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 LETTER 
 
 TO A 
 
 LATE CABINET MINISTER, 
 
 &c. 
 

 A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 A LATE CABINET MINISTER 
 
 OX THE 
 
 PRESENT CRISIS. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, ESQ. M. P. 
 
 AUTHOR OP " ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH." &C. 
 
 " But^ my Lords, how is the King's Government to be carried on ]" — The 
 Dnke of Wellington on the Reform Bill. 
 
 " The general appearance of submission encouraged the King 
 
 to remove from office the Marquis of Halifax, with whose liberal opinions he 
 had recently, as well as early, been dissatisfied. As the King found that Ha- 
 lifax would not comply with his projects, he determined to dismiss him before 
 the meeting of Parliament/ — Mackintosh's History of the Revolution. Chap. 2. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET, 
 
 1834. 
 
LONDON * 
 
 1B0T30N AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STHEET, S J RAKD. 
 
Li 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 TO A LATE CABINET MINISTER. 
 
 My Lord ; 
 The Duke of Wellington has obtained many 
 victories, but he never yet has obtained 'a vic- 
 tory over the English People ! — That battle is 
 now to be adventured ; it has been tried before, 
 but in vain. On far worse ground the great 
 Captain hazards it again ; for his first battle 
 was to prevent giving power to the people ; the 
 power obtained, his second is to resist it. It 
 is the usual fate of fortunate warriors, that their 
 old age is the sepulchre of their renown. No 
 man has read the history of England without 
 compassion for the hero of Anne's time. Marl- 
 borough in his glory, and Marlborough in his 
 dotage ; what a satire in the contrast ! With a 
 genius for war, it may be, equal ; with a genius 
 
 B 
 
 IV1^27543 
 
in peace, incontestably inferior ; with talents 
 far less various ; with a knowledge of his times 
 far less profound ; with his cunning and his 
 boldness, without his eloquence and his skill, 
 the Duke of Wellington has equalled the glory 
 of Marlborough, — is he about to surpass his do- 
 tage ? Marlborough was a trickster, but he 
 sought only to trick a court ; has the Duke of 
 Wellington a grander ambition, and would he 
 trick a people? '' Like chimnies," said the wise 
 man, *' which are useful in winter and useless in 
 summer, soldiers are great in war, and value- 
 less in peace." The chimney smokes again ! — 
 there is a shout from the philosophers who dis- 
 agree with the wise man, *' See how useful it 
 is !" — but it smokes because it has kept the soot 
 of the last century, and has just set the house in 
 a blaze ! — the smoke of the chimney is the first 
 sign of the conflagration of the edifice. 
 
 Let us, my Lord, examine the present state of 
 aflairs. Your Lordship is one of that portion of the 
 late Ministry which has been considered most li- 
 beral. Acute, far-seeing, and accomplished, with 
 abilities, which, exercised in a difiicult position. 
 
have been singularly successful in the results they 
 achieved, your Lordship is among those whose ele- 
 vation to the Cabinet was hailed with a wider sa- 
 tisfaction than that of a party — and so short a 
 time has elapsed between your accession and re- 
 tirement, (expulsion would be the proper term,) 
 that you are but little implicated in the faults or 
 virtues of the administration, over whose grave 
 I shall endeavour, in the course of this letter, to 
 utter a just and impartial requiem. I address to 
 you, my Lord, these observations, as one inter- 
 ested alike in the preservation of order, and the 
 establishment of a popular government — there 
 may be a few who wish to purchase the one at 
 the expense of the other ; you wish to unite 
 them, and so do L And we are both confident 
 that that is yet the wish, — nay more — it is the as- 
 sured hope, of the majority of the English people. 
 The King has dissolved Lord Melbourne's Ad- 
 ministration, and the Duke of Wellington is at 
 the head of affairs. Who will be his col- 
 leagues is a question that admits of no spe- 
 culation. We are as certain of the list as if it 
 were already in the Gazette. It is amusing to 
 
 b2 
 
see the now ministerial journals giving out, that 
 we are not on any account to suppose, that 
 it must necessarily be a high Conservative cabi- 
 net. God forbid so rash a conjecture ! " Who 
 knows," say they, '' but what many Whigs — 
 many Liberals, will be a part of it ! We are only 
 waiting for Sir Robert Peel, in order to show you, 
 
 perhaps, that the government will not be 
 
 Tory !"* So then, after all the Tory abuse of the 
 Wliigs — after all the assertions of their unpopu- 
 larity, it is nevertheless convenient to insinuate 
 that some of these most abominable men may 
 yet chequer and relieve the too expectant and 
 idolatrous adoration with which the people 
 would be embued for a cabinet purely Conserva- 
 tive ! The several ambrosias of Wellington and 
 Londonderry, of Herries and Peel, would be too 
 strong for mortal tastes, if blended into one 
 divine combination — so they might as well pop a 
 Whig or two into the composition, just to make 
 it fit for mankind ! The hypothesis may be con- 
 
 * " It is possible his Grace may think that some of the Whig 
 leaders who are abroad, or absent from London, are likely to 
 form useful components of a new administration."— ^^anctoref. 
 
venient — but, unhappily, no one accepts it. 
 Every man in the political world who sees an 
 inch before his nose, is aware, that though his 
 Grace may have an option with respect to mea- 
 sures, he has none with respect to men. He 
 may filch away the Whig policy, but he cannot 
 steal the Whigs themselves without their con- 
 sent. And the fact is notorious, that there is 
 not a single man of liberal politics — a single 
 man, who either belonged to the late govern- 
 ment, or has supported popular measures, who 
 will take office under the Duke of Wellington, 
 charm he never so wisely. It is said, my Lord, 
 by those who ought best to know, that even Lord 
 Stanley, of whom, by the vulgar, a momentary 
 doubt was entertained, scorns the very no- 
 tion of a coalition with the Conservatives — a 
 report I credit at once, because it is congenial 
 to the unblemished integrity and haughty 
 honour of the man. The Duke of Wellington, 
 then, has no option as to the party he must co-in- 
 vest with office — unless, indeed, he stripped him- 
 self of all power — abdicated the i^o^toi chef, and 
 sent up to his Majesty the very same bill of fare 
 
6 
 
 which has just been found so unpalatable to the 
 royal tastes. This is not exactly probable. 
 And we know, therefore, even before Sir Robert 
 Peel arrives, and whether Sir Robert Peel take 
 office or whether he do not, — we know that his 
 Grace's colleagues, or his Grace's nominees, can 
 only be the dittos of himself — it is the Farce of 
 Anti-Reform once more, by Mr. Sarum and his 
 family — it is the old company again, and with 
 the old motto ^' Vivant Rex et Regina !" Now- 
 a-days, even in farces, the loyalty of the play 
 bills does not suffice to carry the public. Thank 
 God ! for the honour of political virtue, it is, and 
 can be, no compromise of opinions ! — no inter- 
 mixture of Whigs and Tories ! —not a single name 
 to which the heart of the people ever for a mo- 
 ment responded will be found to relieve the 
 well-known list of downright, thorough, uncom- 
 promising enemies to all which concedes abuse 
 to the demands of opinion. Your Lordship re- 
 members in Virgil how jEneas meets suddenly 
 with the souls of those who were to return 
 to the earth they had before visited, after drink- 
 ing deep enough of oblivion ; so now how eager 
 
— how noisy — how anxious wait the Conserva- 
 tive shadows, for the happy hour that is to unite 
 them to the substance of place. 
 
 — Strepit omnis murmure campus I 
 
 how they must fret and chafe for the appointed 
 time ! — but in the meanwhile have they drunk of 
 the Lethe ? If they have, unhappily the world to 
 which they return has not had a similar advan- 
 tage ; they are escaped from their purgatory 
 before the appointed time — for the date which 
 Virgil and we gave them, in order completely to 
 cleanse their past misdeeds, was — a thousand 
 years ! In the meanwhile there they stand ! 
 mistaken, unequivocal ! — Happy rogues— behold 
 them, in the elysium of their hopes, perched upon 
 little red boxes, tied together by little red strings— 
 
 " Iterumque in tarda reverti 
 
 Corpora ; quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido ? " 
 
 Well may the Times and the Tories say they 
 will be ^' an united Cabinet : " — united they 
 always were in their own good days of the Liver- 
 
8 
 
 pool ascendancy — united to take office at every 
 risk — to seize all they can get — to give nothing 
 that they can refuse ! — My God ! what delight 
 among the subordinate scramblers to see before 
 them once more the prospect of a quarter's salary ! 
 — They have been out of service along time — 
 their pride is down —they are willing to be hired 
 by the job ; — a job too of the nature of their old 
 services ; for, without being a prophet, one may 
 venture to predict that they will have little 
 enough to do for their money ! When working- 
 day commences with the nextsession of Parliament 
 they will receive their wages and their discharge. 
 They have gone into sinecures again ! honest 
 fellows ! they are making quick use of the Poor 
 Law bill — in which it is ordained that able-bodied 
 paupers out of employ should be taken in doors 
 for relief! And yet I confess, there is something 
 melancholy as well as ludicrous, in the avidity 
 of these desperadoes. — The great Florentine his- 
 torian speaks with solemn indignation as of 
 something till then unheard of in the corruption 
 of human nature, that in the time of the plague 
 there were certain men who rejoiced, for it was 
 
9 
 
 an excellent time for pillage ! — the people perish- 
 ed, but the brigands throve ! — And nothing, we 
 might imagine at first, could exceed the baseness 
 of those who sought to enrich themselves amidst 
 the general affliction. But on consideration, we 
 must deem those men still baser who do not find 
 — but who create — the disorder ; — and who not 
 only profit by the danger of the public — but in 
 order to obtain the profit, produce the danger ! 
 — For, my Lord, there are two propositions 
 which I hold to be incontestable : — first, that the 
 late resolution of the King, if sudden in effect, 
 was the result of a previous and secret under- 
 standing that the Tories would accept office ; and 
 that his Majesty never came to the determination 
 of dismissing my Lord Melbourne, until he had 
 ascertained, mediately or immediately — (it mat- 
 ters not which, nor how long ago) — that the 
 Duke of Wellington was not only prepared to 
 advise the King as to his successor, but could 
 actually pledge himself to form a Ministry. 
 
 I grant that this is denied by the Conservative 
 journals, but to what an alternative would belief 
 in that denial reduce us ! Can we deem so 
 
10 
 
 meanly of the royal prudence, as to imagine 
 that the King could dismiss one Government, 
 without being assured that he could form another? 
 In what an awful situation would this empire be 
 placed, could we attribute to his Majesty, with 
 the Tory tellers of the tale, so utter a want of 
 the commonest resources of discretion, — so reck- 
 less and improvident a lunacy! 
 
 But it may be granted, perhaps, that the King- 
 was aware that the Duke of Wellington would 
 either undertake to form a Cabinet, or to advise 
 his Majesty as to its formation, whenever it 
 should please the King to exercise his undoubted 
 prerogative in the dismissal of Lord Melbourne, 
 and yet be asserted that neither that understand- 
 ing nor that dismissal was the result of in- 
 trigue. Doubtless ! Who knows so little of 
 a Court as to suppose that an intrigue is ever 
 carried on within its precincts ? Is not that the 
 place, above all others, where the secret whisper, 
 the tranquil hint, the words that never commit 
 the speaker, the invisible writing and automaton 
 talking of diplomacy, are never known ! It is 
 never in a Court that an intrigue is formed; 
 
13 
 
 and the reason is obvious — because they have 
 always another name for it ! There was no in- 
 trigue then. Why should there be one? The 
 King might never have spoken to the Duke of 
 Wellington on the subject — the Duke of Wel- 
 lington might be perfectly unaware of what time 
 or on what pretext Lord Melbourne would be 
 dismissed ; and yet the King might, and must, 
 (for who can say a King has not common sense ?) 
 have known that the Duke would accept office 
 whenever Lord Melbourne was dismissed ; and 
 the Duke have known, on his part, that the King 
 was aware of that loyal determination. This is 
 so plain a view of the case, that it requires no 
 state explanations to convince us of it, or per- 
 suade us out of it. 
 
