Commons Sitting of 25 February 1835

Preamble
MINUTES.] Petitions presented. By the Sheriffs of London, from the Lord Mayor and Corporation, for the extension of Smithfield Market.—By Mr. C. C. CAVENDISH, from a Place in Sussex, for the Repeal of the Malt Tax. [In consequence of the great Number of Election Petitions, it was settled this day, that the House should revert to its old custom of meeting at four o'clock, and not meet at twelve, as it had done during the last Session.]

ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HIS MAJESTY'S SPEECH — ADJOURNED DEBATE.
Mr. Robinsonsaid, the interval which had elapsed since the Adjournment of the Debate had afforded him an opportunity, in common with many others who had not heard the Speech yesterday, of looking at the Address proposed to be presented to his Majesty, and at the Amendment proposed to be grafted upon it, with all the attention that was due to both. He would commence by confessing that he was not altogether satisfied with the Speech which his Majesty bad been recommended to deliver; for, partaking as it did of all that vagueness which characterized all former compositions of this nature, it was liable to objection from Reformers on account of its important omissions. One of the most important omissions to which he had just adverted was the omission of a declaration of any intention on the part of Government to take up the Report of the Commission on Municipal institutions in the spirit in which that Commission originated. He admitted, however, that the able and eloquent Speech of the right hon. Baronet, which was calculated to make a deep impeession on the public, though it had not influenced his mind to support the Address, had supplied some of the deficiencies which were to be regretted in his Majesty's
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Speech. He would throw overboard all cavils, and would take the Speech of the right hon. Baronet, as it ought to be considered, as a supplement to the Speech from the Throne; and come to the consideration of the present question under the grave impression that Parliament was now assembled in a crisis of the utmost importance to the best interests of the country. If he thought that by concurring in the Address, and by opposing the Amendment, he was to be considered as expressing a confidence, which he did not feel, in his Majesty's present Ministers, he for one would never concur in that Address. He was obliged to confess, that when he looked at the composition of the Government, and at the recorded opinions and public acts of many of its Members, as contrasted with their present professions, they did not inspire him with any strong confidence in their future conduct. He was not, however, unwilling to give the Government that fair trial which the right hon. Baronet at the head of it demanded. He would deal with that Government as he had dealt with every other Government since he had been in Parliament; he would not meet it with factious opposition, but he would look at the measures it proposed with fairness and impartiality, and would make a reasonable allowance for all the difficulties which it must inevitably encounter. Looking at the first act of the right hon. Baronet in his official capacity since his return to power, he must say, that he did not see in it any adherence to those principles of anti-reform with which the right hon. Baronet had been so loudly charged. His first act had been to make overtures to the noble Member for Lancashire, whose attachment to the principles of Reform had never yet been disputed. When he (Mr. Robinson) was called on by the noble Member for Yorkshire to adopt his Amendment, he felt compelled to ask himself what was the object of it. It was notorious that the Amendment had not merely for its object the supplying of the deficiencies in the Address proposed by the noble Member for Liverpool; it had also for its purpose the destruction of the present Government before it was tried—an object which the noble Mover did not for a moment conceal either from himself or the House. He could not join in any project of that kind. He had declared on the hustings on the day of nomination, before he had obtained a single vote, that if an attempt was made to subvert the present Administration be-

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fore it had an opportunity of developing its measures, in that attempt he would not concur. Whether his constituents would be angry with him for acting in such a course remained to be seen; he could not tell how that might be; but, at any rate, they would not have cause to charge him with acting inconsistently. He had never been either the factious opponent or the servile tool of any Ministry; he had never been a party man; on the contrary, he had always been independent of party. Determined as he was to remain so, he could not help asking himself, and every other Member ought to consider what would be the consequence of subverting the Government in the very infancy of its existence? Though he was not inclined to deny the possibility of forming a Ministry out of the men of talent, influence, and weight, who sat on the Opposition side of the House, he must still contend that there existed among the party composing the Opposition such elements of discord and disunion as would render it impossible for them, in case they subverted the present Ministry, to construct a new Ministry which would be able to conduct advantageously the business of the country. If that were true—and he stated it before Gentlemen who might deny it if they could—was it not consistent in him to support the new Government to this extent, and to this extent only—namely, to give them an opportunity of bringing forward those specific measures of Reform which the right hon. Baronet last night stated himself willing to give the country? That would be an important point gained for the country; for if the right hon. Baronet were allowed to place such measures upon the Table, the party opposite, with whom the right hon. Baronet was connected, would be committed—and he did not use the word committed opprobriously—to that extent to the principles of Reform. That would break down the party barriers which at present prevented men of equal talent and virtue from coalescing with each other for the advantage of their common country. It had been taken for granted on the side of the House at which he was speaking, that all their constituents were of one way of thinking, and it would appear from some of the speeches which had been made, that he and all who, like him, were prepared to give a qualified support to the present Administration, were doing injustice to the constituents who had returned them to Parliament. He certainly should be doing
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injustice to his constituents if he were to deny that the majority of them were Reformers and anti-Ministerialists. But though the majority were Reformers and anti-Ministerialists, they were not over friendly to the Whigs. He believed that some of them, but certainly not a majority, were favourably disposed to the present Ministers; he was not, however, bound to neglect entirely the wishes of the minority, though he admitted that it was his duty on most occasions to show greater deference to the wishes of the majority. Let the House look at the returns made at the last election. Would any man with any pretensions to fairness deny that the opinions of the electors in cities and boroughs were not greatly divided between the present Ministers and their opponents? He said in the cities and boroughs for he excepted the counties, where he knew that pecuniary motives had great. weight. Take Liverpool for instance,—it had returned the noble Lord who moved the Address, and another hon. Gentleman of politics diametrically different. Take another large seaport—Bristol. It returned, if not two, certainly one Member friendly to the present Government. At Halifax, a newly constituted borough, the balance of opinion was so close, that a Ministerial representative was returned, he believed, by a majority of one only. It was therefore not quite fair to say that all the boroughs of the country were determined to turn out the present Ministers without even giving them a fair trial. He knew the difficulties which the right hon. Baronet would have to encounter if he continued to sit upon that bench—he was afraid that those difficulties would be almost insurmountable; but, supposing the right hon. Baronet to be turned out of office, would the difficulties of the Opposition be less formidable? Their bond of union would be dissolved with the dissolution of the present Ministry, and the elements of discord and confusion would so embarrass the new Government, that no good, useful, practical measure could be carried through Parliament. It was a difficult and ungracious task to one who, like him, pretended to the name of a Reformer to talk of placing confidence in an Administration composed of so many persons who had formerly opposed Reform; but, after the able speech of the right hon. Baronet, developing his future line of policy, he thought that he ought to have a fair trial before he was condemned. Though some gentlemen were sneering at his pro-

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fessing himself a Reformer overlooking the important fact that he had uniformly supported all great Reform questions, he would now say, in the face of the House, thin he would rather see the cause of Reform safely and steadily progressing with the consent of those parties who had formerly been its adversaries, than see measures of Reform forced upon the country before the country was ripe to receive them. Another reason why he could not concur in the Amendment was, because it stated that the late dissolution of Parliament was not necessary. Now, if the change of Ministry were justifiable—on which point he offered no opinion at that moment, because it must of necessity be discussed fully hereafter—the dissolution of Parliament was the necessary and inevitable consequence of that change. What had the result of that dissolution told the right hon. Baronet? He gave the right hon. Baronet credit for being sufficiently sagacious in his views to know that his position at the present time was very different from what it was when he was last time a Minister of the Crown. Now, he would tell the right hon. Baronet that the result of the late elections had proved two things,—it had proved that the country was determined to have those Reforms effected which the lapse of time had rendered necessary for the perfection of its institutions; and it had also proved another fact, that the sense of the country was directly opposed to those rash measures of innovation which a certain party in that House endeavoured to force upon the late Government, and which, in his opinion, had mainly tended to the subversion of that Government. It had been said that this was a question of "Reform, or no Reform," and that it was therefore the duty of every man who called himself a Reformer to turn out the present Government, on account of their former antipathy to Reform. If he had thought so, he would have gladly joined in the attempt to subvert the present Ministry; but in that case he would rather have supported a direct vote of censure upon them than such an Amendment as the present. A direct vote of censure would be a more manly mode of proceeding; for, unquestionably, the disguised object of the Amendment was to expel the right hon. Baronet and his colleagues from office. It was not, however, a question of "Reform, or no Reform." That question had already been decided by the Reform Bill, which had placed such a degree of power in the hands of the constituency that no abuse,
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no matter in whose hands the Government might pass, that was stamped by public reprobation could be hereafter maintained. He, therefore, was of opinion that what might be called absolute abuses—such as the abuses of the Church in Ireland,—such as the abuses of the Church in England,—such as the abuses of our corporate system, must be abandoned by the present Government or their successors. The sole object he had in rising on this occasion, as the House must have seen already, was to justify the vote which he was about to give; and it might be gathered from what he had already said, that the simple ground of his vote, in favour of the Address and against the Amendment was, that looking at the peculiar difficulties of the country with reference to the state of parties, which were at present nicely balanced, he hardly knew how any Government could conduct the affairs of the country if each party pushed their principles to the utmost, and did not merge their differences in the advantages of their common country. Were they to embark during another session of Parliament in that bitter opposition of party which disqualified them from attending to those subjects that required their immediate attention? Let the stability of the Government be tried by some tangible motion; and, if it be determined that the present Ministry are to have a trial, let them have it; and then, if they did not satisfy the House, returned as it was on the principle of Reform, he would join the noble Lord in a vote praying his Majesty to dismiss them. The right hon. Baronet, in his speech of last night, had not concealed either from himself or from the House that he had accepted office under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. He could assure the right hon. Baronet that no prejudice would induce him to shut his eyes to the great public services which he had formerly rendered the country, or to the conduct—the open conduct—which he had invariably pursued. The right hon. Baronet had so justified himself, he had made it so clear that in taking office he was actuated by a sense of public duty, alone, that he, for one, thought that it would be harsh to the right hon. Baronet, and disrespectful to the Crown, to overwhelm him by opposition before he had a fair trial. He was determined still to exercise a strict control and vigilance over the acts and measures of the present Government, and under

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such circumstances he felt assured, that in voting for the Address, he and those who thought with him would not be surrendering themselves in blind confidence to the present Administration—on the contrary, complete power over them and their measures would he retained in their own hands, to deal with the latter after a full and patient investigation in such a manner as might seem most beneficial to the interests and happiness of the country. With respect to the charge made against the Government of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth — namely, that the course which they were now pursuing was completely at variance with the whole tenour of their former public conduct—he, for one, never could concur in the opinion that, because under other circumstances the right hon. Baronet and those who thought with him had opposed Reform, yet, under the present state of things and parties in this country, they were to be branded as apostates should they venture now to bring forward measures of Reform. The true constitutional doctrine was, that the Ministers of the Crown in every free country must, to a certain extent, be influenced by public opinion, and that whatever the private opinions of those Ministers might be, as in the case of the measure of Catholic Emancipation, and in the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, they must, to a certain extent, yield them, if they thought there was nothing inconsistent with their characters or duty, and, if looking at the state of the country and the condition of Parliament, they felt. disposed to bring forward such measures themselves. He was influenced in the course which he was now about to take by the apprehension, that if the present Government fell, there was no possibility in the existing state of parties to form another Administration to succeed them. Looking at the difficulties in which the country was placed—seeing that the whole constituent body had a right to expect that the Representatives of their choice should look to the measures of the Government, certainly with jealousy, but not with a view to eject them from office without trial, it was his intention to give the Address his support. The Amendment did not contain a single point that was not embraced in the Address proposed in answer to his Majesty' Speech, with the exception of the expression of disapprobation of the course which
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had led to the dissolution of the late Parliament, and therefore in his opinion it came to nothing, especially as he could not concur in that portion of the Amendment. He should be ashamed of himself if his course of conduct could in any way be influenced by a pressure from without, and was therefore fully prepared to give the present Government a fair and honourable trial. That pressure had mainly and most disgracefully been created by the activity of the public press, and though by that organ he and those who felt with him might be branded as traitors, yet he would fearlessly throw himself upon his constituents, in vindication of the course of his entire Parliamentary life, during which he had never joined a factious opposition, and had never been guilty of the inconsistency of expressing within the walls of Parliament an explicit and blind confidence in any Ministry, while out of doors he had endeavoured to support them. As with other Governments, so was he prepared to deal with the present, and the Address now proposed should on all these grounds have his support.
Mr. Wardsaid, that he differed entirely from the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, and especially upon the grounds upon which he conceived every Reformer ought to be actuated on the present occasion. He must, however, apologize for obtruding himself a few minutes upon the attention of the House, and his main inducement was attributable to the charge which had been made by several speakers of a factious opposition against his (Mr. Ward's) side of the House—a charge which, if not specifically brought forward, had certainly been hinted at last night by the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, as applicable to all those who refused to support a Ministry willing to carry out practical Reforms, a Ministry thereby entitled to the support of every honest and conscientious man. The right hon. Baronet had certainly used the words "factious opposition" several times in the course of his speech, to which he (Mr. Ward) had listened with great delight, but which certainly had failed in his instance to carry conviction with it. He certainly had never seen Conservatism dressed out in such fanciful colours, nor the distinction between the two sides of the House so skilfully described, as in the speech last night of the right hon. Baronet. It should be his (Mr. Ward's) endeavour

