A.D. 1830.]

RESIGNATION OF THE WELLINGTON MINISTRY.

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of the greatest constituencies in England. He was the foremost debater in the house of commons, and the recognised leader of the opposition. The question with him was, whether he could retain his proud position as the great popular chief, and yet hold office in a whig administration. The expressions employed by him seemed to Mr. Roebuck to say that he had decided the question in the negative, and that he resolved to forego all expectation of place. When, again, on the succeeding evening, the learned gentleman reiterated the assertion that he had no connection with the new administration, many persons believed more firmly than before that his resolution was fixed to be the great popular chief, and to separate himself from all mere party ties. As everything connected with the principal actors in this great revolution is full of interest for the people of our own time, and will no doubt continue to be so for posterity, our readers will be glad to have the reflections of so sagacious an observer as Mr. Roebuck upon the position and motives of a statesman so eminent, and whom he so greatly admired, as lord Brougham. "But there were others," he says, "who put a very different interpretation upon these eager professions of a disregard of office. They said that these voluntary denials

ment. Mr. Hobhouse immediately asked Sir Robert Peel whether ministers intended to retain office, after this expression of the sentiments of the house. To which he gave no answer at the time; but the next day the duke in the upper house, and Sir Robert in the lower, announced that they held their offices only till their successors were appointed. The defeat was brought about, in a great measure, by the former supporters of the ministry. "The blow was struck, and none recoiled from it more immediately than the section of angry tories who were mainly instrumental in delivering it. They had achieved their purpose, and stood aghast, for no time was lost with the duke in placing his resignation in the hands of the king.' The duke of Wellington endeavoured to persuade himself, and to make the public believe, that parliamentary reform had nothing to do with his retirement. "I was defeated," he said, "on the civil list; in short, the government was placed in a minority. Upon that occasion, parliamentary reform had no more to do, as far as I was concerned, with the resignation than anything else in the world. I admit I resigned next morning, because I did not wish to expose his majesty and the country to the consequences that might result from the government going out on the success of the question of parliamentary reform."+ Sir Robert Peel, how-were the offspring of a vehement desire for place, and a ever, admitted in the house of commons, on July 20th, 1831, fear lest he should be passed over-that his motion was that though they retired on the civil list question, with insisted on in order to make the in-coming party feel his regard to which they were in a minority, yet it was great power, and their own utter inability to conduct the impossible to deny that the anticipation of the probable government without his friendly aid, which aid would not manifestation of opinion on the question of reform in the be given unless he was himself accepted as one of the great house entered into the consideration of the government. chiefs of the coming administration. The result seemed, The truth is, Mr. Brougham had a notice of motion on the in some degree, to justify this last description. The book on the subject of parliamentary reform for the very history, nevertheless, of the whole transaction, as related day on which the ministers resigned. When he went to by those who were the chief actors in the scene which they the house he was aware that lord Grey had been sent described, accounts very differently for all that occurred. for, and he hastened to let them know that the change Lord Grey, up to the last hour of his life, remained in appaof ministry would make no difference with regard to his rently friendly and cordial relations with Mr. (afterwards motion. If the house thought it more convenient to have lord) Brougham; and their joint description of the circumthe discussion postponed, he was satisfied. He threw stances under which Mr. Brougham consented to give up himself "fully, freely, and respectfully upon the house," his great independent position, and become, in fact, one of though if the motion was put off, it would be contrary to the leaders of the whig government, places in a strong his opinion and feelings. "I beg it, therefore," said the light the many difficulties of Mr. Brougham's position, and learned gentleman, "to be understood, that if I yield, I do may probably induce posterity to judge of the course so in deference to the wishes of the house. And further, which he determined to pursue with more of favour and as no change that may take place in the administration leniency than the violent prejudices of party permit his can by any possibility affect me, I beg it to be understood contemporaries to exhibit. Subsequent events, which that in putting off the motion, I will put it off till the severed the old party ties, have so mutually embittered 25th of this month, and no longer. I will then, and at no the minds of all the chief actors in these memorable more distant day, bring forward the question of parlia- scenes, that an unprejudiced judgment from them respectmentary reform, whatever may be the condition of circum-ing the conduct of those with whom they acted we may stances, and whosoever may be his majesty's ministers.' look for in vain; and passion so distorts the memory, as Mr. Roebuck, in commenting upon this speech, ex-well as the judgment, that an accurate statement of facts presses his opinion that if Mr. Brougham really desired seems as difficult of attainment as a just appreciation of to obtain office, that desire was, in his position, na- the facts when related. At every step we are met with tural and praiseworthy. By the indefatigable exercise contradictions with respect to the events as they are said of his great powers, he had materially strengthened to have occurred. We need not wonder to find conthe whigs, and by the same powers he had placed himself at the head of the great popular party out of doors. He had been triumphantly returned for one

