VII. CHAP. by the Duke of Richmond-to show their spite-offered to coalesce with us in throwing it out, and we, alas! had not A.D. 1846. the virtue to withstand the temptation. Accordingly it was thrown out on the second reading, and I must with shame confess very factiously. I can only say that the Protectionists were more to blame than the Whigs; for we had always expressed a dislike of the Bill, whereas in the preceding session they had cordially supported it. Lyndhurst and Brougham have often taunted us all bitterly, both in public and private, with this coalition, and I have never been able to do more than plead in mitigation the force of bad example and pray privilege for a "first fault.” and of the Irish Coercion Bill. Death by Bill. Mode of estimating the damages in case of an actual or expectant Chancellor. The loss of the Charitable Trusts Bill' was the deathwarrant of Sir Robert Peel's administration; but it did not receive the coup de grace till the division in the House of Commons upon the Irish Coercion Bill,' when there was a similar coalition with a similar result, and this proved instantly fatal. In the mean time business had gone on in the House of Lords as if nothing extraordinary were to happen. I again pushed through the 'Deodand Abolition Bill,' and the 'Death by Negligence Compensation Bill.' The latter was now a good deal discussed, and Lyndhurst showed some disposition to cavil at it. He pretended rather to stand up for the old common law maxim that "the life of man is too valuable to allow of any estimate of the damages to be given for the loss of it." I said: "If a Lord Chancellor were killed by an accident on a railway there might certainly be a difficulty in estimating the sum his family should receive by way of compensation for the pecuniary loss; this would depend much upon the probable tenure of his office, if he had survived; for he might be likely to retain it for twenty years, or he might be on the point of being ejected from it by an inevitable change of ministry." Lord Lyndhurst.-"There is a much more difficult case which may arise than that which my noble and learned friend has had the kindness to suggest. If my noble and learned friend should unfortunately himself fall a sacrifice to railway negligence, being at present without office and without retired allowance, how would a jury be able to estimate the value of his hopes ?"* * Hansard, vol. lxxxvi., p. 174. VII. The Bill, however, did pass both Houses, notwithstanding CHAP. a powerful exertion of railway interest to crush it, and it has been the most popular of all my efforts at legislation. I ought here gratefully to notice the very handsome compliment which Lord Lyndhurst this session publicly paid me as an author. Shortly before the commencement of the session I had published the first three volumes of the Lives of the Chancellors.' He took occasion in the course of a debate to praise the work in very high terms, and his remarks being received with loud cheers from all parts of the House, I rose in my place and bowed my thanks. When the Corn Laws Abolition Act came to the House of Lords, I said to Lyndhurst that he was bound to defend it. "No," answered he, "this is unnecessary, for the Duke of Wellington has secured a majority in its favour, although he thinks as badly of it as I should have done seven years ago. Thus he addressed a Protectionist Peer, who came to lament to him that he must on this occasion vote against the Government, having such a very bad opinion of the bill. Bad opinion of the bill, my Lord! You can't have a worse opinion of it than I have; but it was recommended from the Throne, it has passed the Commons by a large majority, and we must all vote for it. The Queen's Government must be supported.'"* The argument arising out of opinion being thus silenced, the Protectionists were helpless and the bill passed. However, they vowed vengeance against the author of it, and Peel was soon ejected, with all his colleagues, as well those who approved as those who abhorred it. In truth this is pretty much the substance of the Duke's speech in moving the second reading. A.D. 1846. How the Lords. VOL. VIII. M CHAP. A.D. 1846. CHAPTER VIII. OUT OF OFFICE.-1846-1854. LYNDHURST viewed his final descent from power very calmly. I really believe that from growing infirmities (for he was lame of one leg and his eyesight was much impaired) he was not Lyndhurst's sorry to retire into private life, so that he shared the fate of final resig- the rest of his party, and did not appear to be ignominiously discarded by them. nation of office. It was on the 6th of July that the government was transferred. The outgoing and incoming Ministers met at Buckingham Palace, and Lyndhurst having resigned the Great Seal into Her Majesty's hands, it was delivered to Lord Cottenham. Lyndhurst, again an ex-Chancellor, very cordially congratulated me on becoming a member of the Cabinet and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. On this very day the Benchers of the Inner Temple were to give a grand banquet, to which the heads of the law had been invited some weeks before. Lyndhurst, Brougham, and myself meeting in the House of Lords at five o'clock, we agreed to go together, and