Your letter dated Tuesday arrived with my letters & trowsers yesterday afternoon. I am, I assure you, deeply concerned to hear of your indisposition, which, I think, with you, may be mainly occasioned by the close weather. Today it blows fresh here & is cooler, and I hope before now you have experienced an advantageous change.
Thanks for your opinion concerning public matters. Lord Brougham's exhoration to peaceable demeanor, coupled with his assurance that a bill equally efficient with the former will be brought in, is tranquillising to the best spirits here—but the wilder sort are displeased by Lard Wharncliffe's concurrence, and acknowledgment of the necessity for Reform—they apprehend a "cross," and will not relax of their hold, yet know not what to do—A requisition is signing for a Town's Meeting at the Royal Hotel, at which I imagine the Political Unionists will attend, and more amendments which they will be sure to carry. This will be connived at by the intelligent of the "reputable" inhabitants, as opening a safety valve for the escape of much heat, which if carried to another New Hall Hill Meeting might explode mischievously.2 I seriously think that another Meeting there would jeopardize the town, and the Union leaders will not resort to it, until they fail of expectation from the ministers. The votes of the Bishops have reduced their term of voting in the Lords to a few years—and then, out they go. I am satisfied they have irrecoverably lost themselves—I have not met with a churchman that will put forth a finger to keep them on the cross-bench.
The burning of Nottingham Castle occasioned much dismay, but now, when it is known that the military acted thus, and at Derby, a salutary quiet prevails. My own opinion is, that a measure of Reform considerably short of the late Bill will pass under a compromise, but that pacification will not be final till the whole measure be conceded—yet, if the monetary question be disposed of so as to raise prices, and give the agricultural laborer sufficiency of maintenance, things may jog on steadily for a while. At the next outbreak the privileged orders will be shaken to the centre. The Lords are blind—they see only through their feelings, as Miss McEvory saw with the ends of her fingers. They will be made to feel by the rage of the people, and then they will see—
In my own affair I am anxious, and uncertain. Mr Parkes flies off to Coventry, and elsewhere, without notice, and I expect may be in London before me. We saw Mr. Redfern together on Wednesday, but not satisfactorily. Mr. P appointed me to meet him afterwards in an hour, but I had only the mortification of seeing him dragged away by anxious clients without his being able to say a word to me. I could not catch him again till last night, and then sat with him till he finished letters for the London post, before which two gentlemen broke in, and all ended by his say that this morning he must be off to Warwick by the first coach & return by the last to-day—My time is slaughtered and my heart sickened. I have determined, if I cannot fix him tomorrow, to write him an earnest letter, and urge him to a conclusion at once.
Meantime, I will be glad if Matilda will send me by the first Coach, a thin quarto Volume "Guest's History of Spinning," and an octavo volume by the same author, both in boards, they are both, I think, on the small shelves (at the top) between the closet & the fireplace, also, Clare's Poems. I shall attend forthwith to the gratis & lamps, & send up a parcel for Haddon by the Coach tomorrow—Love to all—I address this to Matilda, lest you should be in Sussex—Yours ever