Gleig, p. 478.

↑ "Mirror of Parliament," 1831, p. 1,200.

clusions at variance with each other, when the premises on which they rest are thus unsettled."

According to one account of these transactions, lord Grey, when he received the king's commands to form an administration, acted on the conviction that he could not

house of commons, and wield the great power which your singular abilities confer upon you as a member of that house. But we appeal to higher motives, asking you to think less of yourself and more of your country, and to adopt that course which will give effect to the principles which during your whole political life you have endeavoured to advance.' This argument, thus skilfully employed, produced the effect desired, and Mr. Brougham passed almost directly from the bar of the house, at which he had as counsel been engaged when this argument was used, to the woolsack, and took his seat as lord chancellor before the patent which created him a peer was made out."*

The celebrated reform ministry consisted of the following members:-In the cabinet: first lord of the treasury, earl Grey; lord chancellor, lord Brougham; chancellor of the

president of the council, marquis of Lansdowne; lord privy seal, earl of Durham; home secretary, lord Melbourne; foreign affairs, lord Palmerston; secretary of the colonies, lord Goderich; first lord of the admiralty, Sir James Graham; president of the board of control, Mr. Charles Grant; postmaster-general, duke of Richmond; chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, lord Holland; without office, lord Carlisle. Not in the cabinet: president of the board of trade, lord Auckland; secretary at war, Mr. C. W. Wynn; master general of ordnance, Sir James Kempt; paymaster-general of the forces, lord John Russell; lord chamberlain, duke of Devonshire; lord steward, marquis Wellesley; master of the horse, lord Albemarle; groom of the stole, marquis of Winchester ; first commissioner of land revenue, Mr. Agar Ellis; treasurer of the navy, Mr. Poulett Thompson; attorneygeneral, Sir T. Denman; solicitor-general, Sir W. Horne. In Ireland: lord lieutenant, marquis of Anglesey; lord chancellor, lord Plunket; commander of the forces, Sir John Byng; chief secretary, Mr. Stanley; attorneygeneral, Mr. Blackburne; solicitor-general, Mr. Crampton. In Scotland: lord advocate, Mr. Jeffrey; solicitor-general, Mr. Cockburn.

proceed with any hope of success without the co-operation of Mr. Brougham. The king had no objection to accept him as one of the ministers, and he was named in the list as master of the rolls, it being assumed that Sir John Leech was to become lord chancellor of Ireland, with a peerage, and that Mr. Plunket was to be lord chancellor of England. To this arrangement, however, it is said, the king peremptorily objected. It was stated that then Mr. Brougham was offered the attorney-generalship, which he "calmly" refused, upon which lord Grey declared that his hopes of being able to form an administration were at an end, and he waited on his majesty for the purpose of communicating to him the failure of his negotiations. "Why so?" inquired the king. "Why not make him chancellor? Have you thought of that?" The answer was "No; your majesty's objection to the one appointment seemed to pre-exchequer and leader of the commons, lord Althorp; clude the other." "Not at all, not at all," replied the king; and the reasons for one appointment and against the other are said to have been very clearly stated by his majesty. Mr. Brougham seems to have been left in the dark for some time about the intentions of lord Grey, for on the 17th of November he said he had nothing to do with the administration, except in the respect he bore them, and as a member of the house. On the 19th he presented petitions, and spoke on them in the commons, without intimating any change of position. Hence it may be easily supposed that he surprised the world, as well as his friends, by suddenly appearing on November the 22nd in the house of lords as lord chancellor of England. This was certainly a great office to which he was elevated, and for which the exigencies of party made him necessary; but, in accepting it, he sacrificed a great position which seemed to gratify all the desires of intellectual ambition; and, in order to induce his compliance, lord Grey was obliged to appeal to his generous sympathies, his public spirit, and his devotion to his party. Two noble friends reasoned with him on the 19th in the following manner :-"If you refuse, lord Grey will finally declare to the king that he is unable to form a cabinet. The whole whig party will ascribe this evil as the result of your selfishness. That very circumstance upon which you insist as your chief pride, and which gives you your present power and importance-viz., the representation of Yorkshire-will only belong to you for the present parliament. A contest at the next election will be inevitable, and your whig friends will be either hostile or lukewarm. The enormous expense of a Yorkshire election is beyond the power of your purse, and you will have, therefore, to return, if you can find one, to some presentation borough or populous town. Your proposed measure, too, of reform will never be so likely to succeed as by the endeavours and under the auspices of a government pledged to bring forward and support some large scheme of parliamentary reform. As the chancellor of such a ministry, you will be called upon to render a service to the cause of reform which no other man can render, and which you cannot render in any other character. We see, and we acknowledge, the personal sacrifice we ask you to make. We know that if you simply look to personal considerations, if you think only of your own influence apart from all considerations of the public good, you will remain in the

