he thought that nothing could be more contemptible than an attempt on the part of the weakest body in the House, both in numbers and talent, to govern by relying at one time on the aid of the conservatives, and on other occasions by claiming the support of those whose undisguised object was the destruction of the institutions of the country. Nevertheless, he apprehended that the expectations of the party to which he alluded would be disappointed. They might indeed safely rely on receiving the aid of sir Robert Peel-for he was too manly to withhold his support, when they appealed to him to resist the destructive party; but he was not so sure whether the latter would be equally ready to help these Melbourne gentlemen out of their difficulties, and to fight their battle for them; and if not, what would be the consequence? One by one the institutions of the country would be destroyed, and bit by bit all that was dear to Englishmen would be lost; and the hon. and learned member for Dublin would reign undisputed master of that House and the country. The country, he believed, would regret the reconstruction of the late cabinet; because, besides having been shorn of its brightest beams by the secession of its best members it had shown itself totally incapable and inefficient in the conduct of public business. The return to office of the late ministers would not be pleasing to the country on another account. The country desired to see an end put to excitement, and to that turbulent conflict between parties which more than any thing else was fatal to calm and dispassionate legislation. What the country wanted-and in the course of his canvass of a large

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manufacturing town he had heard the observation repeatedly made was something like a firm and good government thing like tranquillity and repose, which would allow of the duc consideration of measures of public benefit, and enable them to be effectively carried into effect. As long as the late cabinet existed, such valuable results could not be obtained, because excitement was essential to its existence. If it did not excite, it ceased to live.

Lord Howick, whose sentiments were of importance principally from his connexion with earl Grey, said, that the removal of the present government from office, and the restoration of the late government, did not appear to him to be the plain import of the amendment; and certainly it was not in that sense that he intended to support it. If he had thought that the necessary effect of carrying the amendment would be to remove the ministry summarily from office, he was not certain that he would have thought it just to give such a vote. But so far from the amendment necessarily having this effect, he had had the great satisfaction of hearing sir Robert Peel himself declare that, even if it were carried, he should not consider himself compelled thereby to retire from office. This danger being avoided, he thought an important object would be gained by carrying it, viz. that without producing that summary and unceremonious rejection of the ministers, it would apprise his majesty, in a manner the least repugnant to his own feelings, the most respectful on the part of the House, and at the same time in language so plain as not to be misunderstood, that in the cabinet, as it was at present composed, the

country did not place that degree of confidence which would enable ministers to continue in their situation with advantage to the public service. The amendment implied, as he believed, something to this effect-that the House distrusted the liberal promises with respect to reform principles which had been made to the House by his majesty's ministers, and that it disapproved of the recent dissolution of Parliament. He would ask, then, how could any man, who had supported the policy of the last government for four years, refuse to concur in the propriety of this amendment? Never had there been a season in the history of this country, in which it was of more importance than the present, that the reins of government should be in the hands of men capable of using them with firmness, and yet with that sagacity that became those who were desirous of meeting difficulties, and providing for the coming storm; above all, in the hands of men who were gifted with that most rare of all qualities in a statesman, the art to know how to yield in the right place-men who knew when and where concessions were right and necessary -when and where they were dangerous and inexpedient. Did the present government answer that description? To prove that, in the art of knowing when to give way, the head of that government had shown himself signally and fatally ignorant, he required only to mention the repeal of the test and corporation acts, the still more momentous question of Catholic eman cipation, the question of parliamentary reform, preluded as it was by the long discussion upon the disfranchisement of East RetfordThese were enough to satisfy every

