a copy of this morning’s brand-new Times, while at his hand lay a copy of the Manchester Guardian, which had just been delivered to the Ministry of the Interior and was still stained with rainwater.
He read every word of the paper carefully, yet the more he read, the more his hands shook.
In the end, he just slammed the newspaper on his desk with a snap.
“Simply a load of nonsense! These people will do anything to force the cabinet to fall!”
His private secretary happened to push the door in at that moment, and seeing this scene, he couldn’t help but be startled, the private secretary froze for a moment before remembering his mission.
“Sir, just now the Duke of Wellington sent a message, he summoned you to 10 Downing Street.”
Who knows that just after the secretary’s words, another wet head appeared behind him, Sir Peel immediately recognized this familiar face, it was the Duke of Wellington’s exclusive messenger.
“Sir, just now the Duke of Wellington sent me over again to inform you that you don’t need to go to his place, it’s better for him to come himself.”
As soon as the messenger’s words fell, the hall outside the minister’s office resounded with another rush of boots on the floor, and the executive undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior pushed aside the two people blocking his way and said in a hurry.
“Sir, His Excellency the Duke’s carriage has …… arrived.”
This time, before he could finish speaking, the voice of the Duke of Wellington’s anger filled voice resounded from the hall of the Ministry of the Interior.
“Robert, have you read today’s newspaper! That bunch of eaters are simply crazy! Why don’t they dare to say these things to my face? It’s in every paper according to informed sources! Do they think that by hiding the word Tory I won’t know which people are in the know!”
The Duke of Wellington’s voice arrived almost simultaneously with the man’s, and he frowned at the messengers, private secretaries, and permanent undersecretaries huddled in the doorway of his office, and rebuked disgruntledly, “Don’t you have anything to do? What are you all crowding here for?”
The three looked at each other and defended themselves, “Your Excellency the Duke, we are only here to convey your orders.”
“Convey my orders?”
The Duke of Wellington was clearly in a fit of anger as he sarcastically said, “I originally thought that the Prussian reinforcements were slow enough to come during the Battle of Waterloo, but compared to the three of you, I think that Marshal Blücher is quite the man of action.”
The three of them laughed awkwardly, and then hurriedly retreated to the side, invited the Duke of Wellington inside, and then gently closed the door.
With a flaming face, Duke Wellington dragged a chair and sat down in front of his desk.
Sir Peel could only smile helplessly at his appearance, then got up and went to the cupboard in the office and asked, “A cup of tea or a little sherry?”
The Duke of Wellington waved his hand impatiently, “You see to it.”
Hearing this, Sir Pierre could only shrug his shoulders, then took out two tall glasses and the long cherished sherry and poured a little for each of the two.
The Duke of Wellington shook the glass and first sniffed the golden-colored liquor, then gently took a sip, and immediately commented.
“Not bad wine. This flavor, it should be from Port St. Mary in Andalusia, right?”
Sir Pierre smiled and nodded, “You really know a lot about wine.”
Perhaps the wine had worked, the Duke of Wellington’s bad mood had finally calmed down quite a bit.
He spoke, “If you had fought in the Peninsular War, you would also understand. From Lisbon in Portugal, to Madrid in Spain, to Toulouse in France, I’d rather I didn’t know wine so well.
Robert, remember what I told you? It’s a bad thing to be at war all the time. Even the cruelest man by nature, if you throw him into battle for a day, he’ll pray to God not to go back to fight even one more belligerent battle!
The Catholic Emancipation Bill must be passed, and Great Britain must not have a civil war. Those in Opposition can’t understand how important peace is; they’ll only clamor for it, and they’ll only know what it means to hurt when a shell falls on their heads.”
Sir Peel shook his head, “Your Excellency, those party extremists don’t think the same way you do. A good portion of them feel that war is a good thing. The Napoleonic wars of 22 years caused Great Britain to suffer a continental trade blockade for quite a long time, and the price of food in the country went crazy because of it, and the rent of the land followed along with it for years and years.