The saying of lord Grey, that he would stand by his order, has been often quoted as characteristic of his aristocratic spirit. He certainly did stand by it on this occasion, for his cabinet could scarcely have been more aristocratic than it was. It consisted of fifteen members, of whom thirteen were peers, or sons of peers, one was a baronet, and one an untitled commoner.

The ministerial statement was anticipated with great interest. It was delivered by the new premier, on the evening of the 22nd, Mr. Brougham presiding as lord chancellor. Foremost and most conspicuous in his programme was the question of parliamentary reform; next, economy and peace. Having gone in detail through the principles of his policy, and the reforms he proposed to introduce, the noble lord summed up all in the following words :- "The principles on which I now stand, and upon which the administration is prepared to act, are—the amelioration of existing abuses; the promotion of the most rigid economy in every branch of the public expenditure;

.

Roebuck, vol. 1., p. 444,

and lastly, every endeavour that can be made by government to preserve peace, consistent with the honour and character of the country. Upon these principles I have undertaken an office to which I have neither the affectation nor presumption to state that I am equal. I have arrived at a period of life when retirement is more to be desired than active employment; and I can assure your lordships that I should not have emerged from it, had I not found-may I be permitted to say thus much without incurring the charge of vanity or arrogance?-had I not found myself, owing to accidental circumstances, certainly not to any merit of my own, placed in a situation in which, if I had declined the task, I had every reason to believe that any attempt to form a new government on principles which I could support would have been unsuccessful. Urged by these considerations, being at the same time aware of my own inability, but acting in accordance with my sense of public duty, I have undertaken the government of the country at the present momentous crisis."

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had begun and handed over to them; but what do you say to their intimacy with the political unions? Do you think they will be able to lay the storm which they have raised in Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow? or prevent it from sweeping away all the safeguards of the constitution? As to O'Connell, depend upon it that whatever Mr. Stanley may wish to do, Mr. Stanley's masters have other uses to make of the great O. than to gag him.'”*

The duke of Wellington took too much credit to himself for his efforts in preserving the peace of the country. Lord Grey declared that when he entered office in November, 1830, he found the counties round London in open insurrection, and that no measures had been taken by the late government to put down these disturbances. This was true so far as incendiary fires were concerned. A system of outrage commenced in Kent before the harvest was fully gathered in. The disturbers of the peace did not generally assume the form of mobs, nor did they seek any political object. Threatening letters were circulated very freely, demanding higher wages and denouncing machinery, and the attacks of the rioters were directed entirely against private property. In the day armed bands went forth, wrecking mills and destroying machinery, especially threshing machines. At night, corn-stacks, hay-ricks, barns, and farm-buildings were seen blazing in different parts of the country. Even live stock were cruelly burned to death. In addition to this wholesale destruction, the rioters plundered the houses of the farmers as they went along. These disorders extended into Hants, Wilts, Bucks, Sussex, and Surrey, and they continued during the months of October, November, and December. In fact, life and property in those counties were, to a great extent, at the mercy of lawless men. Lord Grey lost no time in announcing his determination to punish sternly those disturbers of the peace, and to restore at every cost the dominion of law and order. He would give his most anxious attention to measures for the relief of distress, but it was his determined resolution, wherever outrages were perpetrated or excesses committed, to suppress them with vigour. In pursuance of this determination, two special commissions were issued to try the offenders. They finished their painful duties early in January. On the 9th of that month judgment of death was recorded against twenty-three persons, for the destruction of machinery in Buckinghamshire. In Dorset, at Norwich, at Ipswich, at Petworth, at Gloucester, at Oxford, at Winchester, and at Salisbury, large numbers were convicted of various outrages; altogether, upwards of 800 offenders were tried, and a large proportion of them capitally con