 The Duke, then, and his colleagues were willing 
 to accept office : on the knowledge of that will- 
 ingness the King exercised his prerogative, and 
 since we now^ see no other adviser of the Crown, 
 it is his Grace alone whom we must consider 
 responsible for the coming experiment, which is 
 to back the House of Lords against the Repre- 
 sentatives of the People. 
 
12 
 
 I hold it as a second and incontestable pro- 
 position, that in this experiment there is dan- 
 ger, were it only for Ireland — the struggle 
 has begun — the people have not been the first 
 to commence — they will be the last to leave 
 it. It is a struggle between the Court and 
 the people. My Lord, recollect that fearful 
 passage, half tragedy half burlesque, in the his- 
 tory of France, which we now see renewed in 
 England — when Mirabeau rose up in the midst 
 of an assembly suddenly dissolved, and the na- 
 tion beheld the tiers etat on one side, and 
 
 the Master of the Ceremonies on the other ! 
 
 The Duke of Wellington is guiltless of the 
 lore of history, not so his colleagues. I 
 will concede the whole question of danger 
 in the struggle about to be — I will subscribe 
 to the wisdom of the experiment — I will re- 
 nounce liberty itself — if Sir Robert Peel, so ac- 
 complished in letters — if Sir George Murray, 
 so erudite in history, wdll but tell us of one 
 example in the records of human events in 
 which the people, having obtained the ascendant 
 power, have ever given it back again within two 
 
13 
 
 years from the date of their possession ! They 
 have the power now, in their elections — an elec- 
 tion is at hand — there is no army to awe, no 
 despot to subdue, no enemy to embarrass them 
 — will they, of their own accord, give back 
 that power to the very men from whom they 
 have wrenched it ? The notion is so preposterous 
 that we can scarcely imagine the design of the 
 new Cabinet to rest with the experiment of a 
 new Parliament : it would seem as if they medi- 
 tated the alternative of governing without a Par- 
 liament at all — as if they would hazard again the 
 attempt of the Stuarts ; and that the victor of 
 Waterloo is already looking less to the conduct 
 of the electors than to the loyalty of the army. 
 In fact, this is not so wholly extravagant an ex- 
 pectation as it may seem. The Tories fear the 
 people — why should the people not fear the To- 
 ries ? They call us desirous of a revolution — why 
 may we not think they would crush that re- 
 volution in the bud, by a despotism ? Nor, for 
 politicians without principle, would the attempt 
 be so ridiculous as our pride might suppose. It 
 seems to me, if they are resolved to govern us, that 
 
14 "^ 
 
 that would be the most probable mode of doing it. 
 A resolute army, well disciplined, and well 
 officered, with the Duke of Wellington at the 
 head, would be a far more formidable enemy to 
 the people than half a score hack officials in the 
 council, and a legion of smooth-faced Conserva- 
 tives, haranguing, bribing, promising,-— abusing 
 known reformers, and promising unknown re- 
 forms, to the *' ten-pound philosophers" from the 
 hustings : the latter experiment ^^ ridiculous, the 
 former is more grave and statesmanlike. If a Lon- 
 donderry would have advised his Majesty to call 
 in the Duke of Wellington, a Machiavelli would 
 have told him in doing so to calculate on the 
 army. Folly in these days, as in all others, can only 
 be supported and rendered venerable by force. 
 
 As yet we are lost in astonishment at the late 
 changes : we are not angry, we are too much 
 amused, and too confident of our own strength 
 to be angry. So groundless seems the change, 
 that people imagine it only to be fathomed by 
 the most recondite conjectures. They are lost 
 in a wilderness of surmise, and yet, I fancy, that 
 the mystery is not difficult to solve. 
 
 
16 
 
 Let us for a moment leave Lord Althorp out of 
 the question ; we will come to him by-and-by. 
 Let us consider the question of reforming the 
 Irish Church. England has two prominent 
 causes of trouble : the one is the state of Ireland, 
 the other is her House of Lords. Now it is 
 notorious that we cannot govern Ireland without 
 a very efficient and thorough reform in the 
 mighty grievance of her church ; it is equally 
 notorious that that reform the House of Lords 
 will reject. We foresaw this — we all knew that 
 in six months the collision between the two 
 Houses would come — we all knew that the Lords 
 would reject that reform, and we all felt assured 
 that Lord Melbourne would tell the King that he 
 was not fit to be a minister if he could not carry 
 it. There is the collision ! in that collision 
 which would have yielded ? Not the House of 
 Commons. All politicians, even the least pro- 
 phetic, must have foreseen this probability, this 
 certainty. His Majesty (let us use our common 
 sense) must have seen it too. Doubtless, his 
 Majesty foresaw also that this was not the sole 
 question of dispute, which his present adminis- 
 tration, and his present House of Commons would 
 
16 
 
 liave been compelled by public opinion to raise 
 with the Hereditary Chamber, and his Majesty 
 therefore resolved to take the earliest decorous op- 
 portunity of preventing the collision, not by gain- 
 ing the Lords, but by dismissing the Commons, 
 and he now hopes, by the assistance of the lea- 
 der of the House of Lords, to make the attempt 
 to govern his faithful subjects, not by the voice 
 of that chamber they have chosen for themselves, 
 but by that very assembly who were formerly 
 in the habit of choosing for them. It is an at- 
 tempt to solve our most difficult problem, an 
 attempt to bring the two Houses into harmony 
 with each other ; but it is on an unexpected prin- 
 ciple. We are not to make our Lords reformers, 
 but to make our Representatives cease to be so. 
 You may say that this is conjecture, but it is by 
 such conjectures that the riddles of history are 
 solved. If the conjecture be true, the present 
 government is an ingenious experiment, but His 
 Majesty has forgotten Gatton and Lostwithiel 
 are no more. In the next election this ques- 
 tion is to be tried, ''Are the people of 
 England to be governed according to 
 
 THE opinion of THE HoUSE OF LoRDS, OR AC- 
 
17 
 
 CORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THEIR OWN 
 
 REFORM ! That is the point at issue. Twist, per- 
 vert, construe it as you will — raise whatever 
 cries in favour of the Church on one hand, or in 
 abuse of the Whigs on the other, the question for 
 the electors is;— will they, or will they not, choose 
 a House of Commons that shall pass the same 
 votes as the Lords, and that shall not pass votes 
 which the Lords would reject? After having abo- 
 lished the Gattons, will they make their whole 
 House a Gatton ? 
 
 Supposing then the King, from such evi- 
 dent reasons, to have resolved to get rid of 
 his Ministers, at the first opportunity,'^ — suddenly 
 
 • And the Standard (Nov. 20th,) the now official organ, (and 
 certainly an abler or a more eloquent the ministers could not 
 have) frankly allows that the King has long been dissatisfied 
 with the government — and even suggests the causes of that dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 "Lord Grey's administration," it says, " was at first perfect — 
 (indeed ! that is the first time we have heard the concession from 
 such a quarter) — or if altered, altered only for the better 
 by its purification from the to-all-intolerahle Earl of Durham." 
 But this halcyon state soon ceases, because liberal measures 
 creep in, and chief among the causes of the King's dislike to 
 his ministers, and therefore to the Commons, is, first, the Irish 
 Church Bill, which the reader will remember was rejected 
 by the House of Lords — the bill, not the rejection of U, is 
 mightily displeasing to the King; and secondly, that change in 
 the Irish Coercion Bill which allowed his Majesty's Irish sub- 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 Lord Spencer dies, and the opportunity is af- 
 forded. There might have been a better one. 
 Throughout the whole history of England, since 
 the principles of a constitutional government, and 
 of a responsible administration, were established, 
 in 1688, there is no parallel to the combination 
 of circumstances attendant upon the present 
 change. A parallel to a part of the case there 
 may be, to the whole case there is none. The 
 Cabinet assure the King of their power and wil- 
 lingness to carry on the government ; the House 
 of Commons, but recently elected, supports that 
 Cabinet by the most decided majorities ; the 
 Premier, not forced on the King by a party, 
 but solicited by himself to accept oflSice ; a time 
 of profound repose ; no resignation tendered, 
 no defeat incurred— the revenue increasing — 
 quiet at home— peace abroad ; the political 
 hemisphere perfectly serene : — when lo, there 
 dies a very old man, whose death every one 
 has been long foreseeing — not a minister, but 
 the father of a minister, which removes, not 
 
 jects a Jury instead of a Court-Martial. This is termed by the 
 Standard — " the Coercion Bill mangled into a mere mockery." — 
 "VVe may see what sort of mangling we are likely to have. 
 
w 
 
 the Premier, but the Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer, from the House of Commons to the House 
 of Lords ! An event so long anticipated, does not 
 confound the Cabinet. The premier is not 
 aghast, he cannot be taken by surprise by an 
 event so natural, and so anticipated, (for very 
 old men will die ! ) he is provided with names 
 to fill up the vacant posts of Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons. 
 He both feels and declares himself equally strong 
 as ever ; he submits his new appointments to 
 his Majesty. Let me imagine the reply. The 
 King, we are informed, by the now ministerial 
 organs, expresses the utmost satisfaction at 
 Lord Melbourne and his Government ; he con- 
 siders him the most honourable of men, and 
 among the wisest of statesmen. Addressing 
 him, then, after this fashion — 
 
 " He does not affect to dissemble his love, 
 And therefore he kicks him down stairs." 
 
 '* My Lord : — you are an excellent man, very — 
 but old Lord Spencer — he was a man seventy- 
 six years old; no one could suppose that at 
 
 c2 
 
20 
 
 that age, an Earl would die ! You are an ad- 
 mirable "minister, I am pleased with your mea- 
 sures ; but old Lord Spencer is no more. It is 
 a sudden, an unforeseen event. Who could 
 imagine he would only live to seventy-six ? 
 The revenue is prospering, the Cabinet is strong 
 — our allies are faithful, you have the House 
 of Commons at your back ; but alas ! Lord Spen- 
 cer is dead ! You cannot doubt my attachment 
 to Reform, but of course it depended on the life 
 of Lord Spencer. You have lost a Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer ; you say, you can supply his 
 place ; — but who can supply the place of the late 
 Lord Spencer ? You have lost a leader of the 
 House of Commons ; you have found another 
 on whom you can depend ; but, my Lord, 
 where shall we find another Earl Spencer, so 
 aged, and so important as the Earl who is gone ! 
 The life of the government, you are perfectly 
 aware, was an annuity on the life of this un- 
 fortunate nobleman — he was only seventy-six 1 
 my love of liberal men, and liberal measures, is 
 exceeding, and it was bound by the strongest tie, 
 — the life of the late Lord Spencer. How can my 
 
81 
 
 people want Reform, now Lord Spencer is dead ? 
 How can I support reforming ministers, when Lord 
 Spencer has ceased to be? The Duke of Welling- 
 ton, you must be perfectly aware, is the only man 
 to govern the country, which has just lost the 
 owner of so fine a library, and so large an 
 estate. It is true, that his Grace could not 
 govern it before, but then Lord Spencer was in 
 the way ! The untimely decease of that noble- 
 man has altered the whole face of affairs. The 
 people were not quite contented with the Whigs, 
 because they did not go far enough ; but then 
 — Lord Spencer was alive ! The people now 
 will be satisfied with the Tories, because they 
 do not go so far, for — Lord Spencer is dead ! 
 A Tory ministry is necessary j it cannot get 
 on without a Tory parliament ; and a Tory par- 
 liament cannot be chosen without a Tory people. 
 But, ministry, parliament, and people, what 
 can they be but Tory, after so awful a dispen- 
 sation of Providence as the death of the Earl of 
 Spencer ? My Lord, excuse my tears, and do 
 me the favour to take this letter to the Duke of 
 Wellington." 
 