But the rent goes up easily, to come down can be difficult, that group of people used to living a good life, how can they be willing to go back to that kind of life in the past?
If it wasn’t for their insistence on not lowering the rent, how could they have caused such a large-scale ‘Swain Riot’ in the past few months?”
Hearing this, Duke Wellington couldn’t help but curse, “Speaking of this makes me angry! This group of people, while not agreeing to lowering the land rent and also not agreeing to continue to amend the Grain Law, in the end, they even followed the Whigs and pushed the cause of the riot onto my head!
They’ve let them have all the good things to say! Now well, the Whigs are back to proposing things that will be reformed! If the declining constituencies are abolished altogether, I’ll see how these people can still get into the House of Commons in the future!”
Hearing this, Sir Peel could only press both hands to his temples and frown in thought, “This can’t go on, a portion of the party has already begun to swing towards the Whigs.
If we lose their support, there’s no way we can maintain an absolute majority in the House of Commons. We must think of a way to gain the support of a portion of the people.”
The Duke of Wellington spoke, “I’ve done some calculations, and thanks to the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Bill, we’re currently able to garner the support of almost all of the constituency MPs in Southern Ireland, and with the addition of a portion of the moderate party members in Northern Ireland, we’ll probably be able to pick up the support of at least 80 out of the 105 seats in the Irish House of Commons.
There are another 200 or so seats for Tories in England and Wales and in Scotland who have now made it clear that they are willing to support us, which adds up to 280 seats.”
Sir Peel frowned and shook his head, “But it’s still not enough, with you sitting in the House of Lords, I’m not worried. But the House of Commons has a total of 658 seats, we have to take 330 seats of support to make it work. The key to deciding whether or not the cabinet can be continued now lies in whether or not we can get those MPs who hold a middle ground.”
Hearing this, Wellington couldn’t help but sigh, “Robert, if I really can’t, I’ll simply reconcile with Huskisson. Although he has moved further and further away from the party mainstream in the past two years, he has never declared his formal departure from the Tory Party. Those Huskissonite MPs who follow him have about 30 or so seats.”
Hearing this, Pierre couldn’t help but reveal a small smile, “I didn’t realize you were actually willing to take the initiative to mention this.”
“What else?”
Duke Wellington said helplessly, “I can’t really be like what was written in the Manchester Guardian: bossy and domineering, completely disregarding the laws of philosophy, holding deep-rooted prejudices, and being stubborn while being mediocre in ability, right?”
Sir Pierre narrowed his eyes and smiled, “So you saw it too. I would have thought that in your temperament, you came to me today to ask me to give the order to transfer the Scotland Yard police to censor them.”
“Censorship? I’m too lazy for that sort of thing. They can say what they like; their mouths are on them anyway, so let them do what they like.”
Duke Wellington stood up and smoothed his clothes, “Then it’s a deal, I’ll go and take care of Huskisson first, there are still a dozen or so seats left that I’ll rely on you to help fight for, Robert. I know you’re still on good terms with a portion of the Whigs, try to see if you can win them over.”
Sir Pierre nodded, “I’ll go find a few intermediaries in a few minutes and see if there’s any chance to get in touch with them.”
His words had just fallen, when suddenly, the door to the office was pushed open with a creak, and the private secretary stuck her head out from the doorway and spoke weakly.
“Sir ……”
Sir Pierre couldn’t help but smile at his appearance and grabbed his head to speak before him, “Who sent you to deliver the message this time?”
“No, he has already arrived downstairs.”
The Duke of Wellington also let out a laugh when he heard this, as he drank his sherry in one go, “It seems like you’ve made progress, there isn’t as much nonsense anymore.”
Sir Pierre asked, “Who is here this time?”
The private secretary blinked twice, “The Inspector of Police of Scotland Yard, Mr. Arthur Hastings has requested to be able to meet with you.”
“Wow?”
Sir Peel and the Duke of Wellington smiled at each other.
“Invite him in.”
(End of chapter)