At the Court of St. James

1858. August 24.–Had a long and interesting visit from Lord Brougham. He was born in 1778, and is, therefore, eighty years of age; and yet he conversed with the ardour and energy of a man of forty. He was, made a peer in 1830. I told him that I had met him at the table of Alexander Baring (since Lord Ashburton) forty-four years ago. He remembered the dinner and Mr. Gallatin. He said I reminded him of what occurred between Metternich and himself two or three years since; they were introduced, and he (B.) expressed his delight at meeting one whom he long desired the honour of knowing. “Why,” said M., “I have known you these forty years.” “How’s that? how’s that?” asked B. “Why, you came to see the Congress of Vienna, and do you remember a young man, with slim legs and light-blue stockings, who was amazingly busy?” “Perfectly,” said B. ” Well,” replied M., “that was me!” Much conversation about the slave-trade. He pronounced the claim to visit or search utterly inconsistent with fundamental and universal principles of international law. But he hoped some mode of verifying the flag would be found out and agreed to. “Why not put an end to the trade by passing Cuba over to the United States?” “Well,” he said, “it might come to that.” “As to domestic servitude, your Lordship is aware that its cessation in the United States must be the slow effect of time.” “Certainly, certainly; your wisest men of 1787 put it under the safeguard of your Constitution; and you can’t get rid of it without consequences more dreadful than the thing itself.” Lord Brougham expressed serious apprehensions as to the state of things in France; and regarded this continued sending of squadrons of suspects to Cayenne as fatal to the Imperial dynasty. He said he had asked Malakoff and Fould about it, but they could only say that it was not the act of Napoleon himself, but of those who conceived that to be a way of ingratiating themselves.