22 
 
 Well, but it may be said, that it was not 
 the death of this good old man, that so affected 
 the King's arrangements ; it was the removal of 
 Lord Althorp from the Commons. ^' What, 
 is not that cause enough?" cry the Tories; 
 About as much cause as the one just assigned. 
 *' What, did not Lord Melbourne himself say, 
 at the retirement of Lord Grey, that the return 
 of Lord Althorp was indispensably necessary to 
 his taking office ?" Very possibly. But there 
 is this little difference between the two cases ; 
 in the one, Lord Melbourne said, he could 
 not carry oli the government without Lord 
 Althorp as leader of the Commons ; and in 
 the other, he assured the King, that he could. 
 The circumstances at the time which broke up 
 Lord Grey's government, were such as raised 
 the usual importance of Lord Althorp to a de- 
 gree which every one saw must subside with 
 the circumstances themselves. In the first 
 place, it was understood, that Lord Althorp left 
 the government, rather than pass an unpopular 
 clause in the Coercion Bill, the passing of 
 
23 
 
 which certain circumstances rendered doubly 
 distasteful to his mind ; that this led to the re- 
 signation of Earl Grey, and that Lord Althorp 
 felt a natural and generous scruple in resuming 
 office after that resignation. The Members of 
 the House of Commons came to their memora- 
 ble requisition, because they looked upon Lord 
 Althorp's resignation, as the consequence of 
 his popular sentiments. They feared the va- 
 cancy he created could be filled only by a man of 
 less liberal opinions, and they felt his return, 
 in such circumstances, would be for the po- 
 pular triumph, as his secession might be but a 
 signal for a change of policy. Such were the 
 circumstances under which Lord Melbourne, at 
 that time, considered Lord Althorp's return to the 
 leadership of the Commons as necessary to the 
 stability of the government. But what circum- 
 stances in the late changes are analogous to 
 these? Is Lord Althorp now removed from ofiice 
 by popular sentiments, which rendered his 
 return necessary for the triumph of his sen- 
 timents — not the use of his talents? Is the 
 Cabinet broken up ? Is the House of Commons 
 
24 
 
 declaring, that not even death shall tear it from 
 its beloved leader ? What absurdity, to follow out 
 the parallel ! Lord Althorp was called by the 
 death of his venerable father to the House of Lords. 
 His loss created no alarm for an alteration in our 
 policy, broke up no cabinet, and disturbed no 
 measures ; the prime minister was perfectly re- 
 signed to the event, and perfectly prepared with 
 his successor — a successor of the same princi- 
 ples, and if of less conciliatory manners, of equal 
 experience, more comprehensive knowledge, and 
 greater eloquence.''^ The King has a right to 
 exercise his prerogative — no one disputes it. It is 
 only a misfortune that other ministers have not 
 also fathers of seventy-six ! Old Sir Robert, good 
 Lord Mornington — would that they were alive ! 
 And having now to all plain men shown how 
 utterly laughable is the whole pretext of the dis- 
 missal, and the whole parallel between Lord Al- 
 
 ♦ In the best informed political circles it is understood that 
 Lord John Russell would have led the House of Commons and 
 had the conduct of the Irish Church Bill. Mr. Abercromby 
 would have taken charge of the Municipal Reform. Names that 
 on these questions in particular would have shown that the 
 government were in earnest in these measures. 
 
25 
 
 thorp's former retirement and present elevation, 
 let us turn again from the reason of the change 
 to the change itself. 
 
 There are some persons simple enough to ima- 
 gine that though the Tory government may imply 
 Tory men it does not imply Tory measures ; that 
 the Duke of Wellington, having changed his 
 sentiments (no, not his sentiments, — his actions) 
 — on the Catholic question, will change them 
 again upon matters like — the reform of the 
 Protestant Church, the abuses of corporations, 
 perhaps even triennial parliaments, and the pur- 
 gation of the pension list! There are men, call- 
 ing themselves reformers, and blaming the Whigs 
 as too moderate in reforms, not only vain enough 
 to hope this, but candid enough to say that a go- 
 vernment thus changing — no matter with what 
 open and shameless profligacy — no matter with 
 what insatiate lust of power, purchased by what 
 unparalleled apostacy — that a government, thus 
 changing, and therefore thus unprincipled, 
 ought to receive the support of the people ! 
 They would give their suffrage to the Duke of 
 Wellington upon the very plea, that he will 
 desert his opinions ; and declare that they will 
 
26 
 
 support him as a minister, if they can but be 
 permitted to loathe him as an apostate. 
 
 My lord, I think differently on this point. 
 Even were I able to persuade myself that the 
 new Tory government would rival or outbid the 
 Whigs in popular measures, I would not sup- 
 port it. I might vote for their measures, but I 
 would still attempt to remove the men. What, is 
 there nothing at which an honest and a generous 
 people should revolt, in the spectacle of minis- 
 ters suddenly turned traitors by the bribe of 
 office — at the juggling by which men, opposing 
 all measures of reform when out of place, will, 
 the very next month, carry those measures if 
 place depends upon it ? Would there be no evil 
 in this to the morality of the people ? Would 
 there be no poison in this to the stream of pub- 
 lic opinion ? Would it be no national misfortune 
 ' — no shock to order itself, (so much of which 
 depends on confidence in its administrators,) to 
 witness what sickening tergiversation, what in- 
 delible infamy, the vilest motives of place and 
 power could inflict on the characters of public 
 men ? And to see the still more lamentable 
 spectacle of a Parliament and a Press vindi- 
 
27 
 
 eating the infamy, and applauding the tergiver- 
 sator ! Vain, for these new-light converts, would 
 be the cant excuses of * practical statesmen at- 
 tending to the spirit of the age' — ' conforming 
 to the wants of the time' — * yielding their 
 theories to the power of the people ;' for these 
 are the very excuses of which they have denied 
 the validity ! If this argument be good for them 
 in office, why did they deny, and scorn, and 
 trample upon it out of office ? far more strong 
 and cogent was it when they had only to 
 withdraw opposition to measures their theories 
 disapproved, than when they themselves are 
 spontaneously to frame those measures, adminis- 
 ter them, and carry through. There could be but 
 one interpretation to their change — one argument 
 in their defence, and that is, — that they would not 
 yield to reforms when nothing was to be got by 
 it ; but that they would enforce reforms when 
 they were paid for it — that they would not part 
 with the birthright without the pottage, nor 
 play the Judas without the fee ! I do not think 
 so meanly of the high heart of England as to 
 suppose that it would approve, even of good 
 measures, from motives so shamelessly corrupt. 
 
28 
 
 And, for my own part, solemnly as I consider 
 a thorough redress of her '' monster grievance" 
 necessary for the peace of Ireland, a reform of 
 our own Church, and our own Corporations, and 
 a thorough carrying out and consummation of 
 the principles of our reform, desirable for the 
 security and prosperity of England, I should 
 consider these blessings purchased at too ex- 
 travagant a rate, if the price were the degrada- 
 tion of public men— and the undying contempt 
 for consistency, faith, and honour — for all that 
 makes power sacred, and dignity of moral 
 weight — which such an apostacy would evince. 
 Never was liberty permanently served by the sa- 
 crifice of honesty. 
 
 But this supposition, though industriously put 
 forward by some politicians, unacquainted with 
 what is best in our English nature, is, I think, ut- 
 terly groundless. I do not attribute to the Duke of 
 Wellington himself too rigid a political honesty. 
 He, who after having stigmatized one day the 
 Reform Bill, could undertake to carry it the 
 next, may be supposed to have a mind, which, 
 however locked and barred, the keys of state 
 can open to conviction. But, let it be remem- 
 
29 
 
 bered, that his Grace stood then almost alone. 
 All that was high and virtuous of his party re- 
 fused to assist in his astonishing enterprise. 
 From Sir Robert Peel to Sir Robert Inglis — 
 from the moderate to the ultra-Tory — every 
 man who had tasted the sweets of character, re- 
 coiled from so gross a contamination. His three 
 days' government fell at once. Now he is wiser 
 — doubtless he has formed a government — doubt- 
 less, he has contrived to embrace in it the men who 
 refused before. I believe, for the honour of my 
 countrymen, that they have not receded from 
 their principles now, any more than they receded 
 then. And those principles are anti-reforming. 
 This is, then, their dilemma : either they will 
 prosecute reform, or they will withhold it — either 
 they will adhere to their former votes, or they 
 will reverse them : in the one case, then, people 
 of England, you will have uncompromising anti- 
 reformers at your head, — in the other, you will 
 have ambitious and grasping traitors. Let them 
 extricate themselves from this dilemma if they 
 can ! 
 
 But, in fact, they have not this option. They 
 are committed in every way to their old princi- 
 
30 
 
 pies ; they are committed, first, to their own 
 party, and secondly, to the King. Were they 
 as liberal as the Whigs, their friends would de- 
 sert them, perhaps his Majesty would dismiss 
 them. Their friends are the high church party. 
 High Church is the war cry they raise — High 
 Church the motto of their banner. What is the 
 High Church party ? It is the party that is 
 sworn to the abuses of the Church. Its mem- 
 bers are pledged body and soul to the Bishops, 
 and the Deans, and the Prebends, and the 
 Universities, and the Orangemen of Ireland. 
 They may give out that they think a great 
 Church Reform is necessary ; vague expression ! 
 what is great to their eyes would be invisible 
 to ours. Will they — let us come to the point, and 
 I will single out one instance — will they curtail 
 the Protestant Establishment of Catholic Ireland ? 
 They have called the attempt " spoliation ;" will 
 they turn '' spoliators ?" — If so, they lose their 
 friends, for no man supposes that the Tory 
 churchmen have a chemical affinity to the Duke 
 of Wellington — they have no affinity but that of 
 interest : if he offend their interests, he offends 
 the party. Let him but say, '^ that church has 
 
31 
 
 no congregation, but it gives 1500/. a year to 
 the parson ; I respect property — the property of 
 the people — and they shall cease to pay, after 
 the death of the incumbent, for receiving no 
 benefit ;" and all the parsons of the country are 
 in arms against him ! What a moment to sup- 
 pose that he could do justice in such a case, — 
 with the cheers of the Orangemen, and the 
 ravings of Londonderry, and Roden, and Wick- 
 low ringing in his ears.^ 
 
 As for the claims of the Dissenters, who can 
 imagine they will be attended to by the man 
 who has called them atheists ? He may swal- 
 low his words, but can he swallow his friends of 
 the colleges ? He cannot lose his great perma- 
 nent support, the Church, for a temporary and 
 hollow support which would forsake him the 
 moment he had served its purpose. 
 
 The Corporations — what hope of reform there? 
 Every politician knows the Corporations are the 
 
 • See too the Duke's speeches appended to this letter. And 
 while I am correcting these sheets, (Friday, Nov. 21,) in the 
 Report of the Conservative Dinner in Kent, it is pleasing to find 
 that the supporters of the Duke of "Wellington are of opinion 
 that the cause of the great sinecure of Ireland, is the cause 
 of all England ! Very true — but one is the plaintiff in the cause^ 
 the other the defendant ! 
 
32 
 
 strongholds of Toryism, and many of the truest 
 liberals supported the government till the Corpo- 
 ration reform should be passed, in order to see, 
 safely carried a measure against Toryism, only 
 less important than the Reform Bill. To reform 
 the Corporations will be to betray his own 
 fortresses. Is the Duke of Wellington the man 
 to do this ? 
 
 But it is not to isolated measures that we are to 
 look — the contest is not for this reform or the other 
 — the two parties stand forth clear and distinct — 
 they are no parties of names, but parties of op- 
 posite and irrecondleable interests. With the 
 Duke of Wellington are incorporated those who 
 have an interest in what belongs to an aristocra- 
 tic, in opposition to a popular government, and he 
 can concede nothing, or as little as possible, cal- 
 culated to weaken the interests of his parti zans. 
 He is the incarnation of the House of Lords in 
 opposition to the voice of the House of Commons. 
 