Lady Lyndhurst took us in her coach. Being set down at the Temple, we had a sumptuous dinner from the Benchers, drank their wine copiously, and passed a very merry evening. The chair was filled by Sir Charles Wetherell. He was extravagantly ultra-Tory and ultraHigh Church, but a most honourable and excellent man, who had resigned the office of Attorney General in 1829 rather than agree to the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill. He gave successively the healths of all the distinguished guests, not concealing his own principles, but saying nothing to hurt the feelings of any one. Lyndhurst made an exceedingly good-humoured and beau VIII. tiful speech, alluding to the alacrity with which he had that CHAP. morning, for the last time, resigned the Great Seal, and the pleasure with which he found himself among his old asso- A.D. 1846. ciates, whose company and good opinion must be the chief solace of his remaining days. Brougham delivered a very warm panegyric upon the exChancellor, and expressed a hope that he would make a good end," although to an expiring Chancellor, Death was now armed with a new terror." The Chairman, in proposing my health, called me his "noble and biographical friend," and expressed great confidence in my discrimination and impartiality if I should live to delineate the virtues of Lyndhurst and Brougham. I said that my great hope was yet to see Wetherell himself in the "Marble Chair;" and then, although I might not agree in all his opinions, I should be delighted to celebrate his honourable career and to hold up for the imitation of posterity his chivalrous devotion to principle, at whatever sacrifice. Some said that I then maliciously looked askance at Lyndhurst; but this is untrue, for I then had forgotten that his path had ever been otherwise than straightforward, or that he had not through life been disinterested and consistent. We were afterwards much shocked by learning that during this merriment Lord Chief Justice Tindal, whom we all knew and much esteemed, had been in his last agony. We had known of his being unwell, but were not aware that his life was in any danger. bring about a reconcilia tion be tween the Peelites and tionists, and to turn out the Whigs. the Protec Lyndhurst now talked very freely—I may say licentiously— Lyndhurst's of all parties and all public men; but he retained a hearty intrigue to grudge against the Whigs, and although I believe he had no longer any notion of again coming into office, he would have been delighted to have done a mischief to Lord John Russell's government. With this view he entered into an intrigue to bring about a reconciliation between Sir Robert Peel and the Protectionists, urging that their cause of quarrel was gone, and that they ought to combine against the common enemy. The rather unpopular Bill for allowing the free importation of foreign sugar, whether produced by free or slave labour, CHAP. was then before the House of Commons, and he suggested that by a coalition between Protectionists and Peelites, under A.D. 1846. the title of the "New Conservatives," the Bill and its authors might be at once crushed. This was not a very happy thought, considering that the Sugar Bill really was a free-trade measure-upon which Protectionists and Peelites were not very likely to unite-so that the attempt was better calculated to widen than to close the breach between them. Never was any scheme more unfortunate, for it not only utterly failed, but it drew down upon its projector the violent resentment of those for whose benefit it was intended. Lord Stanley happened to be in the country and knew nothing of it till it had blown up. He then, using a favourite expression of his, declared that "he would not have touched it with the tongs." Being now the acknowledged head of the Conservatives, he considered himself the future Prime Minister, and he had no notion of again playing second fiddle to Peel. Lord George Bentinck, who was in London, on receiving the proposal from Lyndhurst, was thrown into a frenzy of passion. He immediately went down to the House of Commons and denounced it. From a mere man of the turf he had been suddenly constituted the leader of a great party, and he was shocked not only with the notion of coalescing with the faithless Peel, but of being again reduced to insignificance. He therefore used some very strong language against "the meddling exChancellor." This Lyndhurst replied to in the House of Lords, referring in a very cutting manner to Lord George's former pursuits. Lord George rejoined in the House of Commons, and after giving a very circumstantial account of the intrigue to throw out the Sugar Bill-about which the exChancellor was so impatiently hot as to send a messenger to rouse him out of bed at night-thus proceeded : "Sir, I will not say of Lord Lyndhurst as he has said of me, that his calumnies are coarse or that his weapons are of the same description. I will not deny that his sarcasms are dressed in more classical language than mine; I admire the sharp edge and polish of his weapons. I admit that, while I wield the broadsword and the bayonet, he has skill to use the rapier, and uses it with the power of a giant. But I am an honest man, and my past career |