Reform Bill; when hundreds waited around our doors till
sunrise to hear the tidings of our success; and when the
great cities of the empire poured forth their populations
on the highways to meet the mails that were bringing
from the capital the tidings whether the battle of the
people was lost or won. Those days were such as my
noble friend cannot hope to see again. Two such
triumphs would be too much for one life.
But perhaps
there still awaits him a less pleasing, a less exhilarating,
but not a less honourable task-the task of contending
against superior numbers through years of discomfiture
to maintain those civil liberties, those rights of conscience
which are inseparably associated with the name of his
illustrious house. At his side will not be wanting men
who, against all odds, and through all the turns of
fortune, amidst evil days and evil tongues, will defend to
the last with unabated spirit the noble principles of

would be attended with practical benefit, then, indeed, without agitation, without public discussion, with a single stroke of the pen, a great and important change is at once effected. Not so in this country. Here the people must be appealed to-the public voice must be consulted. In saying this, he did not defend one party alone, he was defending alike both the great parties in the House. Had they not heard of agitation against the Catholic claims? Was there no agitation against the poor law ? Had there been no agitation for or against the Catholic privy councillors? But to pass from questions about which a difference of opinion might fairly exist, to a measure upon which all must agree-a measure of the proudest, grandest nature that had ever received the sanction of the legislature-the abolition of the slave trade: that, he contended, never would have been carried without agitation." The right hon. gentleman concluded his speech as Milton and Locke. He may be driven from office; he follows:

"I believe that if, with the best and purest intentions, the right hon. baronet were to undertake the government of this country, he would find that it was very easy to lose the confidence of the party who raised him to power, but very difficult indeed to gain that which the present Government happily possessed-the confidence of the people of Ireland. It is upon these grounds, and principally upon the question of Ireland, that I should be inclined to rest the case of the present Ministry. Would to God that I were speaking to an audience that would judge this great controversy fairly, with an unbiassed mind, and as it will be judged by future ages. The passions which inflame us, the sophistries which delude us, will not last for ever. The paroxysms of faction have their appointed season; even the madness of fanaticism is but for a day: the time is coming when our conflicts will be to others as the conflicts of our forefathers are to us; when our priests who convulse the State, our politicians who make a stalking-horse of the Church, will be no more than the Harleys and Sacheverells of a bygone day; and when will be told, in language very different from that which now draws forth applause at Exeter Hall, the story of these troubled years. Then it will be said that there was a portion of the empire which presented a striking contrast to the rest: not that it was doomed to sterility, for the soil was fruitful and well-watered-not that it wanted facilities for commerce and trade, for its coasts abounded in havens marked by Nature to be the marts of the whole world-not that the people were too proud to improve these advantages, or too pusillanimous to defend them, for in endurance of toil and gallantry of spirit, they were conspicuous amongst the nations-but that the bounty of Nature was rendered unavailable by the tyranny of man. Whether the result of this debate will be victory or defeat, I know not; but I know that there are defeats not less glorious than even victory itself, and yet I have seen and shared in some glorious victories. Those were proud and happy days when, amidst the praises and blessings of millions, my noble friend Lord John Russell led us on in the great struggle for the

may be doomed to a life of opposition; he may be made the mark for all the rancour of sects; he may be exposed to the fury of a Laud on the one side, and to the fanaticism of a 'Praise-God-bare-bones' on the other; but a portion of the praise which we bestow on the old martyrs and champions of freedom will not be refused by posterity to those who have in these our days endeavoured to bind together in real union sects and races too long hostile to each other, and to efface, by the mild influence of a parental government, the fearful traces which have been left by the misrule of ages.”