 Were he then a Reformer, the people would 
 despise him, his friends would desert,^ and we 
 
 * But he might suppose that the measure which lost a 
 Tory would gain a liberal. Yes, for that measure only. The 
 friend would be lost for ever, the enemy gained but for a 
 night. 
 
3a 
 
 may add, the possibility that the King would 
 dismiss him. 
 
 His Majesty, we are assured, has no per- 
 sonal dislike to the late premier : he lauds 
 him as the most honourable of men — he blows 
 up his government, and scatters chaplets 
 over the ruin. It was not a dislike to his 
 person, but to his principles that ensured his 
 dismissal. Perhaps, had that accomplished 
 and able minister condescended * to palter in a 
 double sense' — to equivocate and dissemble, to 
 explain his means, but to disguise his objects, he 
 might still be in office. But it is known in the 
 political world that he was an honest statesman 
 — that whatever was his last conference with the 
 King, he did not disguise in former interviews 
 that reform must be an act as well as name — 
 that a government to be strong must be strong 
 in public gratitude and confidence — and it may 
 be, with respect to the particular reform of the 
 Irish church, that he may have delicately re- 
 marked, that the late Commission sanctioned by 
 the King was not to amuse but to satisfy the 
 people — that if its Report furnished a list of sine- 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 cure livings, there would be no satisfaction in 
 wondering at the number — that to ascertain the 
 manner and amount of abuses is only the prelude 
 to their redress. This is reported of Lord Mel- 
 bourne. I believe it, though not a syllable 
 about any reform might have been introduced 
 at the exact period of his removal. These, then, 
 were the sentiments that displeased his Majesty, 
 and to these sentiments he preferred the Duke 
 of Wellington. He chose these new ministers 
 because they would do less than his late ones. 
 He can only give them his countenance so long 
 as they fulfil his expectations. 
 
 I pass over as altogether frivolous and absurd 
 the tittle-tattle of the day. The King might or not 
 be displeased at the speeches of Lord Brougham, 
 — true, they might have offended the royal taste, 
 but scarcely the royal politics — Heaven knows 
 they were sufficiently conservative and sufficient- 
 ly loyal ; — they were much of the same character 
 as those his Majesty might hear whispered, not 
 declaimed, from his next chancellor at his own 
 table. Such as they were, they had nothing to 
 do with his Majesty's resolve — if they had, he 
 
35 
 
 would have sent, not for the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, but the Earl of Durham ! I pass over with 
 equal indifference the gossip that attacks the 
 family of his Majesty. I know enough of courts 
 to be sensible that we, who do not belong to 
 them, are rarely well informed as to the influ- 
 ences which prevail in that charmed orbit ; and 
 I am sufficiently embued with the chivalry of an 
 honest man not to charge women with errors of 
 which they are probably innocent, and of the 
 consequences of which they are almost invariably 
 unaware. I can even conceive that were it true 
 that his Majesty's royal consort, orthe female part 
 of his family, were able to exercise an influence 
 over state affairs, they would be actuated by 
 the most affectionate regard for his interests and 
 his dignity. The views of women are necessa- 
 rily confined to a narrow circle : their public 
 opinion is not that of a wide and remote multi- 
 tude. They are attracted, even in humble sta- 
 tions, by the '^ solemn plausibilities" of life — they 
 feel an anxious interest for those connected with 
 them, which often renders their judgment too 
 morbidly jealous of the smallest apparent dimi- 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 nution of their splendor or their power. To ima- 
 gine that the more firmly a monarch adheres to his 
 prerogatives the more he secures his throne, is a 
 mistake natural to their sex. If such of them as 
 may be supposed to advise his Majesty did form 
 and did act on such a belief, to my mind it 
 would be a natural and even an excusable error. 
 Neither while I lament the resolution of the 
 King, am I blind to the circumstances of his 
 situation. Called to the throne in times of sin- 
 gular difficulty— the advisers of his predecessor, 
 whose reign had been peaceful and brilliant, on 
 one side — a people dissatisfied with half reforms 
 on the other — educated to consider the House of 
 Lords at least as worthy of deference as the po- 
 pular will — disappointed at finding that one con- 
 cession, however great, could not content a 
 people who demanded it, but as the means to an 
 end — turning to the most powerful organ of the 
 Press, and reading that his liberal Ministers 
 were unpopular, and that the country cared not 
 who composed its government — seeing before 
 4iim but two parties, besides the government 
 party— the one headed by the idol of that people 
 
37 
 
 he began to fear, and the other by the most il- 
 lustrious supporter of an order of things which 
 in past times was the most favourable to mo- 
 narchy ;— I cannot deem it altogether as much a 
 miracle as a misfortune that he should be in- 
 duced to make the experiment he has risked. 
 But I do feel indignation at those — not women, 
 but men— grey -haired and practical politicians, 
 who must have been aware, if not of its utter 
 futility, of its pregnant danger ; by whose assist- 
 ance the King now adventures no holiday expe- 
 riment. — For a poor vengeance or a worse ambi- 
 tion they are hazarding the monarchy itself; 
 by playing the Knave they expose the King. For 
 this is the danger—not (if the people be true to 
 themselves) that the Duke of Wellington will 
 crush liberty, but that the distrust of the Royal 
 wisdom in the late events — the feeling of inse- 
 curity it produces — the abrupt exercise of one 
 man's prerogative to change the whole face of 
 our policy, domestic, foreign, and colonial, 
 without any assigned reason greater than the 
 demise of old Lord Spencer— the indignation for 
 the aristocracy, if the Duke should head it 
 
38 
 
 against Reform— the contempt for the aristocracy 
 if the Duke should countermarch it to Reform — 
 the release of all extremes of more free opinions, 
 on the return which must take place, sooner or 
 later, of a liberal administration ; — the danger 
 is, lest these and similar causes should in times, 
 when all institutions have lost the venerable moss 
 of custom, and are regarded solely for their 
 utility — induce a desire for stronger innovations 
 than those merely of reform. 
 
 *' Nothing," said a man who may be called 
 the prophet of revolutions, * ' destroys a mo- 
 narchy while the people trust the King. But 
 persons and things are too easily confounded, 
 and to lose faith in the representative of an in- 
 stitution, forbodes the decease of the institution 
 itself." Attached as I am by conviction to a 
 monarchy for this country — an institution that 
 I take the liberty humbly to say I have else- 
 where vindicated, with more effect, perhaps, as 
 coming from one known to embrace the cause of 
 the people, than the more vehement declama- 
 tions of slaves and courtiers — I view such a 
 prospect with alarm. And not the less so, be- 
 
39 
 
 cause Order is of more value than the Institutions 
 which are but formed to guard it ; and in the 
 artificial and complicated affairs of this country, 
 a struggle against monarchy would cost the tran- 
 quillity of a generation. 
 
 We are standing on a present, surrounded by 
 fearful warnings from the past. The dismissal 
 of a ministry too liberal for a King— too little 
 liberal for the people, is to be found a common 
 event in the stormiest pages of human history. 
 It is like the parting with a common mediator, 
 and leaves the two extremes to their own battle. 
 
 And now, my Lord, before I speak of what 
 ought to be, and I am convinced will be the 
 conduct of the people, who are about to be made 
 the judge of the question at issue, let me say a 
 few words upon the Cabinet that is no more. I 
 am not writing a panegyric on the Whigs— I 
 leave that to men who wore their uniform and 
 owned their leaders. I have never done so. In 
 the palmiest days of their power, I stooped not 
 the knee to them. By vote, pen, and speech, I 
 have humbly but honestly asserted my own in- 
 dependence ; and I had my reward in the sar- 
 
40 
 
 casms and the deprecation of that party which 
 seemed likely for the next quarter of a century 
 to be the sole dispensers of the ordinary prizes 
 of ambition. No matter. I wanted not their fa- 
 vours, and could console myself for the thousand 
 little obstacles, by which a powerful party can ob- 
 struct the parliamentary progress of one who 
 will not adopt their errors. I do not write the 
 panegyric of the Whigs, and though I am not 
 one of those who can be louder in vituperation 
 when the power is over, than in warning before 
 the offence is done, I have not, I own, the mis- 
 placed generosity to laud now the errors which 
 I have always lamented. It cannot be denied, my 
 Lord, or at least / cannot deny it, that the 
 Whig government disappointed the people. 
 And by the Whig government I refer to that of 
 my Lord Grey. Not so much because it did not 
 go far enough, as with some ill judged partizans 
 is contended, but rather because it went too far. 
 It went too far, my Lord, when its first act was to 
 place Sir Manners Sutton in the Speaker's chair, 
 — it went too far when it passed the Coercion 
 Bill— it went too far when it defended sinecures 
 
41 
 
 — it went too far when it marched its army to 
 protect the pension list. — It might have denied 
 many popular chang.es — if it had not defended 
 and enforced unpopular measures. — It could not 
 do all that the people expected, but where was 
 the necessity of doing what the people never 
 dreamt of? Some might have regretted when it 
 was solely Whig — but how many were disgusted 
 when it seemed three parts Tory 1 Nor was this 
 all — much that it did was badly done : there was 
 a want of practical knowledge in the principle 
 and the details of many of its measures — it often 
 blundered and it often bungled. But these 
 were the faults of a past Cabinet. The Cabinet 
 of Lord Melbourne had not been tried. There 
 was a vast difference between the two adminis- 
 trations, and that difference was this — in the one 
 the more liberal party was the minority, in the 
 other it was the majority. In the Cabinet of 
 the late Premier, the weight of Sir John Hob- 
 house, Lord Duncannon, and the Earl of Mul- 
 grave was added to the scale of the people. 
 There was in the Cabinet just dissolved a 
 majority of men whose very reputation was 
 
42 
 
 the popular voice, whose names were as worm- 
 wood to the Tories, and to whom it is amusing 
 to contrast the language applied by the Tory 
 Journals with that which greeted ^* in liquid 
 lines mellifluously bland," the luke-warm re- 
 formers they supplanted. Lord Melbourne's 
 Cabinet had not been tried — It is tried now 
 — The King has dismissed it in favour of 
 THE Duke of Wellington ! His Majesty 
 took the earliest opportunity and the faintest pre- 
 text in the royal power to prove that he thought 
 it more liberal than the Cabinet which preceded 
 it. If some cry out with the Tories — *^ Nay, 
 what said Lord Brougham at the Edinburgh 
 dinner ?" the answer is obvious. Without lending 
 any gloss to the expressions of that singular 
 and unfortunate speech, it is enough to remind 
 the people that Lord Brougham, though a great 
 orator and a great man, able to play many parts, 
 cannot fill up the whole roles of the Cabinet. 
 Three other Cabinet ministers were present, 
 Sir John Hobhouse, Mr. EUice, Mr. Abercromby. 
 Did they echo the sentiments of Lord Brougham ? 
 No ; they declared only their sympathy with 
 
43 
 
 the sentiments of Lord Durham. They too la- 
 mented every hour that passed over * * recognized 
 and unreformed abuses;" they adopted Lord Dur- 
 ham's principle as their own. The Chancellor, 
 since he quoted so reverently the royal name, may 
 have uttered the royal sentiments, but three of his 
 colleagues before his very face uttered only the 
 sentiments which were those of the people when 
 they elected a reformed parliament for the sup- 
 port of reforming ministers. By these three 
 speakers, and not by the one speaker, are we to 
 judge, then, in common fairness of what the govern- 
 m£nt would have done. The majority of the 
 Cabinet were of the principles of these speakers. 
 Had even Lord Brougham been an obstacle to 
 those principles when they came to be discussed 
 in the Cabinet, Lord Brougham would have 
 succumbed and not the principles. Of the con- 
 duct of that remarkable man it is not now neces- 
 sary to speak ; nor is it by these hasty lines, nor 
 perhaps by so unable a hand, that that intricate 
 character can be accurately and profoundly ana- 
 lysed. When the time comes that may restore 
 him to office, it will be the fitting season for 
 shrewder judges of character than I am, to speak 
 
44 
 
 firmly and boldly of his merits or his faults. 
 At present it is no slight blame for one so long 
 in public life — so eminent and so active — to say 
 that his friends consider him a riddle : if he be 
 misconstrued, whose fault is it but his own? 
 When the Delphic oracle could be interpreted 
 two ways, what wonder that the world grew at 
 last to consider it a cheat ! 
 