The duke of Wellington was a strong-minded man, yet even he experienced the marvellous influence of position on men's views of public affairs. Having given up the seals of office, he retired to Walmer, where from his quiet retreat he looked out upon the troubled political horizon; and nothing could be more gloomy than his anticipations. According to his biographer, visions of the darkest hue were continually present. "He saw the political unions in England and Scotland acquiring from day to day more perfect organisation and a wider influence. In Ireland, Mr. O'Connell appeared to be raised above the control of law; and the government, though it obtained a verdict of sedition against him, shrank from inflicting the penalty which the law awarded. All this seemed, to the duke's excited imagination, to indicate that the new cabinet was prepared to go to the utmost lengths, in order to conciliate the democracy; on which, indeed, and on which alone, he conceived that it would be driven in the end to rely. Nor were the prospects which met him while contemplating the condition of the continent, and the probable line to be taken by England in dealing with foreign powers, more satisfactory. 'I do not see how these men are to carry on the government,' he used to say, 'so as to maintain order at home or peace abroad. It is very well for lord Grey to talk about standing out for reform, retrenchment, and non-intervention. Reform, as he calls it, he may or may not get; retrenchment I'll defy him to carry farther than we have done, unless he sacrifices the great institutions of the country; and as to non-intervention-with all the sympathies of his party enlisted on the side of democracy-victed. Only four, however, were executed; the rest were all that is, in his case, impossible. Mark my words, you'll see the Belgian insurrection taken up, and a French army in the Netherlands before many months are over; and then if Austria, Russia, and Prussia move, what is to save Europe from a renewal of scenes which no man who has once taken part in them would ever desire to witness again?' 'But they are acting vigorously in the matter of the rural disturbances, at all events, and Mr. Stanley seems determined to stop the agitator's career in Ireland.' 'They are doing in the rural districts the work which we

sentenced to various terms of transportation or imprisonment. The prosecutions were conducted with firmness, but with moderation, and they were decidedly successful in restoring public tranquillity.

The middle classes at that time, bent on the acquisition of parliamentary reform, were anxious that the movement should be conducted strictly within the bounds of legality, and without producing any social disorders. There was,

• Gleig's "Life of Wellington."

however, a class of agitators who inflamed popular 1829 and the whole of 1830 were miserably distinguished discontent by throwing the blame of the existing dis- in Ireland by party conflicts and outrages. To the governtress on machinery, on capitalists, and on the government of the country thus torn and convulsed, lord Anglement. This course of conduct served to encourage mobs sey was again called in December of the latter year, and, of thieves and ruffians both in town and country, who considering his antecedents, no appointment was likely to brought disgrace upon the cause of reform, and gave prove so popular. "Nevertheless," says lord Cloncurry, a pretext for charging the masses of the people with "neither support nor forbearance were accorded to lord a lawless spirit and revolutionary tendencies. Another Anglesey. From the moment when it was known that he class of agitators, chiefly old tories, were prophets of evil, was re-appointed, he was treated by the demagogues as an full of forebodings of national calamity, ever dwelling on enemy. And the extraordinary progress of liberalism the ruin that impended over all the national interests, and, made during his lieutenancy must in candour be set down before all, upon the agricultural interest. Even the duke to the account of his courage and perseverance, in fighting of Wellington, as we have seen, yielded to this desponding the cause of the people against both themselves and their spirit, and indulged in the gloomiest apprehensions as to enemies." On the eve of his departure for Ireland, he wrote the future of England, from the moment he passed into to lord Cloncurry, saying, "O'Connell is my avant courier. the cold shade of opposition. He starts to-day with more mischief in hand than I have yet seen him charged with. I saw him yesterday for an hour and a half. I made no impression upon him whatever; and I am now thoroughly convinced that he is bent upon desperate agitation. All this will produce no change in my course and conduct. For the love of Ireland, I deprecate agitation. I know it is the only thing that can prevent her from prospering; for there is in this country a growing spirit to take Ireland by the hand, and a determination not to neglect her and her interests; therefore I pray for peace and repose. But if the sword is really to be drawn, and with it the scabbard is to be thrown away—if I, who have suffered so much for her, am to become a suspected character, and to be treated as an enemy-if, for the pro