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to bring back the question before the House to the real grounds upon which it ought to stand, to show the points upon which the parties in the House essentially differed, and to prove that the Reformers were not actuated by a factious opposition to the right hon. Baronet personally, but from respect to the principles which he bad at all times and under all circumstances professed. The difference of opinion between the two parties might be stated under three points, all, however, arising from the same source—namely, the doubt which prevailed as to the power of the Legislature to deal with corporate property at any time. The first point involved the question of the admission of Dissenters into the Universities. The right hon. Baronet had disstinctly stated, that the Legislature had no right to exercise a compulsory power over the Universities to enforce this admission. The right hon. Baronet admitted that this restriction was a practical grievance affecting the dissenting portion of the community, which to a certain extent he was prepared to remedy; but the right hon. Baronet did not recognize the great principle from which redress should flow. Neither did he recognize the principle that admission to the national seminaries for national education, should be without reference to sect or to religious opinions, and his only measure of relief seemed to be an arrangement to be effected elsewhere, with respect to admission to the learned professions. The second point on which a difference of opinion arose, was upon the subject of the reform of Municipal Corporations. He must admit that nothing could he fairer than the professions of the right hon. Baronet on this subject; he stated that he wished to wait for the production of the report of the Commissioners of Inquiry before he pledged himself to any specific measure. In this he (Mr. Ward) also admitted that the right hon. Baronet had reason on his side, but was it not notorious that the leading evils of the existing Municipal system in this country, were the vices of total irresponsibility, and the want of popular election, both of which might have been remedied and removed without waiting for the report? He (Mr. Ward) held the Corporations, as they now exist, to be the strongholds of the Conservative interest, and he attributed the non-introduction into those close Corporations by the present Government of popular rights, to what the hon. Member for Knaresborough had last night designated
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as "an enlightened regard to their own interest." Was there, be would ask, a single Member now ranged behind the Treasury Bench, and representing a populous town, who was not the Representative of a close Corporation. He observed the noble Lord, the Member for Norwich (Lord Stormont,) opposite, and he would ask the House whether there was a single town in the kingdom, except a close Corporation, in which the noble Lord would have dared to make his declaration against Reform? Was there, he would inquire, a single city, town, or borough in the kingdom, except where a close Corporation prevailed, in which the noble Lord would have ventured to state that he not merely hated the thing, but the very name of Reform? [Lord Stormont disavowed the words attributed to him]. Then, never was an unfortunate Member of Parliament more grossly belied, as the statement of the noble Lord's speech had appeared in detail in all the newspapers, and such being the case, he was surprised that the noble Lord had not felt it his duty to give a contradiction to a report at once so injurious to himself, and to the Government to which he belonged. The noble Lord had certainly expressed an opinion as if there was something very offensive in the very name of Reform, and it was only in a close corporate town that such a declaration would be ventured to be made. The noble Lord, however, in this respect exceeded the line which the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government had now taken, for the right hon. Baronet had declared himself to be a good and consistent Reformer—almost as good as any man sitting on the Opposition side of the House, and as such had called for the support of the Reformers. Believing, as he did, the close Corporations to be the strongholds of the Conservative party, he did not think the right hon. Baronet would be able to lead the main body of that party to storm their own fortresses, or to induce them to lay open the strongholds in which, on a future occasion, they contemplated to take refuge. The third point of difference was the question of Ecclesiastical Reform, and particularly an Ecclesiastical Reform in Ireland. With the strong feelings which he entertained on this subject, he did not think he should be accused of factious opposition to His Majesty's present Government, if he withheld his support from that Minister who had declared, in his address to his constituents, that on this subject he had no new professions to make, and that

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he could not give his consent to the alienation of Church property in any part of the United Kingdom. It was true, that the right hon. Baronet admitted the principle of re-distribution of Church property. This he (Mr. Ward) believed might satisfy the honest Church Reformer in this country, especially if accompanied with an equalization of the Bishoprics to a certain extent, the enforcing residences, and other similar measures; but if the Irish channel was crossed, would it be found that such a Reform would satisfy the people of Ireland? It was impossible by any mode of re-distribution, nicely to poise the burden on the Catholic population in that country, or to reconcile them to a system which was every day becoming more hateful to them, and under which he believed no Government could long exist. The subject was, however, of much too grave a nature to be incidentally discussed, but he hoped it would be met fairly when it should be properly submitted to the consideration of the House. These were shortly the grounds upon which he should oppose the Address, and give his support to the Amendment. The latter contained a distinct expression with regard to Municipal Corporations, and to the effect that there must be a very large extension of popular rights. It had been asked who were to replace the present Government—who would be found to take the helm in these turbulent times, in the event of the Amendment being carried; and a reference had been made by the right lion. Baronet opposite (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) to the incongruities existing amongst the Members on the Opposition side of the House; but were not similar incongruities presented in the heterogeneous elements of which the Ministerial Benches were composed? [No]. The hon. and gallant Member for Lincoln (Colonel Sibthorp) said no, but it was somewhat strange to see the hon. and gallant Member joining with the right hon. Baronet near him (Sir James Graham), who had denounced the present Government on the hustings at Cockermouth, and had described their past lives as one continued course of hostility to Reform. Would the right hon. Baronet deny this speech, as the noble Lord (Lord Stormont) had repudiated a speech attributed to him? Such a speech had most certainly been attributed to the right hon. Baronet, and had been published in the newspapers. The right hon. Baronet might, nevertheless, vote for the Amendment, and if so, the charge of incongruity
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in this respect, at least, would fall to the ground. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government doubtless counted on the support of the hon. Member for Knaresborough (Mr. Richards,) who, disbelieving every word of the King's Speech, thought he should be enabled, by some system of pressure, to extort from the right hon. Baronet the repeal of the Septennial Act, and the Vote by Ballot. Hence it was evident, that whatever Government might hold sway, there must ever be a want of unanimity among their supporters on many separate questions. He, however, believed that there could be formed an Administration, able and competent to take the places of the hon. Gentlemen opposite, and which would have the confidence and support of the great majority of the country. He also believed, that the Administration which lately had been dismissed without a trial, would have enjoyed that confidence and support, if their plans had been developed in a Speech from the Throne. The right hon. Baronet, the member for Tamworth, had so far had a trial, and if the Speech from the Throne had declared the intention of his Government to settle the question of the Irish Church, he (Mr. Ward) would have afforded him his support; indeed, he would give it now on those terms. He could not concur in the opinion that, in order to prevent collision, every measure of Reform must either be cut down to the limits set by the majority of the House of Lords, or be given up altogether, and he was not prepared to admit that proposition as a rule for future legislation. He trusted such a rule would be rendered unnecessary, by the House of Lords being brought more in unison and harmony with the wants and wishes of the people. In conclusion, he should support the Amendment, not from any wish to trench upon or infringe the royal prerogative, but because he thought the present Government would not carry out those Reforms which would satisfy the majority of the community.
Viscount Stormontrejoiced that the hon. Member for St. Alban's had afforded him an opportunity of giving a denial of the words imputed to him, and quoted by the hon. Gentleman. He admitted that, as had appeared in the papers, he had used on the occasion in question the phrase "be hated the word Reform," but the newspapers had not had the justice, the fairness, the candour, or the charity, to subjoin the remainder of the sentence. He had certainly

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said that he hated the word Reform, as used by those who sought the destruction of the national institutions—that there was much in the name, much in the word so applied, but that if the word Reform meant amendment of the institutions, then he was himself a Reformer; if, on the contrary, it meant destruction of the institutions, that then he was an anti-Reformer. To these words, and to the sentiment they conveyed, he still adhered. The hon. Member for St. Alban's had asked why he (Lord Stormont) had given no contradiction to the report. It was true that he had read the statement in the newspapers, and had read accusations against himself morning and evening, but he had treated them with the most complete contempt, as he always should treat such observations, feeling satisfied that his place in Parliament was the fitting spot in which to explain and defend his conduct, and set himself right with the country. After this declaration, he trusted he should never hear the subject again introduced. One word, before he sat down, on the subject of close Corporations. The hon. Member for St. Alban's had spoken of Norwich as one of that class. Norwich, however, contained 4,500 electors, who had the choice of the Mayor, of the Sheriffs, of the Aldermen, and of the Common Council. In addition to them all, the 10 l. householders enjoyed the franchise in the election of the guardians of the poor. Could it then be said that Norwich was a close Corporation? He trusted the hon. Member would not, after this statement, assert that with such a constituency, he (Lord Stormont) was the Representative of a close Corporation.
Captain Berkeleysaid, that at the present momentous crisis it needed no apology from any hon. Member on presenting himself for a few moments to the attention of the House. He had himself been brought up a constitutional Whig, and under the banner of "measures and not men" he would still continue to fight, and should support measures and not men when he thought those measures were for the good of his constituents and of the country at large. Nothing like factious opposition could be saddled upon those who should support the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Yorkshire, because the House itself had heard from the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, that even if the Amendment should be carried, the Administration would not be upset. He should give an honest, consci-
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entious vote in favour of the Amendment. In the first place, it had been stated by the noble Lord now sitting on the Ministerial side of the House (Lord Stanley), out of those walls that he had no confidence in the present Government, now by the vote he meant to give he only sought to express the same opinion. He bad not confidence in the present Government, for though ho had heard the speech of the right hon. Baronet delivered last night with so much talent, yet he had heard nothing to convince him that a thorough change had taken place in the right hon. Baronet's sentiments and opinions. The right hon. Baronet hell asked if the Government of Earl Grey had not been upset by pressure from without? Perhaps so; but he would ask whether pressure from without would not be still stronger to upset the Government of the right hon. Baronet? The simple question of that night was, "confidence or no confidence?" and upon it he saw no reason why men entertaining generally different principles should not come to the same conclusion. In the Speech from the Throne the subject of foreign policy had been touched upon, and it appeared that the same line was now to be pursued, which had been the constant object a attack; and he would ask how it happened, if peace were to be maintained—if that was the object some time since—that Don Carlos was now in Spain? It was supposed, that Conservative interest and influence, had been greatly used in placing that Prince once more there Denying that there was any thing like factious opposition in the vote he should give, he was induced to take the course he designed to pursue, because he had no confidence that reforms would be carried out sufficient to satisfy him. He would take the corporate monopoly of the Universities alone as a ground to justify him. It seemed that the reforms there were to be left to the mercies of the heads of those bodies, from whom nothing could be expected; and though boons were said to have been offered to the Dissenters, he could not bear it without distinctly stating that those boons were scarcely reforms at all and that the Dissenters expected more, must have more, and would have more. With regard to the Irish Church, he avowed unhesitatingly his opinion that there was nothing in the King's Speech which could lead hint to suppose that necessary reforms were intended. He should vote for the Amendment, which was free from violence, and