 With Lord Melbourne himself, it was my lot 
 in early youth to be brought in contact, and I 
 still retain a lively impression of his profundity 
 as a scholar— of his enthusiasm at generous sen- 
 timents — and of that happy frame of mind he so 
 peculiarly possesses, and of which the stuflF of 
 Statesmen is best made, at once practical and phi- 
 losophical, large enough to conceive principles, — 
 — close enough to bring them to effect.''^ Could we 
 disentangle and remove ourselves from the pre- 
 sent, could we fancy ourselves in a future age, it 
 might possibly be thus that an historian would de- 
 
 * I imagined him susceptible only to the charge of indolence, 
 and in " England and the English" I imputed to him that fault. 
 On learning from those who can best judge, that in office . at 
 least the imputation was unjust, I took, long since, the opportu- 
 nity of a new edition to efface it from that work. 
 
45 
 
 scribe him : — *' Few persons could have been se- 
 lected by a king, as prime minister, in those days 
 of violent party, and of constant change, who were 
 more fitted by nature and circumstances to act 
 with the people, hut for the King. A Politician 
 probably less ardentthan sagacious, he was exactly 
 the man to conform to the genius of a particular 
 time ; — to know how far to go with prudence — 
 where to stop with success ; not vehement in 
 temper, not inordinate in ambition, he was not 
 likely to be hurried away by private objects, af- 
 fections, or resentments. To the moment of his 
 elevation as premier, it can scarcely be said of his 
 political life that it affords one example of impru- 
 dence. * Not to commit himself ,' wsls at one time 
 supposed to be his particular distinction. His 
 philosophy was less that which deals with abstract 
 doctrines than that which teaches how to com- 
 mand shifting and various circumstances. He sel- 
 dom preceded his time, and never stopped short 
 of it. Add to this, that with a searching know- 
 ledge of mankind, he may have sought to lead, 
 but never to deceive, them. His was the high 
 English statesmanship which had not recourse 
 to wiles or artifice. He was one whom a king 
 
4« 
 
 might have trusted, for he was not prone to de- 
 ceive himself, and he would not deceive another. 
 His judgment wary — his honour impregnable. 
 Such was the minister who, if not altogether that 
 which the people would have selected, seems pre- 
 cisely that which a king should have studied to pre- 
 serve. He would not have led, as by a more 
 bold and vigorous genius. Lord Durham, 
 equally able, equally honest, with perhaps a 
 yet deeper philosophy, a more masculine and 
 homely knowledge of mankind, and a more pro- 
 phetic vision of the spirit of the age, might have 
 done; — he would not have led the People to 
 good government, but he would have marched 
 with them side by side." 
 
 Such I believe will be the outline of the 
 character Lord Melbourne will bequeath to a 
 calmer and more remote time. And this is 
 not my belief alone. I observe that most of 
 those independent members who had been 
 gradually detached from the cabinet of Lord 
 Grey, looked with hope and friendly dispo- 
 sitions to that of his successor. In most of 
 the recent public meetings and public dinners 
 where the former Cabinet was freely blamed, 
 
47 
 
 there was a willingness to trust the later one. 
 And even those who would have wreaked on the 
 government their discontent upon the Chancellor 
 were deterred by Lord Durham's honest eulo- 
 gium on the Premier. This much then we must 
 concede to the Melbourne administration. First, 
 it was a step beyond Lord Grey's, it embraced 
 the preponderating, instead of the lesser, number 
 of men, of the more vigorous and liberal policy. 
 The faults of Lord Grey's government are not 
 fairly chargeable upon it. Men of the independ- 
 ent party hoped more from it. 
 
 Secondly, by what we know, it seems to have 
 been in earnest as to its measures, for we know 
 this, that the Corporation Reform was in prepara- 
 tion — that the Commission into the Irish Church 
 had produced reports which were to be fairly 
 acted upon — that a great measure of justice to 
 Ireland was to be based upon the undeniable 
 evidence which that commission afforded of her 
 wrongs. We know this, — and knowing no more, 
 we see the Cabinet dissolved, — presumption in 
 its favour, since we have seen its successor ! 
 
 But, my Lord, if we may speak thus in favour of 
 that Cabinet which your abilities adorned, and in 
 
48 
 
 hope of the services which it would have ren- 
 dered us, we must not forget that we are about 
 in the approaching election, to have not the ex- 
 pectatwn of good government, but the power of 
 securing it. We must demand from the candi- 
 dates who are disposed to befriend and restore 
 you, not vague assurances of support to one set 
 of men or the other, to the principles of Lord 
 Grey or those of Lord Melbourne, but to the 
 principles of the people. Your friends must 
 speak out, and boldly — they must place a wide 
 distinction, by candid and explicit declarations, 
 between themselves and their Tory antagonists. 
 Sir Edward Sugden said at Cambridge that he 
 was disposed to reform temperately all abuses. 
 The Emperor of Russia would say the same. Your 
 partizans must specify what abuses they will re- 
 form, and to what extent they will go. The people 
 must see, on the one hand, defined reform, in order 
 to despise indefinite reformers on the other. Let 
 your friends come forward manfully and boldly as 
 befits honest men in stirring times, and the same 
 people who gave the last majority to Lord Grey, 
 will give an equal support to a cabinet yet more 
 liberal, and dismissed it only because it was felt to 
 
49 
 
 be in earnest, I know what the conduct of all 
 who are temperate and honest among reformers 
 ought to be. It is the cry of those who have 
 compromised themselves with their constituents 
 in their too implicit adherence to the measures 
 of Lord Grey, that '* All differences now must 
 cease — Whig and Radical must forget their small 
 dissensions — all must unite against a common 
 enemy." A convenient cry for them ; they are 
 willing now to confound themselves with us, 
 to take shelter under our popularity ! — For we^ 
 my Lord — and let this be a lesson to the next 
 Parliament— zf;e are safe. Of us who have not 
 subscribed implicitly to Lord Grey 's government — 
 of us who have been more liberal than that govern- 
 ment — of us who have not defended its errors, 
 nor what was worse, defended the errors of its 
 Tory predecessors, — I do not believe that a 
 single member will lose his seat ! The day of 
 election will be to us a day of triumph. We 
 have not enjoyed the emoluments and honours 
 of a victorious party — we have not basked in the 
 ministerial smiles — we have been depreciated by 
 lame humour, as foolish and unthinking men, 
 
'50 
 
 and stigmatized by a lamer calumny as revolu- 
 tionary Destructives. But we had our consola- 
 tion — we have found it in our consistency and 
 our conscience — in our own self-acquittal, and 
 in the increased esteem of our constituents. 
 And now they need our help ! Shall they 
 have it ? I trust yes ! We can forgive jests at 
 our expense, for nobody applauded them, and 
 they were not echoed, my Lord, by the majo- 
 rity of the Cabinet. One man might disavow 
 us — one man might not enter our house nor 
 travel by our coach, (it is not we who have now 
 pulled down the house, or upset the convey- 
 ance !) but three of his colleagues asserted our 
 principles, and we felt that there spoke the pre- 
 ponderating voice of the ministry. I trust, and 
 I feel assured, that we shall forget minor dif- 
 ferences, when we have great and inefface- 
 able distinctions to encounter. I trust that 
 we shall show we are sensible we have it now in 
 our power to prove that we fought for no selfish 
 cause — that we were not thinking of honors 
 and office for ourselves — that we shall show 
 we wished to make our principles, not our 
 
interests, triumphant ; — willing that others 
 should be the agents for carrying them into 
 effect. This should be our sentiment, and 
 this our revenge. All men who care for 
 liberty should unite — all private animosities, 
 all partial jealousies should be merged. We 
 should remember only that some of us have 
 advocated good measures more than others ; but 
 that, the friends of the New Ministry have op- 
 posed all. Alraschid, the caliph of immortal me- 
 mory, went out one night disguised, as was his 
 wont, and attended by his favourite Giaffer, they 
 pretended to be merchants in distress, and asked 
 charity. The next morning two candidates for 
 a place in the customs appeared before the divan. 
 The sultan gave the preference to one of them. 
 '* Sire," whispered Giaffer, '' don't you re- 
 collect that that man only gave us a piece of 
 silver when we asked for a piece of gold?" 
 ^' And don't you recollect," answered Haroun, 
 *' that the other man, when we asked for a 
 piece of silver, called for a cudgel ?" 
 
 Looking temperately back at the pro- 
 ceedings of the Whigs, we must confess that 
 
 e2 
 
52 
 
 they have greater excuses, than at the time we 
 were aware of. *' Who shall read," says the 
 proverb, ** the inscrutable heart of kings?" 
 We could not tell how far the Monarch was 
 with us : rumours and suspicions were afloat — 
 but we were unwilling to believe them of 
 William the Reformer. We imagined his Ma- 
 jesty, induced by secret and invisible advisers, 
 might indeed be timid, and reluctant ; but we 
 imagined, also, that the government, by firmness, 
 might bias the royal judgment to a consistent 
 and uniformly paternal policy. Many of us, 
 (though, for my own part, I foresaw and foretold"^ 
 that the Tory party, so far from being crushed, 
 were but biding their time, scotched not kill- 
 ed)— many of us supposed the Tories more 
 humbled and more out of the reach of office, 
 than the Cabinet, with a more prophetic vision, 
 must have felt they were. With a House of 
 Lords, which the Ministers had neither the 
 power to command nor to reform — with a King, 
 whose secret, and it may be stubborn inclina- 
 tions, are now apparent, surrounded by intrigues 
 
 * England and the'English. - 
 
53 
 
 and cabals, and sensible that the alternative of 
 a Tory government was not so impossible as the 
 public believed, we must, in common candour, 
 make many excuses for men, who, however in- 
 clined to the people, had also every natural desire 
 to preserve the balance of the constitution — to 
 maintain the second chamber, and to pay to the 
 wishes of the King that deference, which, as the 
 third voice of the legislature, his Majesty is inti- 
 tled to receive. Add to this, if they resigned 
 oflSce, the King would have had the excuse he has 
 not now : he would have had no alternative but a 
 Tory Cabinet ! It is true, however, that so 
 beset with difficulties, their wisest course would 
 have been to remember the end and origin of 
 all government — have thrown themselves on the 
 people and abided the consequences — and that, 
 my Lord, is exactly what I believe your col- 
 leagues and yourself intended to do, and it is 
 for that reason you are dismissed. A few months 
 will show, a few months will allow you to ex- 
 plain yourselves ; but I should not address to 
 your Lordship this letter — I should not commit 
 myself to a vain prophecy — I should not volun- 
 
54 
 
 tarily incur your own contempt for my simpli- 
 city, if I had not the fullest reason to believe, 
 that the occasion is only wanting to acquit 
 yourselves to the public. 
 
 Considering these circumstances with can- 
 dour — the situation of the last ministry — the 
 dissolution of the present, and the reasons for 
 that dissolution ; considering also the first en- 
 thusiasm of the Reform Bill, which induced so 
 many members, with the purest motives, to 
 place confidence in the men who had obtained 
 it ; — we shall find now excuses for much of 
 whatever temporising we may yet desire for the 
 future to prevent : and to prevent it must be our 
 object at the next election. 
 
