determine whether they w^d do business with Lord A. & I am not sure that they have yet made up their minds[.] At any rate the Speech will give them one subject which they will not fail to lay hold of, to cast blame on the Gov^r & pick a quarrel, — the payment of the Public Salaries from the military chest & the demand on them to repay the amount[.] The Speech contained little else but this & a reference to the measures of Quarantine[.]

I was delighted to see Lord Ramsay's able & spirited debût in public life[.] He is said to be of the highest promise; — I doubt whether he will get in for Edin^r. There is a sad Radical set there to whom the Reform Bill has given votes, and besides his principles of decided Toryism will range the Whigs against him; and his declaration in favour of the Union of Church and State will bring upon him the opposition of some who are Tories but who belong to a strong and increasing party in Scotland, (& especially in Edinburgh where the shoe pinches most) who want to get rid of that connection, and leave the Church to the voluntary support of its members[.] Lord Ramsay is said to be a capital Speaker for so young a man[.] There is every chance, I am sorry to say, that Sir Geo. Murray will be turned out of the representation of Perthshire by Captⁿ Maule whom you may remember here; and who has turned from his noble Uncle's sound Tory principles to the Whiggism of his father, or something beyond.

Upon the whole however, I think the elections, so far as

we

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