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did not trench in any way upon the prerogative of the Crown, and to which every man who wished well to his country could most safely give his support.
Lord Stanleyspoke to the following effect: If, Sir, I thought that in voting for the Address, I was voting against the principles laid down by my noble Friend opposite (Lord Morpeth) who moved the Amendment, or, upon the other hand, that by giving such a vote I was necessarily pledging myself to place confidence in the Government, which, looking at its composition, I confess I cannot feel—I should have much doubt as to the vote which I ought to give. I cannot, however, concur in taking that view of the question; and I will proceed, in the few remarks it is my intention to offer to the House, to state broadly and plainly upon what ground it is I think that my duty to my country, as an honest man, will be best discharged, and my own principles of Reform best furthered, by giving my vote against the Amendment. In saying this, allow me to add, that I speak not only my own sentiments, but the sentiments of a body of Gentlemen, not insignificant either in point of numbers or station in this House, who, bent upon the sure but steady attainment of certain measures of Reform, are determined to effect our object by no party course of proceeding, but by such a course as in our own unbiassed judgment we may deem most conducive to the end in view. Allow me, in the first place, before I proceed farther, to express my sense of the very able, temperate, clear, and constitutional manner in which the Amendment was moved by my noble Friend. I do not differ from my noble Friend in the doctrines he has laid down, that for the dismissal of the late Ministry the present Government are, constitutionally speaking, strictly and truly responsible; and that it is within the competency and the undoubted privilege of this House to express an opinion, to pass judgment, and even to offer advice to the Sovereign upon the manner in which he has thought fit to exercise his undoubted prerogative—I agree with my noble Friend in his observations on a circumstance connected with that exercise of the prerogative —I mean the extraordinary concentration of power for a considerable time in the hands of one individual. I agree with my noble Friend that the fact of the illustrious individual in question having so unexceptionably used his powers does not of itself justify the act; but that the high talents and character of the noble Duke would render the
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precedent more dangerous to the liberties of the people of this country, if allowed to pass unnoticed by this House. But I am of opinion, that we should not make further observations upon the subject, under the circumstances, than in the name of the House of Commons to protest against the act in question being drawn into a precedent. Further than that, I think the matter ought not to be adverted to. In vindication of this singular concentration of power, the right hon. Baronet last night cited a case which occurred at the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne, when Lord Shrewsbury held, in his own person, the offices of Lord Treasurer, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The cases, however, were very dissimilar in their circumstances. What was the state of the country at that time? The Queen was upon her death-bed; there was a disputed succession; a foreign prince was threatening to foment a civil war in the country; and the Queen's confidential Ministers had been for some time carrying on a secret correspondence and intrigue with that foreign prince, whose object was to desolate this country. Those Ministers were afterwards impeached and Lord Shrewsbury, under that pressing emergency, held the three great offices in question, as the best means of consolidating the power of the executive in a period of great peril. I will for the present pass by other topics which have arisen in the course of the debate, and come at once to the question of the Address, and the Amendment which has been moved upon it. There is, I confess, one point in the proposed Amendment for which, if it stood alone, I should feel bound to support that Amendment. I should do so, because, having listened with anxious expectation to the Speech from the Throne, and to the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) last night, as to the terms in which the subject of Municipal Corporations was adverted to, I am bound to say, that neither the one nor the other gave promise of anything satisfactory to my mind. I agree, that the right hon. Baronet might think Himself precluded by prudential considerations from stating the nature of the intended measures. But I should deceive the right hon. Baronet if I did not tell him, that with respect to the principle and spirit of Corporation Reform, the country has made up its mind; and that the principle and spirit of such Reform are the same as were pursued by the people of this country with so much ardour in the matter of the

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Reform of Parliament. I have no hesitation in saying, that my own mind, and that of others in this House, are made up to effect in this branch of our institutions a Reform, having for its basis the principle that Corporation privileges are a trust for the benefit of the people at large, and that they should be placed upon a system of real and true representation, subject to the control of their constituencies. I will not go the length of the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment, in saving that we ought to go so far as the Scotch Corporation Reform; but I do say, that the people of England have made up their minds upon the question, and the omission to take more particular notice of the subject in the Speech from the Throne, and in the speech of the right hon. Baronet, will lead me to look with greater jealousy than I otherwise should have done, on the measures which the Government may introduce on this subject. I have said, that if the Amendment had been confined to this subject alone, myself and my friends would have had much difficulty in offering any opposition to it. We, however, cannot by voting for the Amendment bind ourselves to condemn measures of which we know nothing. And, on the other hand, we do not consider that by voting against the Amendment, we thereby give a negative to each of its propositions. I find in the Speech from the Throne many substantial measures of Reform promised, although by a singular fatality the word itself never once occurs. If this omission were made as a sacrifice to those gentlemen who cannot bear even the sound of the name, I shall not be disposed to quarrel with it. I shall be satisfied to see the promises of Reform contained in that Speech fully carried out in our institutions. While I find myself compelled to say, that the constitution and composition of the present Government are such, that I cannot place confidence in that composition—though I am the last man who ought to quarrel with it, being in some measure responsible for that composition, by having declined to join it—I yet have declared, and do now repeat that declaration, that I will not take any step which, in my judgment, may have the tendency of overthrowing that Government before it has had the opportunity of proving what are its principles. Now I can look upon the Amendment which has been proposed to the Address in no other sense but as a Motion either to overthrow the Govern-
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ment, or else to obtain an idle triumph over it, without any intention of that triumph being followed up by any ulterior steps beneficial to the country. To adopt an Amendment for such a purpose, is not consistent with my views and feelings; and I may further say, that there are expressions in the Amendment itself from Which I am called upon wholly to dissent By the terms of one part of the Amendment we are called upon to declare our opinions as to the expediency and the policy of the dissolution of the late Parliament. My noble Friend (Lord Morpeth) has said, that this is a question of far too great importance for this House to blink at, or pass over; and he has appealed to the occasion of the King's Speech in the year 1784, when, as my noble Friend has said, Mr. Pitt objected to time passing over a similar question, and insisted that it was the duty of Parliament to express its sense as to the policy or impolicy of the dissolution which had then recently taken place. But I would remind my noble Friend, were he now present, what was the occasion upon which Mr. Pitt thought it necessary to demand that expression of opinion on the part of the House of Commons. It behoves those who, with my noble Friend, now argue for the necessity of a declaration by this House against the expediency of the late dissolution — I say necessity of such a declaration, not who argued whether it was or was not expedient in itself—to look at the circumstances under which Mr. Pitt called for a similar declaration. During three or four months of the previous session, Mr. Pitt had been constantly left in a minority. Resolutions after resolutions had been passed condemning the Government of the day; nay, more, the House of Commons had passed a Resolution declaring that the man who should, under those circumstances, advise his Sovereign to dissolve Parliament, was an enemy to his country, and ought to be proceeded against accordingly. In such a state of affairs, could anything be more natural or necessary than the course adopted by Mr. Pitt, he having dissolved that very Parliament, and, therefore, having been impeached as it were by anticipation by the previous declaration of that Parliament? It was natural on meeting the new Parliament which he had summoned, that be should not be satisfied without counteracting that impeachment by a declaration of the House he had called together. But is there any such necessity existing now for us to express our opinions

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as to the expediency of the late dissolution? But if there be, have we the materials to enable us to come to an accurate judgment upon that point? Are we acquainted with all the circumstances which led to the necessity or expediency of a dissolution? Do we know all the communications between his Majesty and the various Members of Lord Melbourne's Government at the time of its formation? Do we know all the conversations that passed at the time of their removal? The House will remember that I am not expressing any opinion whether the late dissolution was wise or prudent, or whether it was necessary or unnecessary; but I am objecting now to the adoption of the course proposed, that by way of an Amendment to the Address we should prejudge the question, and declare that that dissolution was unnecessary. I object to accede to the declaration in the Amendment, and to affirm that the dissolution of the late Parliament endangered the subsequent measures which were to be the result of the Reform Bill. If it did, Sir, then the Reform Bill has failed. If the gentlemen who were then in the possession of power, and who were, according to my noble Friend, in the prosecution of measures of useful, temperate, and salutary Reform, have been, by an appeal to the constituency of the country, so weakened in this House as to endanger the progress of those measures, my respect for the Reform Bill and for the constituency is such, that I would rather ascribe that result to some doubt or fear in the minds of the people, that those intended measures themselves were not of so salutary and beneficial a nature as they were said to be, than believe that the Reform Bill will be inefficient, or that the constituency will not do their duty. But, Sir, of this I am confident, that no dissolution of any Government—no constitution of any Administration can, since that great measure was passed—either impede or endanger the course of a temperate, salutary, and comprehensive system of Reform. The hon. Member for St. Alban's, says, that he does not wish to prejudge the question connected with the Irish Church Reform; but that he intends shortly to bring forward the question, and though not wishing partially to discuss it on the present occasion, yet he is desirous of sanctioning the Amendment which, in his judgment, decides the question, and pledges the House upon it. The hon. Gentleman, I think, said, that he wished that subject to be expressed in the
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Amendment a little more distinctly. Why was it not? Might it not be, that the hon. Gentleman supposed that among those who are willing to Reform the Church of Ireland there might be some—and those no inconsiderable number—who might still object to go the length of that hon. Gentleman?—and yet the hon. Gentleman himself, who has the opportunity of bringing the question forward, and who indeed has given notice to do so, calls upon the House of Commons to affirm that in the Amendment, which he admits to be ambiguous, but which he might afterwards use for the purpose of saying, "the House of Commons have affirmed the principle which I now propose." Now, this is not dealing fairly with the question—a question too important to be so dealt with. The Speech itself promises, that measures shall be submitted to our consideration, and upon which we shall be able to decide whether they are substantial and sufficient or not, upon the subjects of Reform in the Church of Ireland, and of the Church in England and Wales. But the Amendment proposes that we should declare our readiness "to correct those abuses in the Church which disturb the peace of society in Ireland." Now, the right hon. Baronet last night pointed out (and I should be glad to hear an explanation of this subject) the ambiguity which lurked in that phrase. What are the abuses of the Church in Ireland, which "disturb the peace of Ireland?" Does the hon. Gentleman refer to the existence of the system, by which the clergy of Ireland are paid, or does he refer to the circumstance of a Protestant clergy being distributed through that country? The hon. Gentleman would tell you that he refers to the latter question, and not to the tithe question, upon which the Amendment is proposed. But let me remind that hon. Gentleman that it is the tithe question only that can be said to disturb the peace of Ireland. The other question,—that of the existence of a Protestant clergy, — may excite irritation, differences of opinion, and discontent in Ireland; but it is the levy of tithe (that is, it is the evil which is about to be remedied) which so lamentably disturbs the peace in Ireland. The existence of the Protestant Church and Clergy in Ireland is a separate question, to be met upon separate considerations, and I cannot consent to any measure that may have for its object the overthrowing, the impairing, or the debilitating of that establishment. It is, then, upon