 On all such members of the Whig majority as 
 will declare for the future for a more energetic and 
 decided conduct, so as to lead the government 
 through counteracting obstacles, and both encou- 
 rage, if willing, and force them, if hesitating, to 
 a straightforward and uncompromising policy, 
 the electors cannot but look with indulgence. 
 Such candidates have only to own on their part, 
 that any dallying with ^' recognized abuse" has 
 
55 
 
 been the result not of inclination, but of circum- 
 stance, and the difficulties of circumstance will be 
 at once remembered. For those who will not 
 make this avowal, whatever their name, they are 
 but Tories at heart, and as such they must be con- 
 sidered. This is what the late Cabinet itself, if 
 I have construed it rightly, must desire; and if we 
 act thus, with union and with firmness, with cha- 
 rity to others, but with justice to our principles, 
 we shall return to the next Parliament a vast ma- 
 jority of men who will secure the establishment of 
 a government that no intrigue can undermine, no 
 oligarchy supplant ; based upon a broad union of 
 all reformers, and entitled to the gratitude of the 
 people, not by perpetually reminding it of one 
 obligation, but by constantly feeding it with new 
 ones. Of such a Cabinet I know that you, my 
 Lord, will be one ; and I believe that you will 
 find yourself not perhaps among all^ but among 
 many of your old companions, and no longer with- 
 out the services of one man in particular whose 
 name is the synonym of the people's confidence. 
 Taught by experience, * there must then be no 
 
 • And we have the assurance from one of the organs 
 
56 
 
 compromise with foes — no Whig 6rgan holding 
 out baits of office to Sir Robert Peel — no speeches 
 of 'Mittle** having a successor in ''less" — no 
 crowding popular offices with Tory malcontents 
 — no ceding to an anti-national interest, however 
 venerable its name — no clipping to please the 
 Lords — no refusing to unfurl the sail when the 
 wind is fair, unless Mrs. Partington will pro- 
 mise not to mop up the ocean ! 
 - At present we are without a government ; we 
 have only a dictator. His Grace the Duke of Wel- 
 ington outbids my Lord Brougham in versatility. 
 He stands alone, the representative of all the 
 offices of this great empire. Lidia is in one 
 pocket, our colonies in the other* — see him now 
 
 of the late ministers, in an article admirable for its tem- 
 per and its tenets, that this lesson is already taught. '' The 
 leaders of the liberal party must have at last learned the utter 
 futility of every attempt to conciliate the supporters of existing 
 abuses— they must now know that secret enmity is ever watch, 
 ing the occasion of wounding them unawares, and that the pub- 
 lic men who would contend against it can only maintain them- 
 selves by exhibiting a frank and full reliance on the popular sup- 
 port, and meriting it by an unfiinching assertion of popular prin- 
 ciples." — Globe, Nov. 17. 
 
 * " His grace will superintend generally the affairs of the go- 
 vernment, till the return of Sir Robert Peel." So says the Morn- 
 ing Post But the Post is very angry if any one else says the 
 «iame ! 
 
57 
 
 at tlie Home Office, and now at the Horse Guards ; 
 Law, State, and Army, each at his command - - 
 Jack of all trades, and master of none — but that of 
 war ; — we ask for a cabinet, and see but a soldier. 
 
 Meanwhile, eager and panting, flies the Courier 
 to Sir Robert Peel ! — grave Sir Robert ! How 
 well we can picture his prudent face ! — with what 
 solemn swiftness will he obey the call ! how de- 
 murely various must be his meditations !— how 
 rufl[led his stately motions at the night-and-day 
 celerity of his homeward progress ! Can this be 
 the slow Sir Robert ? No ! I beg pardon ; he is 
 not to discompose himself. I see, by the papers, 
 that it is only the Courier that is to go at ' ^ minute 
 speed'* — the Neophyte of Reform is to travel ** by 
 easy stages" — we must wait patiently his move- 
 ments — God knows we shall want patience by 
 and by ; — his stages will be easy enough in the 
 road the Times wishes him to travel ! 
 
 The new political Hamlet! — how applicable 
 the situation of his parallel ! — how well can 
 his Horatio, (Twiss,) were he himself the 
 courier, break forth with the exposition of the 
 case— 
 
58 
 
 . . . . " Fortinbras* 
 Of unimproved mettle hot and full, 
 Sharks up a list of brainless resolutes 
 For food and diet to some enterprise, 
 That hath a stomach in't, which is no other. 
 As it doth well appear unto the state. 
 But to recover for tis by strong hand. 
 And terms compulsatory, our — * offices.' 
 
 This, I take it. 
 
 Is the main motive of our preparations, 
 
 The source of this our watch, and the chief head 
 
 Of this post-haste andromage in the land ! 
 
 lEnter the Ghost of the old Tory Rule,'] 
 
 " 'Tis here — 'tis here — 'tis gone !'* 
 
 \_Now appears Hamlet himself, arms folded, brow thouglU' 
 fvl, — Sir Robert was always a solemn man /] 
 
 \_Enter the same Ghost of Tory Ascendancy, in the likeness of 
 old Sir Robert,] 
 " My father's spirit in arms ! 
 
 Thou com'st in such a questionable shape. 
 That I will speak to thee. 
 
 Tell, 
 
 Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, 
 Have burst their cerements." 
 
 * Fontinbras, Aiiglice "■ Strong Arm"— literally '• the Duke. 
 
59 
 
 Whereat good Horatio wooin^ly observes — 
 " It beckons you to go away with it.* ' 
 
 Our Hamlet is in doubt. The Tory sway was an 
 excellent thing when alive, but to follow the 
 ghost now, may lead to the devil ; nevertheless, 
 Horatio says, shrewdly, 
 
 " The very place puts toys of desperation, 
 Without more motive, into every brain I" 
 
 The temptation is too great, poor Hamlet is de- 
 coyed, and the wise Marcellus, (the Herries of 
 the play,) disinterestedly observes, 
 
 " Let's follow !" 
 
 Alas ! we may well exclaim, then, with the soft 
 Horatio, 
 
 " To what issue will this come ?'' 
 
 And reply with the sensible Marcelkis, who 
 sums up the whole affair. 
 
 " Something is rotten in tfte state of Denmark / " 
 
60 
 
 We need not further pursue the parallel, 
 though inviting, 'f especially in that passage, 
 where to be taken for a rat, is the prelude to 
 destruction. Leave we Hamlet undisturbed to 
 his soliloquy, 
 
 " To be, or not to be — that is the question." 
 
 And that question is unresolved. Will Sir 
 Robert Peel commit himself at last — will he 
 join the administration — will he, prudent and 
 wary, set the hopes of his party, the reputation 
 of his life, on the hazard of a dye, thrown not 
 for Whigs and Tories — but for Toryism, it is 
 true, on the one hand, and a government far 
 more energetic than Whiggism on the other, 
 with all the chances attendant on the upset of 
 the tables in the meanwhile ? The game is not 
 for the restoring, it is for the annihilation, of the 
 juste milieu ! If he join the gamesters, let him ; 
 we can yet give startling odds on the throw. 
 But may he see distinctly his position ! If he 
 withdraw from this rash and ill-omened govern- 
 ment, if he remain neutral, he holds the highest 
 
61 
 
 station in the eyes of the country, which one of 
 his politics can ever hope to attain. It is true, 
 that office may be out of his reach, but to men of 
 a large and a generous ambition, there are higher 
 dignities than those which office can bestow. 
 He will stand a power in himself - a man true to 
 principle, impervious to temptation ; he will vin- 
 dicate nobly, not to this time only, but to poste- 
 rity, his single change upon the Catholic Eman- 
 cipation ; he will prove that no sordid considera- 
 tions influenced that decision. He will stand alone 
 and aloft, with more than the practical sense, 
 with all the moral weight of Chateaubriand — 
 one whom all parties must honour, whose coun- 
 sels must be respected by the most liberal, as by 
 the most Tory, cabinet. Great in his talents — 
 greater in his position — greatest in his honour. 
 But if he mix himself irrevocably with the in- 
 sane and unprincipled politicians, who now seek 
 either to deceive or subdue the people, he is 
 lost for ever. That ministry have but this 
 option, to refuse all reform and to brave 
 the public, or to carry, in contempt of all 
 honesty, measures at least as liberal as those 
 
G2 
 
 which he, as well as they, opposed when 
 proceeding from the Whigs. Will he be mad 
 enough to do the one —will he be base enough 
 to do the other ? Can he be a tyrant, or will he 
 be a turncoat ? His may be the ambition which 
 moderate men have assigned to him — an ambi- 
 tion prudent and sincere :— His maybe a name on 
 which the posterity that reads of these eventful 
 times, will look with approval and respect ;~ on 
 the other hand, the alternative is not tempting— it 
 is to be deemed the creature of office, and the dupe 
 of the Dukeof Wellington! Imagine his situation, 
 rising to support either the measures which must 
 be carried by the soldiers, or those which would 
 have been proposed by the Whigs — bully or hypo- 
 crite;— what an alternative for one who can yet be 
 (how few in this age may say the same !) a 
 GREAT MAN ! And this too, mainly from one 
 quality that he had hitherto carried to that de- 
 gree in which it becomes genius. That quality 
 is Prudence 1 all his reputation depends on his 
 never being indiscreet ! He is in the situation 
 of a prude of a certain age, who precisely be- 
 cause she may be a saint, the world has a double 
 
63 
 
 delight in damning as a sinner. Sweet, tempt- 
 ed Innocence, beware the one false step ! turn 
 from the old Duke ! list not the old Lord Eldon ! 
 allow not his Grace of Cumberland (irresistible 
 seducer !) to come too near ! O Susanna, Su- 
 sanna, what lechers these Elders are ! 
 
 But enough of speculation for the present on 
 an uncertain event. We have only now to look 
 to what is sure, and that is a New Parliament.* 
 They hint at the policy of trying this: let 
 THEM ! I think they would dissolve us the second 
 day of our meeting ! 
 
 And now, my Lord, deviating from the usual 
 forms of correspondence, permit me, instead of 
 addressing your Lordship, to turn for a few mo- 
 ments to our mutual friends — the Electors of 
 England. 
 
 I wish them clearly and distinctly to under- 
 stand, the grounds and the results of the con- 
 test we are about to try. I do not write these 
 
 • Since writing the above, it seems to be a growing opinion 
 among men of all parties, that if Sir Robert Peel join the 
 Ministers, they will meet Parliament — for the sake of mutual, 
 explanations /—But the Duke is a prompt man, and loves to take 
 us by surprise- we must be prepared ! 
 