Lord Stanley delivered a most able and energetic speech against the Government. He was followed by Lord Morpeth, who repelled with equal ability his attack upon the government of Ireland. The noble lord concluded a most effective speech with the following appeal to the House:-" Those who have only perused what has taken place here during this debate must have perceived sufficient indications of a great difference of opinion amongst members of the Conservative party. Again and again they repeat that argument so oftel urged, that in the month of May last we declared w did not possess an adequate degree of the confidence of this House. That is true. And did we not hear, a few nights afterwards, the right hon. baronet (Sir Robert Peel) declare that if he undertook the government of the country, Ireland would be the chief source of his difficulties? And do you think that in the intervening period Ireland has been so soothed by the dulcet strains of sympathy and consolation which have been poured forth through all your organs, and from all your gatherings-do you think that the mind of Ireland has been so enlightened, so irradiated by the glimpses you have let fall upon her, of the sentiments you entertain towards her, and of the purposes you cherish in her behalf, that the difficulties to which the right hon. baronet alluded in so emphatic a manner are removed? that the dark cloud will pass away which before closed round his accession to office, and open as horizon of serenity and confidence where all was mistrust and alienation? Have there been no indications of late from England and Scotland, as well as from Ireland?

A.D. 1840.]

MOTION OF WANT OF CONFIDENCE.

457

Why, since you gave notice of this motion, so big with word, to consult together for the public good-why, we, menace and hostility, what has been the confirmation as a party, and in a selfish point of view, have only to given by all the constituencies which had in the nick of bid you to go on to stir up, or rather suffer to be time to be consulted? And the self-same verdict, so far stirred up, the fierce embers of past intolerance, to reas the vote of this night is concerned, has been returned illume the fires of expiring bigotry, and scatter the from the most different bodies of men, and from the elements of mistrust amid the inhabitants of the same most distinct parts of the empire--from a great suburban soil, the children of the same Creator. And, while you district of the metropolis, from a first-rate seaport town, adopt this course, we, on the contrary, shall put our from the crowded manufactories of Birmingham, from trust in the increasing spread of intelligence, in the the ducal borough of Newark, and in two consecutive confirmed sway of toleration, and in the returning sense instances from the enlightened capital of Scotland. We of a disabused people."

hail," continued the noble lord, "with right good-will, from the different constituencies which have been consulted, their commentary on the motion of to-night. And if it pleases you so to continue it-if, heedless of the better part which is still open to you, you decline to co-operate in the work of assisting to smooth the difficulties and to lessen the obstacles which, we do not dream of denying, beset and impede many of the complicated relations of our internal, our foreign, and our colonial policy-to soothe the irritations that prevail in the public mind-to disarm jealousies-to allay dissensions-in one

143.-NET SERIES.

Sir Robert Peel withheld his confidence from the Ministry on every ground on which confidence could be withholden; on the results of their public policy-on their own confessions of incompetency-on the testimony of their most valued friends-on account of the constitution of their Government-on account of their measures-and above all, on account of the principles they were now forced to avow, in order that they might retain their majority, and in consequence, their offices. In the first place, the right honourable baronet pointed out the diversity of opinion which prevailed in the

warrior, through the exercise of the same qualities, as rare in their separate excellence as wonderful in their combination, and which ensured his military triumphs— the same acuteness, the same sagacity, the same patience, the same true courage, the love of justice, the love of truth, the noble simplicity of mind without fear and without reproach. Encouraged by such an example, and supported by such aid, holding opinions which I believe to be the opinions of the vast majority of those intelligent and powerful classes which used to influence, and ought to influence, the constitution and the march of governments-the clergy, the magistracy, the commercial classes, the yeomanry of this country—I can hardly believe that such opinions are incapable of practical execution; but be that as it may, of this I am sure, that such opinions must so far prevail, that he who holds them will be enabled effectually to assist you (th Government), whenever you resolve to refuse improper and dangerous concessions; and if you are inclined yourself to make them, to offer those impediments to your downward progress which you may call obstructions to public business, but which the country will consider the real guarantee that this free and limited monarchy shall not be converted, through the folly or weakness of its rulers, into an unqualified and unmitigated democracy."