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the grounds which I have now stated, that I feel myself compelled to withhold my assent. from the Amendment; because I conceive that by acceding to that Amendment, while we, in the first place, should adopt much with which I should concur, yet we should assert much from which I altogether dissent; because, also, we should introduce questions which we have not had the means of discussing, nor sufficient information upon which to form a judgment; and because, likewise, I believe that the adoption of that Amendment would tend to produce, in the present state of political parties, a consequence most disastrous for the country, and most disastrous for the steady, secure, and immediate advancement of the cause of Reform. I mean the instant overthrow of the existing Administration. That Administration have promised measures of improvement; and I hold myself bound in honour to await the introduction of those measures, and to give them an opportunity to make known to the country the extent of their contemplated reformations. Standing, as I do, entirely, removed from them, having, from a sense of duty, declared it impossible for me to join that Government, as it is at present constituted, and standing in a position in which I have no object to obtain, except that of faithfully discharging my duty as an independent Member of Parliament, as zealous for real Reform as I am earnest to prevent destruction. I feel myself compelled, upon the grounds I have stated, and those grounds only, to assent to the Address in answer to his Majesty's Speech, and to object to the Amendment, which, though there is much in it that I consider desirable, at the same time contains much which I think objectionable, and more than in my judgment is either reasonable or safe.
Dr. Lushingtonhad listened last night with the deepest anxiety, first to his Majesty's gracious Speech, and next to the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he must express his cordial approbation of the right hon. Baronet's having upon that occasion so distinctly announced his determination to take upon himself the responsibility, of the dismissal of the late Administration. It was with feelings of extreme gratification that he had heard that great constitutional principle—which heretofore had been controverted in the House of Commons by some of the right hon. Baronet's predecessors — so amply recognised by the right bon. Baronet. This
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principle being admitted, the next consideration which occurred to him was, whether the right hon. Baronet, in assigning the causes of the dismissal of the late Administration, had stated reasons which ought to satisfy the House and convince them of the propriety of that Administration being so suddenly dismissed. The right hon. Bart. had stated, that the Administration constructed under the auspices of Earl Grey, had met with sundry losses and defalcations, and that, at its dissolution, it possessed not the same talent, weight, authority, or parliamentary experience that it had possessed at the time of its original formation. He was the last man to deny the loss sustained by the retirement of his noble friend (Earl Grey), whom he had followed from the earliest hour till the time he quitted his great parliamentary duties—that is, to the time he left the Administration—and as he had said, for ever; but which he (Dr. Lushington) hoped not. He admired and revered the consistent parliamentary life of that noble Lord, and should ever lament his loss. Nor could he do otherwise than lament the loss which had been sustained by the retirement of his noble Friend (Lord Stanley), whose great powers he was ever ready to acknowledge. He did not agree with those who said that the loss of that noble Lord was a benefit to the Administration to which he had belonged, and to which he (Dr. Lushington) had always adhered. That Administration must have felt the loss of that brilliant eloquence, that indefatigable industry, and that high character which distinguished his noble Friend. His Majesty might possibly have felt those losses and might possibly have been counselled to dissolve the Ministry then; but those who then advised the Crown-notwithstanding these great leaders had separated themselves from them—still thought that the Government might be conducted upon the same basis as had existed under Earl Grey, and his Majesty abided by that advice, and determined that it would be most beneficial for the interests of the public to reconstruct the Administration, by placing Lord Melbourne at the head of it. He differed, therefore, from the right hon. Baronet, and would say that the retirement of Earl Grey was not a good reason for the dissolution of the late Government. But what was the reason now assigned for that dissolution? Why, that Lord Althorp by the death of his father had been removed from this to the other House of Parliament. Was not that a circumstance within the

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direct limits of probability, in the minds of all persons, when Lord Melbourne's Administration was formed? And would any man tell him that that Administration was formed upon the condition that when Earl Spencer (who was at that very moment expected to be on his death-bed) should depart this world the Administration should cease? Any man at that time could predict that Lord Althorp would not long remain in the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer; but no man would then have asserted that the existence of the then Administration depended upon that noble Lord's continuing to hold that office, and that the Ministry was to expire when Earl Spencer died. Another reason assigned for the dismission of Lord Melbourne's Administration was, that it had lost the confidence of all parties, and also a great portion of that of the Parliament; and what was the proof which the right hon. Baronet had produced to support that reason to the satisfaction of the House? He had read to the House a letter written by the bon. and learned Member for Dublin, dated (Oh! tell it not in Gath!) at Derrinane Abbey. Had ever any man elevated the hon. and learned Member for Dublin as the right hon. Baronet had done? He had assigned to that learned Member the power to make and dissolve Cabinets. That hon. and learned Member wrote a letter from Derrinane Abbey to Lord Duncannon, and according to the right hon. Baronet, such was the influence and power of that letter, that it was the cause of extinguishing the Administration of this country. He would willingly pay his humble tribute of praise to the talents of that hon. and learned Member. He knew the power and influence of that hon. and learned Gentleman over the minds and hearts of his countrymen; but he begged leave to assure the right hon. Baronet that means might have been found, notwithstanding the publication of that letter, to have sustained the Melbourne Cabinet in that House. He would also speak a word or two upon the question to which the noble Lord opposite (Stanley) had alluded, and which was the next important step which was taken at the time Lord Melbourne was so suddenly desired to resign office; he alluded to the union of all the powers of the State in the hands of the Duke of Wellington. The noble Lord had protested against that step in what the noble Lord called a Parliamentary point of view, and against its being made a precedent hereafter. But
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would the House be contented with any protest against the establishing such a precedent which did not form part of its records. Was there no man of ability and influence in that House who would take upon himself to propose a resolution to the extent, that such an experiment should never be made a precedent? The step to which he alluded had been attempted to be justified by a reference to the example said to be set by the Duke of Shrewsbury in former days. But a precedent meant this—that the same thing should be done, and that under similar circumstances to those under which it had formerly been done. Now, he first would deny that it was the same thing; for he denied that the holding of the offices of Lord Chamberlain, Lord High Treasurer, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in the person of the Duke of Shrewsbury, was to be compared to the combining of the offices of the First Lord of the Treasury and the three Secretaries of State, at once in the person of the Duke of Wellington; and for this obvious reason, that the Duke of Shrewsbury shared with other persons the responsibility; but the Duke of Wellington had no one associated with him, except the Lord Chancellor, when be received the Seals. Suppose at the period in question, news had been brought of the advance of Don Carlos into the heart of Spain, the next post had brought the lamination of an insurrection in the West Indies, and another letter had given the intelligence of a disturbance in Ireland? He asked whether there was any one human mind that could have properly attended to the great and responsible duties which those several events would require to be discharged by the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, the Home Department, and the Colonies? He had been told by a Colonial Secretary of State, that the multifarious duties of that office were so great, that his utmost exertions were unequal to their adequate discharge, and could the Duke of Wellington, or any other man, attend to them, and to the Foreign office, and to the Home Department at the same time? He begged to say a word as to the ground on which he intended to give his vote. He could not take to himself the credit that some hon. Members had done, of not being a party man. He had ever been such, and that upon principle, and such he believed he should remain.—He had attached himself to that party which he, in his conscience, believed to profess the purest principles, and had fol-

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lowed them, as far as he could, in matters of importance in which he agreed with them, differing only in some points upon which he felt compelled to depart from them. The principles of that party he felt bound to maintain, as being, in his mind, best calculated to advance the great end of good Government. It was said, that a union and combination had been made against his Majesty's Government, without just reason; that those who opposed the Government, without giving them a fair trial, had combined, notwithstanding that their opinions and principles on many points differed. First, he would defend the course from precedent, and next upon principle. They were not so old as to forget the union of Mr. Fox, Mr. pitt, and Lord Grenville, with whom the right hon. Gentleman opposite then acted, for the express purpose of turning out a Ministry. He would contend, that a greater difference of opinion existed on subjects of the greatest importance, between Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, and Lord Grenville, than among those parties who were now united against the present Government. ["No! no!"] The right hon. Gentleman said, "No!" He (Dr. Lushington) was astonished at that denial. He knew not of one single great measure upon which Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox agreed, unless it was the measure calculated to overturn the then Administration; they had been for years opposed to each other, but that difference of opinion was no objection to their union. A period might come when parties, whether Tory or Whig, or whatever other description they might bear, might consider that the great interests of the country were so endangered by the acts of Government as to justify them to combine for the purpose of obtaining an Administration able to protect and improve those interests. Did not he (Dr. Lushington) recollect, that a Member of the present Administration (Lord Wharncliffe), when a new Administration was about to be constructed, after the death of Mr. Percival in May 1812, made a Motion in the House of Commons praying his Majesty to be pleased to form a strong and efficient Administration? Did not the noble Lord then use these words:—"This is in no respect a new question; it has been decided upon before; in 1803, the present Government has been tried and found wanting?" Persons of all parties —Lord Wharncliffe at the head, the right hon. Gentleman now at the Board
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of Trade, and the right hon. Gentleman, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and many others—then united in voting, that the Administration then about to be formed, had been tried and found wanting, in consequence of their want of ability several years before. Now, when he (Dr. Lushington) spoke of the present Administration he could not separate it, in his mind, from the Administration of 1830. He could not believe, that the bringing in of Earl de Grey in the room of Earl Melville, and the putting out of Mr. Croker, and the putting in of Mr. Dawson, were sufficient to prevent the identity of the present with the then existing Government. Now, the Government of 1830, had, by a majority of the House of Commons, been strenuously opposed; he, therefore, could not trust it now. How could he trust that right hon. Baronet to make those great Reforms now, who, for years had the power to make them when they were equally necessary, who was able to destroy those abuses when they were equally aggravated, and yet took no step whatever to remedy any of those abuses either in Church or State. What act had they done then or since, which should entitle them to the character of a Reform Administration. But the right hon. Baronet had endeavoured to induce the House to cast a more favourable eye upon his Administration, by saying to the House, "Remember, we are supported by the House of Lords. They will receive at our hands measures of Reform, which at your instance would have been met with a haughty refusal." What is this? What is the meaning of that declaration? Tell it to the country. Tell it to your constituents. Tell them, that henceforth it is not the people of England—it is not the House of Commons who are to stamp their approbation of the men from whom the selection of Ministers shall be made by the Crown in the exercise of its prerogative; but tell them that that Administration which stands not upon the approbation of the House of Commons, but looks to the House of Lords for support, shall have power to rule the country—that that party —despite the sense of the people—despite the majority of the House of Commons, shall possess the Government of the country. A more frightful course could not have been followed. The right hon. Baronet bad endeavoured to show, that the late Government was not popular. Whatever that Government might have been, he was

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well assured that the present Administration had not the confidence of the great portion either of the electors, or of the people of England. They had not the confidence of Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House; they had not the confidence of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley), or those who acted with that noble Lord. Whose confidence had they, then? They had the confidence of the high Tories, and of the high Tories only. He had himself no conception of the extent to which the determination to get rid of the present Administration had gone, till he went among the people. He spoke now of places which he knew, of the great City of London, of the vast wealth of that great city. He would ask those who spoke of the popularity of the Tories, to look to the district which he himself had the honour to represent—a district having a population of 370,000 souls. But if they wished to demonstrate the feelings of the metropolis, for God's sake let them look to Finsbury. To those who endeavoured to depreciate the characters of the Gentlemen representing that extensive district, he would say, that just in proportion, as they depreciated the characters of those Members, in that proportion did it appear, that the Borough of Finsbury would rather have any Member than a Tory. There was no instance of a dissolution taking place, without the Ministers having met the Parliament. When, in 1784, Mr. Pitt met the Parliament he found that there was a majority of twenty against him, and he said that that Parliament did not truly represent the people. He accordingly dissolved them, and his words proved true; for the result was a majority of 100 in his favour. Now, unless the Ministry, meant to contend that the sense of the country was represented by an unreformed, and not by a Reformed Parliament, he could not see how they could contend that the present Parliament was not a true representative of the feelings and wishes of the people. The Government had struggled in vain to gain the noble Lord—the noble scion of the house of Derby — over to them by adulation. Nothing could equal the adulation heaped upon the noble Lord. The hon. and learned member for Ripon (Mr. Pemberton), addressed him as the Weird Sisters did Macbeth. "'Hail Minister that shall be!' Save, oh save us in our misery! As thou art powerful, he merciful!" 'Oh, hard-hearted Lord! flinty Statesman! hast
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thou no pity? You have risen, and in your speech, which was spoken in the mildest and smoothest terms, you have declared your total want of confidence in the present Government?'" No, unlike the hero in the drama, the noble Lord was not betrayed by the blandishments of the Weird Sisters to his own destruction. Let the noble Lord remember the honour of his family. Let him remember the honour of those ancestors, who so gloriously fought for the freedom of their country; and he called on the noble Lord, though entreated, to let no blandishments induce him to give his support to those against whose principles, be had strained his might to insure the tranquillity of the country. Let him not give his support to a Ministry with whom he held no principles in common; and that in opposition to a set of men from whom he differed on one question only— namely, the question of Church-property. The hon. and learned Gentleman then said he should not have trespassed so long upon the time of the House, but that he did not think he should be doing his duty if he did not express his total want of confidence in the present Ministry. That want of confidence he entertained in common with a majority of the House, without which it was impossible that any set of Ministers could carry on the Government with advantage to the country. He might take that opportunity of noticing some observations which the hon. Member for Lincoln had directed against him personally. It was not his intention to honour the hon. and gallant Member with any particular notice. If the House knew all that he said elsewhere, how he began, and how he ended, they would not he disposed to censure him. What he then said, had been said a hundred times before, and he was now prepared to abide by it. In order to show that he was not actuated by the feeling which had been ascribed to him, he might remind the House, that although he was one of the late Queen's counsel during the trial, and in that character had an opportunity of giving utterance to his feelings, he obtained the eulogium of the Earl of Eldon, who said that he had not spoken a syllable more than his duty required. It might be remembered, that he was the executor, and the confidential adviser of the late Queen, who confided all her secrets to him, and he asked whether he had ever for a single moment allowed the public to know any