64 
 
 lines for the purpose of converting the Conser- 
 vatives — far from me so futile an atttempt. 
 With one illustrious example before our eyes, 
 what man of sense can dream of the expediency 
 of attempting to convert our foes ? I write only to 
 that great multitude of men of all grades of pro- 
 perty and rank, who returned to the Reformed 
 Parliament its vast reforming majority. Thank 
 God, that electoral body is as yet unaltered. Who 
 knows, if it now neglect its duty, how long 
 it may remain the same ! I have before spoken, 
 Electors of England, of what seems to me likely 
 to be your conduct. But let us enter into that 
 speculation somewhat more minutely. There 
 are some who tell us that you are indifferent to 
 the late changes, and careless of the result, — 
 who laugh at the word *' Crisis" and dis- 
 own its application. Are you yourselves then 
 thoroughly awakened to your position, to the 
 mighty destinies at your command ? I will 
 not dwell at length upon the fearful anxiety 
 with which your decision will be looked for in 
 Foreign Nations ; for we must confess, that en- 
 grossed as we have lately been in domestic 
 
65 
 
 affairs, Foreign Nations have for us but a feeble 
 and lukewarm interest. But we are still the 
 GREAT ENGLISH PEOPLE, the slightest change in 
 whose constitutional policy vibrates from corner 
 to corner of the civilized world. We are still 
 that people, who have grown great, not by the 
 extent of our possessions, not by the fertility of 
 our soil, not by the wild ambition of our con- 
 quests ; but, by the success of our commerce, 
 and the preservation of our liberties. The influ- 
 ence of England has been that of a moral power, 
 derived not from regal or oligarchic, or aristo- 
 cratic ascendancy ; but from the enterprise and 
 character of her people. We are the Great 
 Middle Class of Europe. When Napoleon called 
 us a bourgeois nation, in one sense of the 
 word he was right. What the middle class is 
 to us, that we are to the world !— a part of 
 the body politic of civilization, remote alike 
 from Ochlocracy''^ and Despotism, and draw- 
 
 • Ochlocracy, Mob-rule ; the proper antithesis to democracy, 
 which (though perverted from its true signification) is People- 
 rule. Tories are often great ochlocrats, as their favourite mode 
 of election, in which mobs are bought with beer, can testify. 
 Lord Chandos's celebrated clause in the Reform Bill was ochlo- 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 ing its die^nity — its power — its very breath 
 — from its freedom. The Duke of Wellington 
 and his band* are to be in office : what to 
 the last hour have been their foreign poli- 
 fics? — wherever tyranny the grossest was to 
 be defended — wherever liberty the most mode- 
 rate was to be assailed — there have they lent 
 their aid ! The King of Holland trampling on 
 his subjects was '' our most ancient ally," whom 
 *' nothing but the worst revolutionary doctrines 
 could induce us to desert." Charles X. vainly 
 urging his Ordinances against the Parliament and 
 the Press at the point of the bayonet, was an 
 *' injured monarch," and the people '^ a rebel- 
 lious mob. " The despotism of Austria is an * ' ad- 
 mirable government" — with Russia it is ^' inso- 
 lence" to interfere in behalf of Poland. Miguel 
 himself, blackened by such crimes as the worst pe- 
 
 cratic. Ochlocracy is the plebeian partner of oligarchy^ carrying 
 on the business under another name. The extremes meet, or, as 
 the Eastern proverb informs us, when the serpent wants to seem 
 innocent, it puts its tail in its mouth I 
 
 * For when we are met with the cry " Perhaps the Duke himself 
 will not take office at all," what matters it to us whether he be be- 
 fore the stage or behind the scenes — whether he represent the 
 borough himself, or appoint his nominees— the votes will be the 
 same ! 
 
67 
 
 riod of the Roman empire cannot equal, is eulo- 
 gized as ^^ the illustrious victim of foreign swords.'* 
 Not the worst excesses that belong to despotism, 
 from the bonds of the negro to the blood of a peo- 
 ple, have been beneath the praises of your present 
 government — not the most moderate resistance 
 that belongs to liberty has escaped their stigma. 
 This is no exaggeration ; chapter and verse, their 
 very speeches are before us, and out of their 
 own mouths do we condemn them. Can we 
 then be insensible, little as we may regard our 
 more subtle relations with foreign states — can we 
 be insensible to the links which bind us with 
 our fellow creatures ; no matter in what region 
 of the globe? Can we feel slightly the universal 
 magnitude of the interests now resting on our re- 
 solves ? Believe me, wherever the insolence of 
 power is brooding on new restraints, wherever — 
 some men, *' in the chamber of dark thought," 
 are forging fetters for other countries or their 
 own- there is indeed a thrill of delight at the 
 accession of the Duke of Wellington ! But 
 wherever Liberty struggles successfully, or suffers 
 in vain — wherever Opinion has raised its voice 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 — wherever Enlightenment is at war with Dark- 
 ness, and Patience rising against Abuse — there 
 will be but one feeling of terror at these 
 changes, and one feeling of anxious hope for 
 the resolution which you, through whose votes 
 speaks the voice of England, may form at this 
 awful crisis. Shall that decision be unworthy 
 of you? 
 
 If we pass from foreign nations to Ireland, 
 (which unhappily we have often considered as 
 foreign to us,) what can we expect from the 
 Duke of Wellington's tender mercies ? Recollect 
 that there will be no peace for England while 
 Ireland remains as it is. Cabinet after Cabinet 
 has been displaced, change after change has con- 
 vulsed us, measures the most vital to England 
 have been unavoidably postponed to discussion 
 on Bills for Ireland ; night upon night, session 
 upon session of precious time have been thrown 
 away, because we have not done for Ireland 
 what common sense would dictate to common 
 justice. I have just returned from that coun- 
 try. I have seen matters with my own eyes. 
 Having assuredly no sympathy with the ques- 
 
69 
 
 tion of Repeal, I have not sought the judg- 
 ment of Repealers— of the two, I have rather so- 
 licited that of the Orangemen : for knowing by 
 what arguments misgovernment can be assailed, 
 I was anxious to learn, in its strong-hold, by what 
 arguments misgovernment can be defended. 
 And I declare solemnly, that it seems to me 
 the universal sentiment of all parties, that God 
 does not look down upon any corner of the earth 
 in which the people are more supremely wretch- 
 ed, or in which a kind, fostering, and paternal 
 government is more indispensably needed. That 
 people are Catholic. Hear what the Duke of 
 Wellington deems necessary for them. 
 
 ** The object of the government, (for Ireland,) 
 after the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief 
 Bill, should have been to do all in their power 
 to conciliate — whom ? The Protestants ! Every 
 thing had been granted to the Roman Catholics 
 that they coidd require /" — The Duke of Welling- 
 tons Speech. Hansard, p. 950, vol. xix. 3rd 
 Series. Every thing a people groaning under 
 each species of exaction that ever took the name of 
 religion can require ! This statement may de- 
 
70 
 
 light the Orangemen, but will it content Ireland? 
 that is the question. As for the Orangemen them- 
 selves, with their Christian zeal, and their Ma- 
 hometan method of enforcing it ; — with their — 
 ^' here is our Koran," and ** there is our sword," 
 — they remind us only of that ingenious negro, to 
 whom his master, detecting him in some offence, 
 put the customary query — *' What, sir, do you 
 never make use of your bible? — *' Yes, massa, 
 me trap my razor on it sometime /" So, with 
 these gentlemen, they seem to think that the 
 only use of the bible is to sharpen their steels 
 upon it ! 
 
 The story of the Negro reminds us of the Colo- 
 nies : what effect will this change have upon the 
 fate of the late Slave Population ? By our last 
 accounts, the managers, instead of co-operating 
 with the local authorities, were rather striving 
 to exasperate the Negroes into conduct, which 
 must produce a failure of that grand experi- 
 ment of humanity. — The news arrives, — (Just 
 before Christmas too, — what a season !) the ma- 
 nagers see in office, the very men, who 
 not only opposed the experiment, but who 
 
71 
 
 prophesied the failure : — they know well, that 
 if the failure occur, it is not to them, that 
 the new government will impute the blame — 
 they know well that a prophet is rarely dis 
 pleased with the misfortunes he foretells. Is 
 there no danger in all this ? And shall we be 
 told that this is no crisis ? that there is nothing- 
 critical in these changes — nothing to reverse or 
 even to affect our relations with Ireland, the 
 Colonies, and the Continent — nothing that we 
 should lament, and nothing that we should fear ? 
 
 And now, looking only to ourselves, is there 
 nothing critical in the state of England f 
 
 You must remember that whatever parliament 
 you elect will have the right of remodelling that 
 parliament ! The same legislative power that 
 reformed can un -reform. If you give to the 
 Duke of Wellington a majority in the House of 
 Commons, you give him the whole power of this 
 Empire for six years. If a liberal House of 
 Commons should ever go too far, you have a 
 King and a House of Lords to stop the progress. 
 If a conservative House of Commons should 
 go too far in the opposite extreme, who will 
 
72 
 
 check its proceedings ? You may talk of public 
 opinion — you may talk of resistance — but when 
 your three branches of the legislature are against 
 you, with what effect could you resist? You 
 might talk vehemently — could you act success- 
 fully ; — when you were no longer supported 
 by your representatives, — when to act would be 
 to rebel ! The law and the army would be both 
 against you. How can you tell to what extent 
 the one might be stretched or the other in- 
 creased ? Vainly then would you say, '^ In our 
 next parliament we will be wiser;" in your next 
 parliament the people might be no longer 
 the electors ! There cannot be a doubt but 
 that, if the parliament summoned by the 
 Duke be inclined to support the Duke, the pro- 
 visions of the Reform Bill will be changed. 
 Slight alterations in the franchise — raising it 
 where men are free, lowering it where men can 
 be intimidated, making it ditferent for towns 
 and for agricultural districts, working out 
 in detail the principles of Lord Chandos, may 
 suffice to give you a constituency of slaves. 
 This is no idle fear— the Reform Transformed 
 
73 
 
 will be the first play the new company will act, 
 if you give them a stage — it is a piece they have 
 got by heart ! Over and over again have they 
 said at their clubs, in public and in private, that 
 the Reform Bill ought to be altered.* They 
 may now disavow any such intention. Calling, 
 themselves reformers, they may swear to pro- 
 tect reform. But how can you believe them? 
 '* Abu Rafe is witness to the fact, but who will 
 he imtnessfor Abu jRafef1[ By their own con- 
 
 • And Lord Strangford seems to speak out pretty boldly at 
 the Ashford dinner. " It was true that among the institutions 
 of the country, there was something that might be amended and 
 improved, but there was much more that required to be placed 
 in its pristine state of purity. That that would come to pass he 
 felt sure, when he saw so many around him thinking as he did," 
 &c. Primitive state of purity ! But what so pure as the rotten 
 boroughs ? What so pure as the old parliamentary system ? 
 And if the restoration of these immaculate blessings depends 
 upon seeing " many around him who thought as he did," where 
 will his Lordship find those of that philosophy, except in the 
 party now in power? It matters not what Lord Strangford 
 meant should be restored to its pristine purity. He may say it 
 was no^ the old parliamentary system. What was it then ? Is 
 there a single thing which the Reformed Parliament has altered 
 that the people wish to see restored to " its pristine purity ?" 
 But then we are told that we are not to judge the Duke by the 
 language of his supporters. By what are we to judge of him 
 then ? Either by their language or his own : it is quite indif- 
 ferent which. But perhaps Tory speeches are like witches' 
 prayers, and are to be read backwards. 
 
 t Gibbon. 
 
74 
 
 fessions, if they call themselves reformers, they 
 would be liars ; if they are false in one thing, 
 will they not be false in another ? Are they to 
 be trusted because they own they have been 
 insincere ? If we desire to know in what light 
 even the most honourable Tories consider 
 public promises, shall we forget Sir George 
 Murray and the dissenters ? Do not fancy they 
 will not hazard an attempt on your liberties — 
 they will hazard it, if you place the House of 
 Commons in their hands. Whatever their fault, 
 it is not that of a want of courage. You 
 talk of Public Opinion— history tells us that 
 public opinion can be kept down. It is the 
 nature of slavery, that as it creeps on, it ac- 
 customs men to its yoke. They may feel, but 
 they are not willing always to struggle. Where 
 was the iron-hearted Public Opinion, that con- 
 fronted the first Charles, threw its shield round 
 the person of Hampden, abolished the star- 
 chamber, and vindicated the rights of England, 
 when, but a few years afterwards, a less ac 
 complished and a more unprincipled monarch, 
 sent Sydney to the block —judges decided 
 
75 
 
 against law — Parliament itself was suspend- 
 ed — and the tyrant of England was the pen- 
 sioner of France ? Public opinion woke after- 
 wards in the reign of James II. but from how 
 shameful a slumber—and to what even greater 
 perils than that of domestic tyranny, had we 
 not been exposed in the interval ! Nothing but 
 the forbearance of the Continent itself saved 
 us from falling a prey to whatever vigorous des- 
 pot might have conceived the design. With the 
 same angry, but impotent dejection with which 
 Public Opinion beheld the country spoiled of its 
 Parliament — its martyrs consigned to the block — 
 its governors harlots, and its King a hireling — 
 it saw, unavenged, the Dutch fleet riding up 
 the Thames, — the war-ships of England burnt 
 before the very eyes of her Capital,— and '' the 
 nation," to quote even Hume's courtly words, 
 *' though the King ever appeared hut in sport(^!) 
 exposed to the ruin and ignominy of a foreign 
 conquest." Happily, Austria then was not as it 
 is now — profound in policy, stern in purpose, 
 indomitable in its hate to England ; Russia was 
 not looking abroad for conquests, aspiring to the 
 
Indian Empire, and loathing the freemen who 
 dare to interfere for Poland. We were saved, 
 but not by your Public Opinion ! You may boast 
 of the nineteenth century, and say, such things 
 cannot happen to-day ; but the men of Crom- 
 well's time boasted equally of the spirit of the 
 seventeenth, and were equally confident, that 
 liberty was eternal ? And even at this day have 
 we not seen in France, how impotent is mere 
 opinion ? Have not the French lost all the fruits 
 of their Revolution ? Are not the Ordinances 
 virtually carried ? and why ? Because the 
 French parted with the power out of their own 
 hands, under the idea that public opinion was 
 a power sufficient in itself? When the man 
 first persuaded the horse to try {by way of ex- 
 periment) the saddle and bridle, what was his 
 argument? — ^' My good friend, you are much 
 stronger than I am ; you can kick me off again 
 if you don't like me — your will is quite enough 
 to dislodge me ; — come — the saddle — it is but a 
 ride, recollect !— come, open your mouth — Lord 
 have mercy, what fine teeth ! — how you could 
 bite if I displeased you. So so, old boy !" — 
 
77 
 
 What's the moral ? The man is riding the 
 horse to this day ! — Public opinion is but the 
 expression of the prevalent power. The people 
 have now the power, and public opinion is its 
 voice ; let them give away the power, and what 
 is opinion ? — vox^ (indeed,) et prceterea nihil — 
 the voice and nothing more. 
 