man, whether he might think the measures good in themselves or evil,-that sir Robert Peel, in his past conduct, had shown himself deficient in sagacity, in discovering dangers where they were close and obvious to the most casual observer. He had shown himself to be a pilot, who, though loudly and repeatedly warned, could never be prevailed upon to see the breakers before him, until the vessel of the state was at least in danger. It was true that, during the last two years, he seemed to have profited by experience, and to be now more fully aware of the exigencies of the times, and of the real feelings and wishes of the country than he had formerly been. He (lord Howick) felt this so strongly, that, in his views of liberal policy and the general interests of the country, he differed much more from many of those among whom it was now his fortune to be placed than from sir Robert Peel. But they must look at the manner in which the other offices of government had been filled up. By far the majority of the members of the government even in that House were men of extreme opinions. three great offices of secretaries of state were intrusted to the very last hands, in which, in his opinion, it was fit they should have been placed. Mr. Goulburn, who was now charged with the superintendence of our domestic affairs— more than that with the affairs of Ireland,-had shown no indications that any change had taken place in his opinions since the time when he was the representative of the close, the ecclesiastical, and the orange borough of Armagh. The other two secretaries of state, who were intrusted with our foreign relations and the interests of our

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colonial empire, were the very individuals, whose conduct during the last two years had been the very opposite of that of sir Robert Peel. Of the opposition in the House of Lords, the duke of Wellington and lord Aberdeen were the two most active members. They lost no opportunity of thwarting and embarrassing the government in every possible way. On the Irish education question they attempted to fan into a flame whatever prejudices might lurk in the minds of the English people with respect to that subject; they took pains to nourish the antipathy that existed in one party in Ireland against another; and yet they were now prepared, as the House was to collect from the speeches that had been made, to pursue what had been called a liberal course. Not only that; but in foreign policy those two individuals had gone the length to which, he believed, never had men gone before in this country. They thought it not inconsistent with their duty to hold out every encouragement in their power to the king of Holland, to the usurper of Portugal, and to all the foreign powers who were resisting the policy which was pursued by the responsible advisers of his Britannic majesty. The principles and opinions, which they avowed in conducting that reckless and, he would say, factious opposition, made him entertain the persuasion, that, of all men in the world, they were the two most unfit at this moment to be intrusted with the momentous interests which had been put into their hands.

Mr. Gisborne, the only determined oppositionist returned by the county of Derby among its members, likewise spoke in favour

of the amendment, because the address did not promise the admission of dissenters into the universities, because it took no notice of the commutation of tithes, and because it did not set forth that the discontent existing in Ireland did not arise merely out of the tithe system, but likewise out of the state of the Irish church-all of these being matters in regard to which the amendment contained no declaration. He approved likewise of the expression of opinion against the dissolution of the late parliament.

The present chancellor of the exchequer said, that he was ready to do away with all proved abuses; but experience had shown that a parliamentary majority was the only means of proving to his satisfaction that any thing was an abuse. It was in that way the House had proved to him that the test and corporation acts were an abuse and a grievance. It was in that way that the disabilities of the Catholics were proved to be an abuse; and it was in that way that rotten boroughs were demonstrated to be abuses, though he was not quite sure whether he was ready even now to admit them to have been so. He had hardly ever in his Parliamentary career attempted, of his own accord, to abuse, and he had always been particularly careful in removing any abuses that interfered with the possession of power. It was true he promised that he would save them from any collision with the House of Peers. He might say"I have a majority against me here, but then I can command one in the House of Lords, and you should therefore not bring a majority against me in this House." Now if there were one privilege

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more than another to which he laid claim for the House of Commons, it was this-that they had the right to determine who should be the ministers of the country. He claimed it negatively as to persons, but positively as to principles. He had no doubt that a government could be formed from the opposition side of the House which would possess the confidence of the country; and he hoped that, when it was formed, it would contain a due proportion of radicals, a class of the people too powerful to be excluded from the cabinet. Mr. Price altogether dissented from the opinion which seemed to be entertained by some, and which, if prevalent in the country, would have a most unfortunate effect that because an individual had once opposed some particular measure relative to the constitution of the House of Commons, he should therefore forfeit his rank and station in society, and be excluded for ever from all opportunity of doing service to the sovereign in the great offices of the state. Such an individual, although conscientiously opposed to any great and violent change in the constitution of that House, might very well, at the same time, be one of the most strenuous correctors of proved abuses; indeed such had been the case with that extraordinary man, the bosom friend of Lord Rock ingham, the partner of all his toils, and the friend of Fox, who, although entertaining strong opinions against parliamentary reform, nevertheless brought forward and carried into effect one of the greatest economical reforms which the country ever had the advantage of, and who never on that account was charged with inconsistency by either his friend Mr. Fox, or his