In Ireland there was severe distress prevailing over an extensive district along the western coast-no unusual visitation, for the peasantry depended altogether on the potato, a precarious crop, which sometimes failed wholly, and was hardly ever sufficient to last till the new crop came in. The old potatoes generally disappeared, or became unfit for human food in June, and from that time till September the destitution was very great, sometimes amounting to actual famine. There was a partial failure of the crop in 1830, which, coupled with the rack rents extorted by middlemen, gave to agitators topics which they used with effect in disquieting the minds of the peasantry. The Irish viceroy appointed by lord Grey was the marquis of Anglesey. The interval between his two vice-tection of the state, I am driven to the dire necessity of royalties extended over a period of nearly two years, during which the duke of Northumberland was at the head of the Irish government. The manner in which relief was granted to Roman catholics, expressly as a concession to violence wrung from the fears of the legislature, confirmed the wildest notions of the people with respect to their own power. The offensive exclusion of O'Connell by the terms of the Emancipation Act deprived the concession of much of its grace and power of conciliation. Lord Cloncurry states that it is scarcely possible to doubt that had the Relief Act not been framed with the express design of excluding Mr. O'Connell, he would have quietly taken his seat; "and if he had not settled down into the ease of the bench of justice, he would have pursued a course of constitutional exertion for the social and political improvement of Ireland." It is not likely, however, that any seat on the bench, except that of the lord chancellor, would have satisfied the great agitator. Had he, the foremost lawyer, the great popular chief, been treated in the same manner as lord Brougham, who had occupied the corresponding position in England, Ireland might have been spared a whole generation of pernicious agitation. But the creed of O'Connell precluded this, as the Emancipation Act expressly provided that no Roman catholic could be lord chancellor. This very fact, that a Roman catholic lawyer, however eminent, could not Notwithstanding these apprehensions, the reception rise to the highest place on the bench, was a source of irri-actually given to lord Anglesey was not at all so disgraceful tation, as fixing upon Roman catholics the brand of in- to the country as he was led to anticipate. Mr. O'Connell feriority. In consequence of the securities with which the kept out of the way; but a numerous assemblage of the Emancipation Act was associated, the latter part of the year most respectable citizens greeted his arrival at Kingstown,

again turning soldier-why, then, I must endeavour to get back into old habits, and to live amongst a people I love in a state of misery and distress." In a subsequent letter to the same nobleman, he states that he had received a number of affectionate letters, warning him not to go to Ireland, that he would set his life upon a cast, or that if he did go he should enter Dublin quietly and secretly; on which he remarked, that they might as well propose to him to mount a balloon. He would proceed unostentatiously but publicly to Dublin Castle. But he besought lord Cloncurry to see to it, that no friend of his should come forward to mix himself up with his "unpopularity." He adds, "What a term for me to make use of amongst Irishmen! Let me alone, I shall like to meet their hostile ebullitions alone and unattended. It will be curious enough to contrast the first days of 1829 with the last days of 1830, and the whole change of sentiment to be upon the plea of a solitary law appointment. My particular desire is neither to attract notice nor to avoid it, and most particularly that not one single friend shall put himself forward to share with me the fortunes of the day; and therefore, my dear good lord, stay at home, and you shall hear that I am not less patient and enduring with the hostile and deluded people than I am feelingly alive to the cheers of an affectionate one."