 It is madness itself in you, who have now the 
 option of confirming or rejecting the Duke of 
 Wellington's government, to hesitate in your 
 choice. They tell you to try the men ; have 
 you not tried them before ? Has not the work 
 of reform been solely to undo what they have 
 done ? If your late governments could not pro- 
 ceed more vigorously, who opposed them ? 
 
 " Hark I in the lobby hear a lion roar ; 
 Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door ? 
 Or, Mr. Speaker, shall we let him in, 
 To tri/ if we can turn him out again /" 
 
 You may say, that amongst the multiplicity of 
 candidates who present themselves, and amongst 
 the multiplicity of their promises, you may be 
 unable to decide who will be your friends, who 
 not. You have one test that cannot fail you. 
 Ask them if they will support the Duke of 
 
78 
 
 Wellington. If they say '* Yes, if he reform," 
 you will know that they will support him if he 
 apostatizes. He who sees no dishonour in apos- 
 tacy, waits but his price to apostatize himself. 
 '* Away," said Mr. Canning, long since — *' Away 
 with the cant of measures, not men. The idle 
 supposition, that it is the harness, not the horses 
 that draw the chariot along." '' In times of 
 difficulty and danger, it is to the energy and cha- 
 racter of individuals, that a nation must be 
 indebted for its salvation !" — the energy and cha- 
 racter ! Doubtless, the Duke has at present 
 energy and character ! I grant it ; but if he 
 exert in your behalf the energy, will he keep 
 the character? or if he preserve his character, 
 how will you like his energy ? 
 
 Recollect that it is not for measures which you 
 can foresee that caution is necessary, it is for mea- 
 sures that you cannot foresee ; it is not for what 
 the Duke may profess to do, but for what he may 
 dare to do, that you must not put yourselves under 
 his command. Be not led away by some vague 
 promises of taking off this tax and lowering that. 
 The empire is not for sale ! We, who gave twenty 
 millions to purchase freedom for the negro, are 
 
79 
 
 not to accept a bribe for the barter of our own. 
 One tax too may be taken oft', but others may 
 he put on ! They may talk to you of the first, 
 but they will say nothing of the last ! Malt is a 
 good thing, but even malt may be bought too 
 dear ? Did not the Tories blame Lord Althorp for 
 reducing taxation too much ? Are they the men 
 likely to empty the Exchequer ? To drop a 
 shilling in the street was the old trick of 
 those who wanted to pick your pockets ! Re- 
 member that you are not fighting the battle 
 between Whigs and Tories ; if the Whigs re- 
 turn to office, they must be more than Whigs ; 
 you are now fighting for things not men— ^or 
 the real consequences of your reform. In your 
 last election your gratitude made you fight too 
 much for names ; it was enough for your can- 
 didates to have served Lord Grey ; you must 
 now return those who will serve the people. 
 If you are lukewarm, if you are indifferent, if 
 you succumb, you will deserve the worst. But 
 if you exert yourselves once more, with the 
 same honesty, the same zeal, the same firm 
 and enlightened virtue as two years ago en- 
 sured your triumph, — wherever, both now and 
 
80 
 
 henceforth, men honour faith, or sympathise 
 with liberty, there will be those who will 
 record your struggle, and rejoice in its suc- 
 cess. These are no exaggerated phrases, 
 you may or may not be insensible to the cha- 
 racter of the time ; — you may or may not be 
 indifferent to the changes that have taken place 
 — but the next election, if Parliament be dis- 
 solved by a Tory minister, will make itself a 
 Date in History, — recording one of those ominous 
 conjunctions in ^Hhe Old Almanack" by which we 
 calculate the chronology of the human progress. 
 And, my Lord, that the conduct and the vic- 
 tory of our countrymen, will be, as it has been, 
 the one firm and temperate, the other honorable 
 and assured, I do, from my soul, believe. Two 
 years may abundantly suffice to wreck a Govern- 
 ment, or convert a King — but scarcely to change 
 a People ! 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 My Lord, 
 With respect and consideration, 
 Your Lordship's obedient servant, 
 E. LYTTON BULWER. 
 
 London, Nov. 21, 1834. 
 
81 
 
 TORY CLAIMS ON POPULAR CONFIDENCE. 
 
 " Enough's as good as a feMt."— Proverb. 
 
 As some of the journals are inclined to suppose that 
 his Grace the Duke of Wellington and the only party 
 he commands will be disposed to grant reforms and can 
 grant them with honour ; as they have even specified 
 the particular reforms of the Irish Church, the 
 Corporation question, and even the admission of 
 Dissenters to the University, it may be as well to 
 ascertain, by the Duke's own speeches and those of 
 his friends, the grounds of their hypothesis. The people 
 shall at least know how large is the demand upon their 
 confidence. 
 
 Dissenters, their claim to enter the University, and 
 their character generally. 
 "Who, and what were the Dissenters? Many of 
 them differed but little, except in one or two points, 
 from the Established Church ; others of them did not 
 agree with the Church of England in any respect; 
 others denied the Trinity, and others were Atheists. 
 Would it be desirable to place such persons in a situa- 
 tion to inflict injury on the Established Church ?^ — 
 Speech of the Duke of Wellington, April 20. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 Again, on the Dissenters* University Bill — 
 " If ever that measure should be adopted by the 
 House, which God forbid . . . . " —Ibid. 
 
 Irish Church Reliefs. 
 " The object of the government, (for Ireland) after 
 the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, should 
 have been to do all in their power to conciliate — whom ? 
 The Protestants ! Every thing had been granted to the 
 Roman Catholics that they could require T — The Duke 
 of Wellington's Speech, Hansard, p. 950, vol. xix. 3rd 
 Series. 
 
 On the Irish Church Temporalities Bill. 
 " Utterly inconsistent with the policy of the country." 
 
 Irish Tithe Bill. 
 ** If the Government were so feeble, and so irreso- 
 lute, as to allow the law to be dormant, (in collecting 
 tithes,) then it was no wonder the English Church 
 should be sacrificed. — Ibid. Aug. 11. 
 
 " Well," says one Journal, " but at least he will give 
 us a Corporation Reform." — The following sentence 
 looks like it, certainly. 
 
 Corporation Reform,. 
 " He would make one observation, it was desirable 
 emphatically to utter. He doubted, much doubted> 
 whether it would be expedient to establish a new muni- 
 
83 
 
 cipal constitution on the ten-pound franchise. He con- 
 sidered such to be impracticable.'* 
 
 *' At least, then," cry the Agriculturists, '•' We shall 
 be sure of the Malt-tax." — Stay a moment, Sir Robert 
 Peel is to be consulted there. 
 
 Malt Tax, 
 " With respect to the total repeal of the Malt-Tax, 
 he still adhered to the opinion he had stated in the last 
 session — the House could not consent to such an exces- 
 sive reduction of taxation, as would be implied in the 
 repeal of the Malt-Tax."— Fe6. 27. 
 
 Yet still sighs some love-sick waverer, " Public opinion 
 is strong— there's the Pension List." Ay, Sir Robert 
 Peel gives us great hopes there. 
 
 Pension List. 
 
 " You are now going to dry up the sources of that 
 power of bestowing rewards for service, which was once 
 considered essential to the well-being of the State. / 
 challenge you to produce the instances in which there 
 has been a corrupt appropriation of the Pension Fund, 
 I admit that pensions have been granted as acts of 
 royal favour, without reference^ (mark what follows,) to 
 public service." — Peel^ May 5. 
 
 So the Pension List is not only to be unexamined, but 
 
84 
 
 it is an admirable thing ! — it is essential to the well-being 
 of the State, that acts of royal favour should not have 
 reference to public services." Well, the Whigs never 
 went so far as that ! 
 
 Bujt, then, some who deal in comprehensive phrases, 
 despising the drudgery of quoting particular acts in 
 which the Tories intend to be liberal, say they intend 
 io he WhersX generally. Of their general liberality we 
 can guess only from their general politics. But how far 
 they love liberty and hate tyranny, we can see quite as 
 well abroad as at home. 
 
 INSTANCES OF GENERAL LIBERALITY. 
 
 Negro Slavery. 
 " He had opposed the measure regarding the West 
 India question from its commencement." — The Duke of 
 Wellington. 
 
 Melancholy regrets for not loving Don Miguel. 
 *' This state of things would not continue, if we were 
 in amity with Don Miguel." 
 
 Sympathetic sigh from Lord Aberdeen in assertion of 
 Don MigneVs popularity. 
 
 " Nine- tenths of the people of Portugal were favour- 
 able to Don Miguel."^ 
 
85 
 
 Belgian Revolution. 
 " The king has conducted himself above all praise, 
 and if it please, I trust his merits will meet with due suc- 
 cess. In truth, the cause of Holland is so just a cause, 
 so good a cause, that it must prosper ; and when I say 
 the cause of Holland, I entreat your lordships to believe 
 that I mean the cause of Engand also, for I consider 
 them inseparable and identicaV^ — Lord Aberdeen, Han- 
 sard, vol. ix. 3rd Series. 
 
 Agreeable intelligence from one of our next Cabinet — 
 that the cause of the despotism of tlie king of Holland 
 is inseparable and identical with the cause of England ! 
 
 I pass over the calumnies lavished by themselves 
 and their organs, on the three days of France — their re- 
 sentment at the French People for not submitting to the 
 suspension of the Press, the loss of a constitution, and 
 the bayonets of the soldiers— their admiration for the de- 
 signs of Charles X . — their compassion for his fall. (Again 
 you will recollect, that if the French have not reaped the 
 due fruits of that Revolution, their fault was a misplaced 
 confidence in false professions, and too sanguine a belief 
 in the unalterable power of public opinion.) I pass over 
 their immemorial declarations on every part of the Reform 
 Bill — their sneers at our shopkeepers, their scorn for our 
 mechanics, their abhorrence of our £10 voters. In return. 
 
86 
 
 our shopkeepers, our mechanics, and our .^'lO voters, are 
 requested to invest them with the government ; upon 
 what grounds, for what principles, from what services, 
 and with what hopes we have seen already. 
 
 THE EN]>. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ID01S0N AND PALMER, I'niNlERS, SAVOY STREET, SI HAND. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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