opponent Mr. Pitt. The speech of sir Robert Peel, from its luminous arrangement, the comprehensive nature of its details, and the plain straightforwardness that characterized every line of it, merited, and had received, the stamp of public approbation; but, in the amendment which had been moved to the address, he could not but think there lay concealed in the midst of all its studied ambiguity some cob-web meshes, which had been designed for the purpose of catching the straggling votes of those who were halting between two opinions. Those who drew up that amendment must have had in contemplation the great disunion of opinion that prevailed in their own ranks, which forbade them to venture on a bold exposition of principles. It comprised only topics on which in former times they had agreed, and studiously guarded against all reference to those subjects on which there notoriously existed at present extreme discrepancy of sentiment and feeling. The whigs as a body were certainly the weakest party in the state; and if a government were attempted to be formed from the remnant of the Melbourne administration, they would be obliged to lean for support, on others from whom they differed in opinion, but who would become their masters, and harsh and unscrupulous taskmasters they would find them to be.

After Mr. T. Duncombe, one of the Finsbury members, had delivered a tirade against the address and the ministry, sir James Graham rose, principally he said, to notice certain rumours to which opposition members had adverted-of communications having been made to him

and his party by government, since the vote on the election of the speaker. These reports, perhaps the creation of those who used them, he declared to be, in every sense and degree, utterly unfounded. The propagation of such rumours might form part of the new tactics of an opposition, which he could no otherwise describe than as a Babel opposition, in which all languages were spoken, in which the tongues of the young and old were heard, in which the radical and the repealer both raised their voices. If other motives were wanting, the mere existence of such coalitions would induce him to declare that he was not prepared to unite with such opponents of such an administration. If he could agree that the overthrow of the administration would not be the consequence of adopting the amendment, he might be disposed in some respects to qualify his support of the address. Referring to that portion of the king's speech which related to the subject of corporation reform, he was ready to admit that upon that topic the public mind was completely made up. The question of corporate reform consisted of two parts the one relating to the application of trust property, the other the mode of appointment of those by whom the affairs of the several corporations were conducted. The former he admitted was a question of considerable nicety; but, on the other, nothing would have been easier than for ministers to have stated their views at once, in a manner short, clear, and perspicuous. At present the governing party in the corporations were self-elected; the people desired that the mode of their election should be popular; and as the

public mind was evidently made up on that subject, it became with him, in reference to that, at all events, a matter of entire indifference who were, or who were not, the ministers of the Crown; for, whoever might be minister, a removal from our municipal corporations of the vice of self-election was, in his opinion, a matter fully and completely decided. Had an amendment been moved which involved the assertion of that proposition, he should not be indisposed to give such an amendment his support; but he was opposed, and should remain adverse, to arriving at any conclusion which might have the effect of placing the present administration in a minority, under circumstances which might put to hazard their continued existence. It was his misfortune not to have been able to place confidence in the administration of lord Melbourne; the present government, however, had made large and ample promises of liberal measures; and he would maintain that they possessed greater facilities and more extended means of carrying such measures into full effect than any ministry the formation of which he could contemplate. It was the duty of the administration to produce their measures; but was it not in fairness the duty of the House to abstain from striking without hearing them, and would it not be still more unjust to strike for the purpose of preventing their being heard? There were large promises contained in the king's speech. Now, he wished to put these promises to the test; for he fully believed that the measures, of which expectations had been held out, would soon be produced. With the exception of corporation reform, which exception he regarded with