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The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Eleanor Creevey, 21 January 1810
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Introduction
Vol. I. Contents
Ch. I: 1793-1804
Ch. II: 1805
Ch. III: 1805
Ch. IV: 1806-08
Ch. V: 1809
Ch. VI: 1810
Ch. VII: 1811
Ch. VIII: 1812
Ch. IX: 1813-14
Ch X: 1814-15
Ch XI: 1815-16
Ch XII: 1817-18
Ch XIII: 1819-20
Vol. II. Contents
Ch I: 1821
Ch. II: 1822
Ch. III: 1823-24
Ch. IV: 1825-26
Ch. V: 1827
Ch. VI: 1827-28
Ch. VII: 1828
Ch. VIII: 1829
Ch. IX: 1830-31
Ch. X: 1832-33
Ch. XI: 1833
Ch. XII: 1834
Ch XIII: 1835-36
Ch XIV: 1837-38
Index
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“21st.—. . . Before I got to town, notes were out for a meeting at Ponsonby’s to-morrow night. There was a note at my house for Ord, but none for me. Ossulston told me this morning that Lord Grey had asked him whether ‘he thought Creevey would go to Ponsonby’s if he was asked.’ On Ossulston saying ‘Yes,’ the other shook his head with an air of distrust. Ossulston wished me to go, but I said certainly not, upon such a case as that. From his house I went to Lord Grey’s, and found him alone. He was civil, in good spirits, and looked remarkably well—talked generally of our running the Ministers hard: but not a word in detail of Ponsonby’s meeting, or anything else, and so we parted.

“I then went to Whitbread’s, who, I found, would not go to Ponsonby’s, considering himself to have been personally insulted by him; but very wisely deciding that his case should not be made a reason for any one else absenting himself. . . . He told me that Tierney had said to Ponsonby, in going over the persons to be asked and arriving at my name, that ‘Ponsonby must himself decide, for he knew as much as he [Tierney] did.’

“On coming home to dress, I found a note from Abercromby, stating that he asked a minute’s conversation with me at Brooks’s at night; which was
122 THE CREEVEY PAPERS [Ch. VI.
that he had been requested to learn from me, with every friendly wish to consult my own feelings, whether, if I was written to by Ponsonby, I wd. come to his house, and that it was thought right to tell me this communication was not made at the suggestion of Mr. Tierney. I said if I had received a letter from Ponsonby I had no doubt I should have gone, and so it ended. Gentlemen got into corners to whisper ‘that they had no doubt but Creevey would go to Ponsonby’s,’ and the Marquis of Lansdowne and I paraded for a quarter of an hour together, and he was much more affable than he has been for ages. . . . Lord Grey began to be very gracious, and begged me finally to write to Maxwell and Sir Charles Pole to bring them from Brighton. On my telling him Pole was not likely to be well enough to come, he said:—‘Damn him! I don’t believe he would vote with me if he came. The Doctor (Sidmouth) can’t make up his mind.’