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circumstance relating to her domestic affairs, or even spoken disrespectfully of any of the Royal Family? In one instance, with regard to the late King, he went out of his way to prevent publicity being given to a transaction, which he thought might raise a prejudice against that Monarch. He hoped, that those who knew him, and had watched his conduct, would not give credit to any reports which had appeared in newspapers or elsewhere, affixing upon him culpability, which he knew in his conscience he was innocent of.
Mr. Winthrop Praedsaid, that, in the course which the hon. and learned Gentleman had thought proper to pursue, he had forgotten himself, and had deviated from the usual custom of the House; and, in replying to some observations respecting some address made by him in his capacity elsewhere, the hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to have justified himself on the propriety of the course which he adopted in his capacity of an advocate in the House of Lords. Whatever intemperate expressions that lion. and learned Gentleman might have used as the advocate of Queen Caroline, he, as a far less distinguished member of the bar, but at least as a junior member, gave him the indulgence which the venerable Earl Eldon extended to him. But he would not be led away to give any excuse or indulgence to the grossly intemperate address, made to an already inflamed constituency. It was such conduct as this that produced fearful danger; it led to allusions to subjects in which they had nothing to do. He left the address, however, to the constituency to fight for itself. The hon. and learned Gentleman had found fault with the reasons which had been given last night by the right hon. Baronet for the dissolution of Parliament; and to that part of his speech he (Mr. Praed) proposed to call the attention of the House. In the first place, the right hon. Baronet had stated that the dissolution of Parliament was caused by the secession of the late Ministry; secondly, by the removal of Lord Althorp on the death of his father; and, thirdly, by the memorable letter of the hon. Member for Dublin, addressed to Lord Duncannon. The hon. and learned Gentleman had grossly misrepresented the argument of the right hon. Baronet, when he stated his reasons for the dissolution; because the arguments of the right hon. Baronet was to show, by a series of cases, that, in the state of things, his Majesty was justified in
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dismissing his Ministry. Hon. Gentlemen asked not why the Government were dismissed, but how they were dismissed. But, in the event of the removal of the present Ministers, what support would they have then? Would they have the support of the popular party? Let them refer to the letter of the hon. and learned Member for Dublin, to prove that that was not the party of which Lord Melbourne would approve. The hon. and learned Gentleman had alluded to other circumstances by which Lord Melbourne's Ministry were dismissed, and yet he appeared to depreciate the value of the services of those who had seceded from it, namely, Lord Stanley, the Duke of Richmond, Sir James Graham, and the Earl of Ripon. Did not the hon. and learned Gentleman believe that a large part of the confidence which was reposed in that Government, by a large portion of the country, was owing to the presence of those very Members of the Government? But still more surprised was he to hear the hon. and learned Gentleman attempt to depreciate Lord Althorp's value, because Earl Grey, of whose Government Lord Althorp formed a principal part, refused, without the presence and assistance of Lord Althorp, to do that which the Melbourne Ministry was ready to do. Earl Grey had stated to the country, after the loss of Lord Althorp, that it was impossible to carry on the affairs of the country; and, subsequently, when Lord Melbourne was placed at the head of the Cabinet,—a nobleman of considerably less experience and less consequence in the country—when this was the case, was it not to be conceded that Lord Althorp was so absolutely necessary, that, at least his loss was a matter of considerable importance? Under these circumstances, his Majesty determined to dismiss the Administration, and he had not heard anything to shake his conviction that that was a good and wise judgment. He had listened with great attention to the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman, because the noble Lord who agreed with them on that side in no small degree, and in more temperate terms, expressed his disapprobation of concentrating so many offices in the person of the Duke of Wellington. Now, he would say no more on the precedents quoted by the hon. and learned Gentleman; but he would suggest to the House other precedents of more recent date. The hon. Member then cited the instance of Mr. Canning on 12th April, 1827, who was invested with the offices of First Lord of

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the Treasury and of the Secretary of State, Lord Dudley, Mr. Sturges Bourne, &c., not being gazetted as Secretaries until the 1st May; and he justified the proceeding with reference to the Duke of Wellington. But it might be said, in answer to this argument, that at the time of Mr. Canning holding these various offices, such an interregnum as that which occurred in the case of the Duke of Wellington was not contemplated. But he would answer that positive proofs were existing having reference to the case, which would establish the fact, that the argument, if good in one case, must be so in the other. Now, for his own part, he believed that the hon. and learned Gentleman was wrong in stating, that the right hon. Baronet waived the constitutional question as to where the responsibility should rest. But he hoped that he would be ready, when called upon, to say that the responsibility would rest upon him; and most reluctant, he was sure, would the right hon. Gentleman be to give up that responsibility. The hon. and gallant Member for Westminster had asked whether they believed the House of Commons, in the two last Sessions, had been so distinguished by the useful and generally beneficial measures it had adopted, as to be entitled to public confidence and regard? If he went back, he might be able to form some opinion of the estimation in which it must have been held by the country, from the Bills he would find enumerated among those which it had passed. Among the first of these was the Irish Coercion Bill, as also one bestowing 20,000,000 l. of the public money to carry into effect the principle adopted by the late Administration for the manumission of slaves. There were, likewise, the Poor-laws Bill, which placed several millions of people at the disposal of seven Commissioners. If the Members of that House had gone before their constituency, and detailed such acts in evidence of their claims to public support, would they have been again sent back to that House? The hon. Member for Tipperary, on a former occasion, did not sustain the claims of the late Parliament to a prolonged existence, for, arguing in favour of a shorter duration of Parliament, he expressly put the question,— "What—if the present Parliament were to continue six years,—what have they done?" Thus was it put by the hon. Member; and yet, because the advocates of long Parliaments resorted to a dissolution, hon. Gentlemen opposite were displeased. Had not that
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Parliament sat the full portion of time required by those who advocated Triennial Parliaments? The dissolution surely met their views in that respect. They had all the advantages of the principle which they so strenuously advocated, and which the hon. Member for Tipperary wound up his support of, on the ground that "short reckonings made long friends." There were, however, other considerations which rendered it desirable that the existence of the late Parliament should be of as short a duration as possible. Under the Reform Bill there was au admixture of new and old constituencies, the former of whom, for the first time, exercised the important privilege of sending Members to that House. These had not the benefit of experience, or of forming their opinions by what they had seen done, and, therefore, were liable to mistake. Besides, the election had taken place at a time when the excitement incidental to the discussion of the Reform Bill had not yet been allayed, mid when it was impossible, from various feelings, for the constituents to exercise a rigid and impartial discrimination. He put it to the House, if many hon. Gentlemen had not been elected, not for their superior attainments or eminent capacity, but in gratitude—he would say, praiseworthy gratitude—for the great exertions they had used to carry the Bill, which had invested the new constituency with the franchise. In the borough he had the honour to represent, the constituency of which was composed partly of the members or freemen of a Corporation, and partly of 10 l. householders, he was met at that time, in many instances, with the answer,—"I have got my vote through the exertions of that Gentleman, and I am bound in gratitude to exercise that vote in his support." Whatever changes, therefore, had taken place, it might fairly be considered that the late Parliament was elected under such circumstances as precluded its representing, fully, the intelligence and interests of the country. They had heard it repeated by that part of the late Government which was denominated the Conservative portion, that the wealth of the country was not fairly represented in Parliament. The experiment was made to ascertain whether that were the fact, not by taking advantage of a popular fervour in favour of the Administration. No: his Majesty appealed to the sense of his people, at a period of perfect tranquillity, when no great question agitated the public mind, and when the prejudices that had previously

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swayed the people had subsided. Well, what was the consequence? He put it to the hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were so satisfied with the issue of the late division, and were no doubt indulging in sanguine anticipations of future majorities, if the present House of Commons represented the sentiments of the country? Would they deny that it did? If, then, it did, the late House of Commons certainly did not. He put it to the House, if the minorities on his side did not exceed by two to one what they previously were? Did not this fact, then, prove that the former Parliament did not represent the views of the country, and that, consequently, its dissolution was just and requisite. He was not well acquainted with the statistics of that House, but he was informed by those who were that there were in the present Parliament 200 Members who had not been in the last. Of these 100 had never before been in Parliament, and the other 100, though not in the last, had been in former ones. If in such proportions a change had been made in the representation, how was it possible to say that his Majesty was not justifiable in appealing to his people, as he had done, at a period totally free from public excitement? The hon. Member then proceeded to say, that, with respect to the Amendment, if it had been proposed as the Address to the Crown, it would have been opposed for its vagueness by the noble Lord, the Member for the Northern Division of Yorkshire. The Speech from the Throne was far more definite: for instance, on the Irish Church. Why did not the noble Lord point out the abuses in the Irish Church to which he so generally and ambiguously alluded, and, likewise, suggest the steps to be taken for their remedy? With respect to Corporate Reform, the object of hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to be, as expressed by the noble Lord, the Member for Yorkshire, to destroy the principle of self-election. He suggested to the noble Lord the necessity of using more applicable and strictly-defined terms. They all recollected the misapprehensions that arose from the application in another instance of the simple word "extinction." The phrase "self-election" might he very intelligible to the noble Lord, though it might be very questionable in the opinion of others; but, perhaps, the better course would be to avoid altogether the mischief of pronouncing on a question that had not undergone the investigation which was necessary before they came to a decision.
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He had stated that he and his hon. Colleague represented a constituency composed partly of freemen of the Corporation, and partly of 10 l. householders. Before these he appeared as a supporter of the right hon. Baronet's Government. There were amongst them many gentlemen of great wealth and intelligence, who were by no means the devoted or bigotted supporters of abuses in our political system, but who were as consistent and firm supporters of Corporate Reform as any hon. Gentleman on the opposite side of the House. Although he had not pledged himself to the support of Corporate Reform in any shape, he had no hesitation in saying that neither he nor his hon. Colleague would hold the places they did in that House, if the independent constituency they represented did not thoroughly believe that the right hon. Baronet would give a temperate and fair consideration to that as well as the other questions to which the country expected the attention of Government would be directed. Indeed, he did not know to what extent or character of Corporate Reform he could pledge himself. In some places the present system was not so narrowed in its operation as in others. In Norwich there were 4,000 freemen. The constituency amounted to nearly the same number, there being only 300 ten-pound house-holders, so that the constituency were identified with the corporate franchise. Now, if he were fixing on a system, should he (and he had been asked if he would) fix on that of Norwich as a model? He supported the Address in the first instance because the Amendment was less definite; and in the next, he reposed entire confidence in the right hon. Baronet, whom he had not found an anti-reformer, although he had not coincided in the organic reform of that House. The right hon. Baronet, he was satisfied, would consolidate public opinion by a wise and honest Administration, not propitiating the support of the hon. Member for Dublin.
Mr. Sheilsaid, the hon. Gentleman who had preceded him had endeavoured to confound the Administration of Lord Grey, when comprising four Members of the Cabinet who afterwards left it, with the Administration which was afterwards composed under the leadership of Lord Grey when those Members had retired, and a third and distinct Administration, which was composed by Lord Melbourne, upon the express understanding—he should rather