Cabinet on the subject of the ballot, the corn laws, service of a grateful country, and achieving a reputation and other great questions; he also took Mr. Macaulay as a statesman not inferior to his pre-eminent fame as a to task for preaching, in his capacity as Cabinet Minister, the sacred duty of agitation. But even supposing that you abstain from agitation," said Sir Robert Peel," and that, to prevent collision in the Cabinet, you never discuss either the corn laws or the ballot, or any other of the open questions, what answer will you make to your constituents at Edinburgh? Out of office, you declared yourself in favour of these measures; in office, you repeated the assurance that you were faithful to your principles. Was it not the fact that from the proud keep of Windsor you proclaimed your fidelity to them, not for the gratification of any personal vanity, but from the firm resolution that truth should be spoken in high places, and that from the palace of kings the comfortable tidings of radical reform should be conveyed by a voice of authority?" This was an ironical allusion to a circumstance which was much commented on at the time of its occurrence. Mr. Macaulay, on his appointment to office, had issued an address to his constituents in Edinburgh, in which he declared his adherence to the opinions he had always held, especially that in favour of vote by ballot; and as he was at the time on a visit to the Queen, he dated his address from Windsor Castle. Sir Robert Peel concluded a powerful speech as follows:-"I cannot answer the question you put to me, what principles will prevail if a new government be formed? But I can answer for it that if the principles I profess do not prevail, of that government I shall form no part. It may be that by the avowal of my opinions I shall forfeit the confidence of some who, under mistaken impressions, may have been hitherto disposed to follow me. I shall deeply regret the withdrawal of that confidence; but I would infinitely prefer to incur the penalty of its withdrawal, than to retain it under false pretences, or under misapprehensions, which silence on my part might confirm; and, in that case, I shall not seek to compensate a threatened loss of confidence on this side the House by the faintest effort to conciliate the support of the other; but I shall steadily persevere in the course which I have uniformly pursued since the passing of the Reform Bill, content with the substantial power which I shall yet exercise-view those many important interests upon which not a indifferent as to office, so far as personal feelings or syllable had been uttered, nor forget that the Gover personal objects are concerned; ready, if required, to ment had never betrayed its duty, or neglected to purundertake it, whatever its difficulties; refusing to accept sue the policy essential to the interests of the country. it on conditions inconsistent with personal honour; dis- It had been said by the noble lord (Stanley) opposite that daining to hold it by such a tenure as that by which it is they were utterly inefficient as regards measures of leat present held. Every stimulus to continued exertion gislation. Now, obstructed as they had been by a larga will remain; every distinction that my ambition aspires party in the House of Commons, by a very decod to will be gained. I shall have the cordial co-operation of majority in the House of Lords, he (Lord John) though many friends whom I honour and esteem, and with whom that during the four years which had elapsed since 1884 I have acted from my first entrance into the troubled the legislative measures proposed and carried by fr career of political life; and above all other encourage-vernment were neither few nor unimportant. He ra ments, I shall have the proud satisfaction of acting in entire and cordial concert with that illustrious man on whose right hand I have stood throughout the varying fortunes of the great contests of recent years, who is still devoting his faculties, unimpaired by time, to the

Lord John Russell wound up this great debate with a speech of much power, in which he defended himself from the various attacks that had been made upon hir and the Government. He thus summed up the effects of their policy during the last four years :-" If the were so many of the interests of the empire which hal not been neglected-if the affairs of Belgium had bet brought to a satisfactory conclusion-if England hi still an ally in the Queen of Spain-if the Basque Provinces had been pacified-if the Canadas at length as sumed a prospect not only of returning tranquility, but of permanent freedom and happiness, he did think that when the House was called upon to pronounce an opinion upon the general conduct of affairs, in giving that opinion the House ought not to leave out of

tained that there was scarcely a time to be found equal duration in which measures of more importan had been carried. In 1835 was passed an act reforming altogether the municipal corporations of the county, placing them all upon a new foundation, admitting