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say the distinct declaration—that upon the result of the Church Commission for Ireland would depend the measures they would propose, and the effect of which should be a new appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Established Church. Between the two Administrations, therefore, there was a most essential difference. The last had not used vague and indefinite expressions, but, they had pointed out the exact limits to which they would go. The difference consisted, on the one hand, in an approbation of a new distribution of the revenues of the Irish Church; and, on the other hand, in a determination to see those revenues applied to the same channels in which they had hitherto been distributed. This, after all, was the point upon which they differed. He believed that upon this question it was that the present Premier had thought it advisable to dissolve the Parliament. The right hon. Baronet had not put the dissolution upon any such ingenious, not to say fantastic grounds, as those which had been alleged by the hon. Gentleman. He never heard from the right hon. Baronet a more able or a more frank statement of opinion than that which he made on the last night. He was unambiguous, unequivocal—nothing was hid, nothing evasive; he stated frankly what his conduct had been, and what it was to be, and he was willing to try the right hon. Baronet by what he proposed to do, rather than by what he had done. Upon the conduct of the right hon. Baronet during the discussion of the Reform Bill, he, for one, did not place much reliance. He had admitted that a great political revolution had taken place; and he confessed that, afterwards, between his conduct and that of his party, he saw a clear distinction. The right hon. baronet had last evening distinctly enumerated the measures on which he had supported the late Administration; and from that enumeration they had doubtless gathered the fact, if they were not previously aware of it, that he did support those Ministers because they (the Opposition) opposed them. He would not say that the right hon. Baronet stretched out to the late Government the hand of sinister assistance, or that he struck at them a dexterous blow. But, unfortunately, it was upon questions where the late Administration was most strenuously at variance with a large mass of public opinion in Ireland, and a considerable portion of public opinion in England, that the right hon. Baronet tendered his assistance to the late Administration. What
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in fact, was it that the right hon. Baronet opposed? Did he not oppose the abolition of Church rates in Ireland? [The Chancellor of the Exchequer: No, no.] Surely the right hon. Baronet opposed a Bill which contained provisions for that object —namely, the Irish Church Reform Bill.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer:I gave my distinct opinion in favour of the abolition of Church-rates in Ireland.
Mr. Sheilsaid, he spoke with the utmost sincerity when he said, that he had the greatest satisfaction in being corrected upon this point. Did not the right hon. Baronet (continued the learned Gentleman) oppose any diminution of the revenues of the Bishops and the number of bishoprics, which the noble Lord, the Member for Lancashire so strenuously advocated, as to lead for a moment to the belief that he was a strong and earnest Reformer? And if the right hon. Baronet did not oppose the abolition of Church-rates in Ireland, were the Dissenters of England furnished with no argument in favour of a similar measure for this country. For what reason, then, was the Address silent upon this subject? Was anything to be done? Why, when there was a specification of the intentions of the Government as to the marriage of Dissenters, was this other grievance, which affected them wholly, overlooked? Again, did not the party to which the right hon. Baronet belonged oppose the Bill for the Amendment of the Administration of Justice in Ireland.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer:It was never opposed by me.
Mr. Sheil—No! but he spoke of the party, and might not the junction of the right hon. Baronet with the party be taken as some evidence of the policy to be adopted by him, or in any event, as an argument against silence upon such points, when he comes before the country with a desire to set his future policy against his past conduct. They needed something better than vague promises, for deception lurked in vagueness. He must next say, that the grounds which had been alleged as the causes of the ejectment of the late Administration had no solidity; that it was absurd to attribute it to the vacancy in the leadership in the House of Commons, occasioned by Lord Althorp's elevation, since the House was not then sitting, and did not therefore require a leader; and that it could not have originated in the measures regarding the Church of Ireland, since the Commission of Inquiry had been issued, and all

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other preliminary steps taken, long before. What, then, was the reason for the dissolution? Many insinuations had been thrown out, but no distinct reason had been given, and all they knew was, that the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister. But could no other Premier have been selected? If the Melbourne Ministry was broken up on the Church question, why was an application not made to the noble Lord the Member for South Lancashire, or why was the country compelled to await the return of the right hon. Baronet? But who, let him further ask, had been chosen as his associates to form the Government? Were they not individuals of whom he need not say anything more disrespectful than that they were conspicuous for the strenuousness of their opinions upon the Church question? Look again to the course of policy adopted with respect to Ireland. He admitted that the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary were, perhaps, among the persons most eligible that could have been selected, but it was also clear that the Government had found itself under the necessity of associating with them the party commonly called Orange—a party upon whom there was a mark and a character set which could not be mistaken. The hon. Member for Sligo, for instance, had been chosen as an object of their favour; and though, far from complaining of it personally, for it was a matter of pleasure to him, yet it was an unfortunate indication of the course of their future policy. Thus with sixty-two, the great majority of the Irish Members on the one (the hostile) side, the right hon. Baronet had committed himself to the cause of a devoted few on the other. And were all his glorious efforts in favour of Catholic Emancipation thus to be blotted out and forgotten? Were the results of the Reform Bill to be lost as far as regarded Ireland? There were at least fifty-three Members for Irish constituencies, who called for and demanded a new appropriation of Church-property in Ireland. Let, then, the hon. Baronet choose between them, whether he would elect as his allies the minority or the vast majority of Irish Members. Ireland had been the ruin of many Administrations. It had destroyed the Administration of Mr. Pitt, and of Lord Grey in 1807; in 1812, it produced the destruction of the Government; in 1822 it caused a change in the Government of Ireland, and severed the connexion of the right hon. Baronet with Mr. Canning. The Church of Ireland had broken up the Go-
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vernment of the Duke of Wellington—it caused the dismissal of four Members from Earl Grey's Cabinet—it shook to its centre the Melbourne Cabinet—and it was destined also to destroy the present Administration.
Mr. Lechmere Charlton,*after apologising presenting for presenting himself thus early to the House, said that the few remarks he should have to make arose in a great measure from what might, peradventure, be considered a frivolous reason, viz. from the want of a proper understanding of the meaning of one word. He alluded to the word "Reform," which was supposed to be a panacea for all evils—a word somewhat akin to charity, which covered a multitude of sins. If by Reformer was meant a general Reformer of all abuses he was himself at once a declared Reformer; but if that name was intended to imply an advocate of Ballot—of Triennial Parliaments, of the admission of Dissenters to the Universities; then he was not a Reformer in so flagrant an abuse of the word. Even Gentlemen who are advocates for the dismemberment of the Monarchy, and persons calling themselves Whigs, are now-a-days united under the convenient name of Reformers, as if Whigs and persons desirous of dismembering the Monarchy were synonymous. "Against any such doctrine I protest, having imbibed my principles of Whiggism from the early part of the last century, when the principles of Whiggism were laid down, and which consisted, if I remember right, of freedom of election, loyalty to the House of Brunswick, toleration to Dissenters, and the fullest security to the Protestant Church." The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down seemed to have put himself very much beside the question, and in that respect he had only followed in the wake of many hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House who had preceded him. That hon. Gentleman said, that he had not yet heard any reason given respecting the dismissal of the late Ministry. He admitted, that no reason had been given; and he would at the same time take the liberty of telling that hon. Gentleman that he did not consider the present the proper time for mooting that point. He believed the question before the House was, whether hon. Gentlemen would vote for the Address or for the Amendment; and, there-
*Owing to the confusion which prevailed, this is merely an outline of the hon. Member's speech.

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fore, all the questions of Municipal Corporations—of the admission of Dissenters to the Universities—of the Irish Church—appeared to him to be at present totally irrelevant. He was a Reformer of all abuses—he called himself a Whig on those principles which he had adduced. When he considered how much the real interests of the country, how much the tranquillity, the social order, and happiness of the people were involved in the maintenance of the established religion, the true and the sole bond of harmony among the people, he would never consent to any measure, proposed by any one, no matter by whom, that would lead to the diminution of the influence and power of the Protestant Church, which was in this empire the great Seal and binding principle of true Christianity among the people. He cared not who assailed the Church, he would uphold the Church; he would not look to parties or men, but would keep a steady eye on that venerated, venerable, and useful institution, and would support it to the uttermost extremity, for by so acting he felt in his heart persuaded that he was pushing onward the great principles of good Government, wholesome subordination to the sway of the laws and preservation of the allegiance due to the Sovereign. The outcry raised against the Church he considered, in its essence, infidel, and in its tendencies fatal to our civil Government. Again, he would say, and by saying so, he only echoed the sentiments of his constituents and the majority of the reflecting, sound, and well-conditioned portion of the British people, they valued their Church, and were resolved to defend it against the attacks of its open enemies, and the more dangerous insidiousness of its professed friends, but who were, in truth and reality, its lurking, clandestine opponents. He would vote for the Address, because he thought it echoed the generous sentiments of the King, and gave an earnest of the disposition of Government to promote every salutary measure of retrenchment and Reform that could be useful to the best interests of the nation. In the Amendment insinuations were conveyed which led him to the conclusion that a blow was meditated against the Protestant Church which he would labour with all his might to uphold; for by upholding it he conceived he was preserving one of the strongest ligaments between the Throne and the people. The people were attached to the Monarch as the head of the Established Church, as the
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chief dispenser of justice, and the author of prosperity, liberty, and happiness to the people; and he was sure they would support the Monarch in his praiseworthy efforts to maintain, in their wonted stability and power, the consecrated institutions of the State. The seeds were sown in the last Parliament for undermining the Protestant Church in Ireland, that Church by the influence and power of which the maintenance of the connexion with Great Britain alone depends; but, so far from aiding such a system, that must promote the progress of disaffection, agitation, and convulsion in Ireland, he would ever strenuously labour in its defence, and oppose with all his might what would, in any degree, impair its efficacy or durability.
Mr. Henry Grattan said, the sentiments of the majority of that House, and of the constituents of the empire, were opposed to the Address. The people were resolved not to tolerate the present Ministers, and the Address was but an attempt to stifle the independence of the country. The question at issue was not merely an Irish question, or an English question, it was an European question. It was, whether the principles of liberty were to be supported for the furtherance of good government and general improvement, or whether the principles of despotism should be strengthened by the acquisition of power. He had no doubt that Ministers and their satellites would labour to make out as good a case as they could for upholding the doctrines and measures which they meant to palm on the country, but after all, it was nothing but a specious imposition. What was intended to be done in the question of the Corporations, the Dissenters, and the Irish Church? These subjects were referred to by the Premier, with a faint promise of amelioration, but without any guarantee that Reform would be granted in its full and satisfactory sense. There were high authorities for introducing Reforms in the Irish Church, the authorities of two Lords-Lieutenant, Lords Wellesley and Lord Anglesey. Their letters in 1832 and 1834, to the Government referred to the Irish Church, and they stated, that there must be not only a change in the tithe system, but a Reform in the Church Establishment. Well, what Reform had the Government given but Reform by the bayonet and the military? The proceedings of Rathcormac ushered in their Administration. The offence of the late House of Commons, which led to its dissolution, was that it was friendly to liberal measures. When

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the present Government asked for a fair trial, he would beg to know what fair trial to the Melbourne Administration was given by the Tories? They called on all the counties, cities, and towns to express their opinions, and what had been the result? In Ireland the opinion was decidedly against the Government, so it was in Scotland, and in England the people were against them; thus, a decided majority of the representation thought not. The same spirit was now awake and in active operation in Ireland that ejected Lord Fitzwilliam from office in 1795, and contributed to the change from the Duke of Bedford's Government in 1807. It was said, the present Government was not tried. What other Government had been tried in Ireland but a Tory Government for the last forty years, with the exception of the Duke of Bedford's Government in 1806, and part of Lord Hardwicke's? Gentlemen connected with the present Government had avowed themselves Orangemen. What was an Orangeman but an enemy of the Roman Catholics? The present state of Ireland was such as to render the country scarcely habitable. Discord pervaded it; no man could sit at his fire-side and say he was content, or even secure. Lord Castlereagh said it cost 350,000 l. to quell the disturbances in 1822, it would take more than 350,000 l. to quell the next. That country was approaching to a state of civil war; no order, no respect for institutions or property. He would tell hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the Orangemen burned the houses of the Catholics in the North. They burned houses of Lord Charlemont's tenantry, and of the estate adjoining. Let his Lordship be brought forward, and he would attest the fact. When the hon. Baronet talked of renegades and apostates, he should have recollected who had called him apostate or renegade-his own party-the Orangemen! and by them his own brother-in-law was burned, and hanged in effigy, for being a renegade from the principles of Toryism; in fact, they, and not the right hon. Baronet, governed Ireland, and the late appointments are a proof of the spirit of their Government. The right hon. Baronet used two significant words in his speech; they were large words- "Church and State." Now these in Ireland meant nothing else than Protestant ascendancy. The present Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland attended the theatre amidst the strongest demonstrations of his party. He was cheered by the Orangemen and Orange flags were displayed in the
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theatre, yet not one word of disapprobation was expressed at that conduct. After that, he dined with the men who declared their hostility to the Catholics, and who drank those obnoxious toasts that had been reprobated by the late King when he was in Ireland. He would not say, that the Lord-Lieutenant drank the toasts, but the Mayor and Sheriffs did. Those Sheriffs, whose office it was to empanel Juries, and to adjudicate in cases where the lives and property of Catholics were concerned, they drank it, and thus declared their partiality. He would judge of the Duke of Wellington by his previous acts. In the Irish Parliament, he supported the Convention Act, a most arbitrary measure. His brother, when in office, under that Act brought an indictment against an entire nation. A list of the Jurors was sent from the Castle; the Government made their own selection, and the list of the under Secretaries was to decide who should try the Catholic delegates. A late Attorney-General (Mr. Saurin) wrote to a Judge to beg of him to call the Gentlemen of the Grand Jury to his chamber privately, and impress on them the necessity of guarding against the Roman Catholics. Was that Attorney-General removed, or was that Judge censured? So far from it, the one was retained in office, and the other was sent down five years after, to try the Catholics. That late Attorney-General Saurin had been recently attending meetings and associations in Dublin, the object of which was, to establish Orange ascendancy in Ireland. He would support the Amendment, and oppose the Ministry.
Colonel Percevaltrusted the House would give him a few moments of their attention while he endeavoured to rescue himself, and that party to which he belonged, from the imputations cast upon them by the hon. member for Meath. That hon. Member said, that as he (Colonel Perceval) had avowed himself to be an Orangeman, he was to be considered as a person pledged to the utter extermination of the Catholics of Ireland.
Mr. Grattan—I made no such charge against you.
Colonel Percevalwas glad he had misconceived the hon. Member, but if he was not mistaken many hon. Members not only on his, but on the other side of the House, were guilty of a like misconception. Be that, however, as it might, he fearlessly asserted, and he called on every Member of that House who was at all acquainted with the principles and feelings of the Association to which the hon. Member for Meath

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alluded, to say whether its fundamental principle, and the fundamental principle of Orangemen in Ireland were, not the encouragement of a prejudiced or hostile feeling against any of their fellow-subjects on account of a difference of religion, but, on the contrary, to consider it their bounden duty to stretch forth the hand of good fellowship, and neighbourly courtesy to all around them. Such were the principles of the class whom the hon. Member for Meath had been pleased to describe as murdering miscreants, such the principles which he professed, and having stated them, and having called upon the whole House, or any Member of it, to disprove the truth of that statement, he asked who (if the men who professed them were fair objects for the aspersions of the hon. Member for Dublin and his party,) could be considered safe? The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Administration, had been attacked and aspersed for appointing him to the situation of Treasurer of the Ordnance Department, solely because he belonged to the Association, but he would leave it to the House to determine how far such attacks or aspersions were justifiable. The hon. Member for Meath told them the Orangemen of Ireland were continually breaking open the houses and houghing the cattle of their Catholic neighbours in the county of Down; but he believed if the truth were told, a very different story would come out. With respect to the state of the county of Down, he knew nothing of his own knowledge, but as an Orange resident of that Orange county which he had the honour to represent, he was proud of being able to say it never was in a state of more perfect, and to all appearances more lasting, tranquillity. Religious discord was unknown in it, and so far from considering their Orange brethren in the light they were represented by the hon. Member for Meath, the Catholic population invariably applied to them to arbitrate and settle any trifling differences that sprung up among them. Ireland for years past had been overrun with soldiers; but during the last two years not a red coat had made its appearance in the county of Sligo, stronghold of Orangeism though it was. He had felt it his duty to make these few remarks in defence of himself and the principles he professed, and having made them he would no longer occupy the attention of the House. One word, however, regarding the appointment which his right hon. friend had been pleased to bestow upon him. Last Session it was the subject
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of the constant taunts of the hon. and learned Member for Dublin and the Repeal party, that an Irishman was never put into office under the British Government. And what was now the fact? Why, the Government was taunted by that same party for having placed three Irish Members in subordinate Ministerial offices. And what did all this demonstrate? Why, that for the sake of aiding a bad cause, Gentlemen would quarrel with the Government for doing precisely what they attacked their predecessors in office for omitting to do. The present Government was told they never could conciliate the people of Ireland. He denied it. They could conciliate, and they would conciliate, the thinking, rational portion of his countrymen, though they might fail in their efforts to bring round that party, of whose opinions the hon. and learned Member for Dublin was the representative. If his Majesty's Government wished to conciliate that party, they would have to go—as did a preceding Government—to the hon. and learned Member fur Dublin, and, taking a lesson from him, agree to act according to his dictation. To such a course he was Confident the House would not wish them to stoop; but if it did, to such a course he was confident his Majesty's present Government never would stoop. They had an example of that individual's insincerity in his conduct to the late Administration, and by that example he was sure they would profit. As to the imputations cast by the hon. Member for Meath upon a friend of his, Mr. Saurin, be would say nothing. That gentleman's long known and universally-established character, spoke for itself, and he would be paying it the worst possible compliment by occupying for a moment in its defence the attention of the British House of Commons. With regard to the question before the House, he begged to say, it was his intention to vote for the Address; and he would do so among other reasons from the conviction that any vote of that House which was calculated to shake the Government of the right hon. Baronet below him, would irreparably ruin the prospects of internal tranquillity, which, during its continuance, was presented to Ireland. His conviction was, that if the Government of his right hon. Friend should not be enabled to hold its place in the confidence of the Crown, and in the confidence of the country, the management of public affairs must of necessity—the Whigs having been tried and condemned—become vested in a junction

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of the Radicals and Irish Liberals, and these being parties in which he for one reposed no confidence, it was his determination by every means in his power to support his right hon. friend in his place.
Lord John Russell:[A revised Edition of the noble Lord's Speech is announced as being about to be prepared for separate publication; and in order not to delay the publication of this work will be found in the * pages.]
Mr. Secretary Goulburn,in rising to make some observations on what had fallen from the noble Lord who had just set down, begged, in the first place, to offer his cordial concurrence in the concluding desire which that noble Lord had expressed. He trusted, that whatever might be the decision come to on the question before the House, they would not run into extremes; and in the few observations he should make, be hoped neither to cause nor keep alive ill-feeling. The noble Lord had begun his speech by recalling the attention of the House to the question really to be decided. That question had been in truth, almost forgotten. It was, whether the House would adopt the Motion of his noble Friend, the Member for Liverpool, or the Amendment of the noble Lord, the Member for Yorkshire. He agreed with the noble Lord (Lord John Russel) in thinking, that the main point of difference existed with respect to the question of the Irish Church. He would not then go into all the preliminary remarks made by the noble Lord. He would not embark on the wide and troubled sea of by-gone animosities, which had nothing whatever to do with the question now to be decided. He would only observe this, that when the noble Lord, as an advocate of the consistency of the Members of Lord Melbourne's Government, taunted hon. Gentlemen on his (Mr. Goulburn's) side of the House with having changed their opinions, the attack came with a very ill grace. He had not forgotten the eloquence with which Lord Melbourne had opposed Parliamentary Reform—he had not forgotten Lord Melbourne's advice to that House to keep the old lamp in preference to taking the new —and he had not forgotten, that, even during the late discussions, there had been no exertions in opposition to Reform, which might not, in eloquence, in power, and in spirit, shrink from a comparison with those of Lord Melbourne. He said, then, that a taunt for inconsistency came
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with a bad grace from the noble Lord, when it was meant as a defence of Lord Melbourne's Government. But upon that point he would not dwell. The noble Lord had contended, that the House ought to be content only with measures of Reform not less extensive than those proposed by the late Government. And, as an evidence of the incompetency of the present Government to prosecute such measures, the noble Lord had attributed to hint (Mr. Goulbutn) certain conduct with respect to the admission of Dissenters to the Universities. There was no justice in the charge of the noble Lord. He had never spoken of the Dissenters but with unfeigned regard and kindness. When it was proposed to admit them to the Universities in such a way as must have injured the Established Church he opposed the proposition; but in doing so he expressed his desire to see the concession of privileges to the Dissenters so granted, as not to trench upon the Establishment. There had been in his mind no feeling of hostility; but he was, and ever should be, anxious to maintain to the Church those rights which were essential to its beneficial existence. The noble Lord had told the House, that the Melbourne Government had a plan of Irish Church Reform to propose. He knew not what the plan the noble Lord alluded to was, but he had imagined that the question had been considered, discussed, and settled by the Government of Lord Grey—nor had he before been at all aware, that the noble Lord had considered that question as still open, and the measure so little satisfactory as still to require legislation on the subject. But the noble Lord had gone something further, and had informed the House of the chief difference which the late Government held to the measure of Lord Grey's Government, and that was, that the late Government considered that the surplus of Church property might be applied to other than Ecclesiastical purposes. The noble Lord said, that he was prepared to apply the surplus to the support of the poor, while he (Mr. Goulburn) and those who thought with him, dissented from this principle altogether. "But," said the noble Lord, "it has been asserted, that there was a difference in the Melbourne Government on this point," and that assertion the noble Lord declared to be without foundation; and he also declared, that there had been a perfect accordance between Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Rice and himself. Now really, if the
Lord John Russell:Mr. Speaker—After the speech made last night by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, I think it due to the House, to give such explanations as I can afford of the conduct and intentions of the Administration of Lord Melbourne, of which, as well as of that of Lord Grey, I had the honour to be a Member. Before I do so, however, I will state the reasons which induce me to support the Amendment of my noble Friend. Although no longer connected with office, yet as a Member of Parliament, anxious for the improvement of our institutions, I feel bound to provide that, notwithstanding the dismissal of the Ministry, and the dissolution of the Parliament, the reforms now to be proposed and carried, shall not be less searching in inquiry, or less efficient in remedy, than those upon which it was the intention of the late Administration of Lord Melbourne to have asked the consent of the late Parliament. It is for that reason I am glad my noble Friend behind me has proposed an Amendment to the Address moved on the other side of the House. That Amendment I look upon as a necessary step on several grounds. I look upon it as necessary, because it embraces a declaration of principles on the question of Municipal Corporations, not contained in the Address—because it gives a pledge on the part of the house respecting the claims of the Protestant Dissenters —and, finally, because it touches upon that question which seems to be so carefully avoided in the long and elaborate Speech from the Throne, namely, the abuses of the Irish Church Establishment.
For these reasons it is I give my entire support and approval to the Amendment of my noble Friend, and for these reasons I invite that portion of the House who desire to be classed in the ranks of Reform, to join with my noble Friend in his endeavour to carry it. If the House of Commons mean to maintain Reform in the same place it was left by the Administration of Lord Melbourne at the period of their dismissal,—if they mean to assert, that the exercise of the Royal Prerogative which removed from power one Administration and caused the appointment of another—if they mean that the exercise of the Royal Prerogative which caused the dissolution of one House of Commons and the election of another, should not deprive the people of the benefit of those Reforms which the late Administration and the late House of
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Commons have proposed to effect for them, let them now speak out in plain and decided language, and subjoin to the Address proposed by the Minister of the Crown, those additions which the Amendment of my noble Friend contains.
Some Members, and among others the hon. Member for Knaresborough, are, I perceive, afraid of the consequences of this proceeding. They are alarmed at the possibility that, should they ask for a removal of all the well-founded grievances of the Dissenters, the dread of contamination so forcibly expressed last year by the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary for the Home Department, may induce him to resign his Seals of office. They apprehend that there may be some danger—supposing us to insist upon a measure of Corporation Reform, founded upon the demands of justice, and supported by the report of the Commissioners—lest the Lord High Chancellor, who has taken upon himself to assert in another place, that the greater part of the Corporation inquiry was illegal, and that the present Government were pledged to nothing more than the laying of the Commissioners' Report upon the Table, should, on our speaking out in our own language, our own sentiments, and those of our constituents, desert the Woolsack and abandon the Great Seal. Still worse, and in panic at the deplorable prospect, they dread that, should the subject of the Irish Church be mentioned, the whole Administration may go out. Well, Sir, I do not think we ought to forego these essential reforms for the sake of keeping, the Gentlemen opposite in office. But I own I feel no such alarms. I happen to have some slight experience of the conceding qualities of the party who are now in power. I have seen them before now trample upon petition, and yield to demand. I have seen them, when the tide of popular opinion set strongly in favour of the Protestant Dissenters, grant a boon which, when that tide was less overpowering, they had denied. I have seen them, after refusing to the eloquence of Canning, the argument of Plunkett, and the prayers of millions, the measure called Catholic Emancipation, give way, upon force being thrown into the balance, and yield what they before rejected. I have seen also the same men, who opposed even the extension of the Elective Franchise to Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester, afterwards ready, when the people from one end of the

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country to the other raised a cry for it, to concede nearly the whole of the Reform Bill.
And seeing all this, can I doubt, that if we speak out to the Throne in clear and decided language, in the course of a short time we shall have on our Table the Report on Municipal Corporations, that we shall have introduced to their notice a measure of Municipal Reform, and even that the difficult and dangerous subject of time Church of Ireland will receive a due consideration? I feel sure we have not arrived at the bottom of the concessions of the Tory party, and that there would be found by them something so urgent in the state of the question—something so pressing in the condition of the Representation of Ireland—something so appalling in the situation of society there, as to induce them sooner or later—and soon I hope it may be—to confess that their opinions respecting the Church of Ireland, are to be added to their other errors, and thereupon introduce a measure of full and just concession. Entertaining those opinions, I shall feel no hesitation in voting for the amendment of my noble Friend. Surely it is better that this House should speak its own language, and that, through this Address, their legitimate organ, the sentiments of the people should reach the Throne, than that they should take the chance of those various subjects being made the means of exciting discontent in England, and something more than discontent in Ireland.
I now come to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman respecting the conduct of the new Administration. I believe, however, I must correct that expression; for it struck me, at the time I heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, that it was a defence of his own conduct, rather than that of those with whom he is connected. I will admit that there is much that I might have to object to the right hon. Gentleman's party in this House, and there is still more that I have to object to the conduct of the party in the House of Lords during the existence of the late Administration, which does not apply to the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman himself. I have spoken of the right hon. Gentleman elsewhere, as has been mentioned by an hon. Gentleman this night; and as I have done, I will again do him the justice to say, that since the Reform Act, when he supported the late Administration, his support was most effective, and when he opposed them, his opposition was
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fair and manly. But I made this remark with reference only to that period; because if I look back and consider what took place, as regarded the Timber Duties and the Russian Dutch Loan—to say that there was any thing like fairness in the opposition of the right hon. Gentleman, would be a most extravagant indulgence of candour. I must likewise declare, while I admit the right hon. Gentleman's opposition to have been fair and manly when he did oppose, yet when he felt the question to be one of great importance, he had no difficulty or hesitation in avowing his direct opposition. At the period, for example, when the Irish Temporalities' Bill was before Parliament, my noble Friend, the Member for Lancashire, having declared that the Ministry would stand or fall by the success of that measure, the right hon. Gentleman voted against it in all, or nearly all its stages. The right hon. Gentleman will also remember, that at the time when the Irish Church Commission was appointed, he took an opportunity to declare that he had no confidence in his Majesty's Government; surely, then, the right hon. Gentleman will not find fault with me, when I declare that I want confidence in the Administration of the right hon. Gentleman. ["Hear! hear!" from Sir Robert Peel.]
I shall next speak to the facts of the last year. The Administration of Earl Grey came to a close in consequence of circumstances, which he himself explained in the House of Lords. I merely mention now, in order to deny in the strongest terms, the rumour that his resignation was the consequence of any intrigue. The circumstances were unfortunate, but intrigue to displace Lord Grey had no part in them. The Administration of Lord Melbourne was formed, and the determination was taken by that Government to adopt, as nearly as possible, the principles on which the Administration of Earl Grey acted with reference to the questions which ought to be brought before Parliament. It was resolved to take into consideration the remodelling of the English Church; to lay before Parliament, as soon as the report was made, the state of the Irish Church; and Lord Althorp declared that early in the ensuing (that is the present) Session he should bring before Parliament the question of Corporation Reform. Such was the state of affairs when Earl Spencer died, and Lord Melbourne went down to Brighton to receive his Majesty's com-

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mands. The right hon. Baronet was right when he said, that Lord Melbourne had declared he considered it essential for Lord Althorp to be a Member of the Administration; but, then, Lord Althorp was a Member of the House of Commons. I myself, among others, told Lord Melbourne that it would not be possible to form a Government with Lord Althorp out of the Ministry, while he remained in the House of Commons; but when, by the death of Earl Spencer, it became necessary for Lord Althorp to go to the House of Peers, Lord Melbourne resolved that he would carry on the Government on the same principles as those on which it was formed, if he had his Majesty's permission to fill up the vacancies which had occurred. On that I subject, I will just allude to what a noble Lord in the debate of the other night threw out against me. I was never solicitous for the honour intended for me, yet when it was the wish of all my colleagues that I should take a part in the new arrangements, I could not deny what they were pleased to deem a service to the Whig party, and to the cause of Reform. It did not, however, please his Majesty to give to Lord Melbourne the permission he required; the reason why, and the responsibility of the permission being withheld, rests with the right hon. Gentleman and the noble Duke. The right hon. Gentleman does not deny his part of the responsibility, but I believe the right hon. Gentleman has alluded only to those transactions which took place after his return to England.
I must, therefore, for a short time, occupy the attention of the House, while I refer to reports which have been circulated, intended to be injurious to the Melbourne Ministry, but which, more especially, alluded to myself. It was stated over and over again, and repeated almost within a few days, that I intended to deprive the Protestants of Ireland of the assistance of Protestant ministers, and that I proposed in a certain number of parishes to eject the minister, to alienate, or abolish the tithes, and to raze the Church. The whole of that statement is a complete fable. With respect to the Irish Church, it was a question which, as I have already said, it was considered necessary to bring under the consideration of Parliament: but the Member of the Administration who, during the recess, was intrusted to prepare the papers on the subject, was Lord Duncannon, then Secretary of State,
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and I did not see those papers till they were out of the noble Lord's hands, and were printed. With respect to the suggestions of those papers, it is not now necessary for me to advert to them more specifically; but I will say, that their contents are entirely different from anything stated in the public rumours, to which I have adverted. With respect to another statement, that there was a difference between the Marquess of Lansdowne and Mr. Spring Rice and myself, I must say, that both previously to, and since, the breaking up of the Administration, it did so happen that there were none of the Members of the Cabinet whom I met so often, and with whom I held such frequent communications. I will also say, that if there were any of the Members of the Cabinet with whose views, feelings, and principles I better agreed, than with others, Lord Duncannon, the Marquess of Lansdowne, and Mr. Spring Rice, were those individuals. I will go farther still, and without stating the details of any plan, or entering into any specific proposition, I can safely declare that a principle they were all agreed on was this—that the funds of the Protestant Church in Ireland ought, in the first place, to be applied to give religious instruction to the Protestant population; and when that object had been carefully and fully provided for, the Legislature had the right to apply any surplus that might accrue to the general education of the people, including Churchmen, Roman Catholics, and Dissenters. What would have been the specific plan proposed to Parliament, it is impossible for me to say, because the late Government maintained, and I think truly, that they would not submit any measure to Parliament till, by means of a Commission, they had fully ascertained the facts on which they were to legislate. ["Hear hear," from Sir Robert Peel.] I understand the right hon. Gentleman's cheer. I think it exceedingly improper, rashly and hastily, that is to say, before they are aware of the facts, to bring a measure before Parliament; but I think, with reference to all, these great subjects, that the use of Commissions is, that they enable Ministers, having first stated their broad general principles, to apply those principles correctly to the details. The right hon. Gentleman has left out of his speech altogether, which no doubt he has a right to do, any mention of those Reports; but I think it my duty to trouble

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the House with this detail, because, though since the meeting of Parliament, the rumours to which I have adverted, have to a great degree vanished, yet I cannot forget that they were stated with a view to disparage the Administration that had been dismissed, and with a view to influence the elections which were then about to take place. It was, no doubt, with the same object, that a noble Lord, a Member of the other House, wrote a letter, which was very extensively distributed in the country, and which I would now read to the House, did it not appear to me such disgusting nonsense, that I think I shall hardly be justified in so doing: suffice it to say, that he calls upon the people of this country not to desert their God and their King—and all this founded upon anonymous falsehoods! Amongst other charges against the late Ministers, is this one, that they were always lending themselves to the projects of the hon. and learned Member for Dublin—that they were always listening to his views, and bending to his dictation, with respect to Ireland. Now, however, when the case is to be stated to Parliament, the only proof given by the right hon. Gentleman of a want of general confidence in the late Administration, is a passage of a letter, in which the hon. and learned Member for Dublin, instead of flattering, showed his distrust of several Members of that Administration. These frivolous grounds, stated by the right hon. Gentleman, being set aside, and the rumours formerly circulated being false, I will ask, when was there ever an exercise of the prerogative, for which so little reason could be given, as in this case? There could be no want of confidence in Ministers, on the part of the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman admitted this last night, in his confession, that he could not have depended upon 130 votes in that House. Why, then, was the Administration dismissed? Had any dreadful war broken out? Was commerce declining? Was the internal state of the country disturbed? Did any extraordinary circumstances make it necessary to resort to that measure? The King's Speech came and contradicted all these suppositions. One half of it was filled with testimonies to the excellence of the measures of the late Administration—with testimonies to the prosperity of our manufactures, and to the good order in Which the late Government left the
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country. And the other half of the Speech consisted of recommendations of a portion of the measures that the late Government had intended to propose. I say, then, that the right hon. Gentleman did assume office, and take upon himself its responsibility, and the responsibility of dissolving Parliament, in a manner without precedent; for, let it be recollected, that the ground as to the state of the country being removed, and the rumours having been shown to be false, there was no reason why the country should be appealed to for the purpose of electing another House of Commons. There was clearly no ground why the displeasure of the King should be directed against the late House.
There was scarcely an instance of Parliament having been dissolved, without the Minister having previously met that Parliament. In 1784, Mr. Pitt encountered, what at this time of day would be called a factious opposition; the House was continually delaying and postponing the business of the country, and after a long trial, he appealed to the sense of the country, to learn whether his principles were or were not approved. In other instances, Ministers in every case met the Parliament, and, having strength, but not sufficient, asked the country whether it would support them. He did not say, that the right hon. Gentleman was not in a very difficult situation. He admitted that the noble Duke having taken that step, which he would say, was an unconstitutional step—investing himself and the Lord Chancellor with all the powers of the Government—and the right hon. Gentleman having nothing to do with that step, was placed in a situation of peculiar difficulty; for he could conceive the obloquy that would have attached to the right hon. Gentleman, had he declined the situation which was reserved for him, It would be well for persons similarly situated to the right hon. Gentleman, if his right hon. Friend, who is about to bring in a Bill to dispense in some measure with impressment of seamen, would introduce a clause to the following effect: "That no person, under colour of the King's warrant, have authority to send a press-gang into the Pope's dominions, in order to press Prime Ministers, and that all such persons be allowed to pursue their journeys quietly to Naples, or where so ever they pleased." I believe the right hon. Gentleman, not having that protection, is in a situation in which he can

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scarcely avoid taking some share of the responsibility on himself. But then, why did he not call the late Parliament together, and state to them his measures and intentions? If his Ministry met with support, all was easy to him; if he ascertained that Parliament was factiously opposed to him, he could then have dissolved it; but if he had reason to believe that in opposing him, it spoke only the sense of the country, then all those difficulties which they had now to encounter, might have been avoided.
The right hon. Gentleman has declared to the House, the measures he intended to propose, but I do not think it possible for him to stand on that ground. It is the principle of the right hon. Gentleman, that the surplus revenue of the Established Church in Ireland, should not be applied to any other purposes than those of the Church. Could that principle be maintained? With respect to the Church of England, I always felt that its solid ground of defence was, that it afforded instruction to the poor; but what was the advantage of the Church of Ireland in those districts in which scarcely a Protestant was to be found? The only benefit it could be said to afford to the Catholic population was that quoted by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, from Bishop Berkeley, of having resident amongst them a country gentleman in a black coat.
With respect to another subject which is mentioned in the Amendment—namely, that of Corporations, I think it is now absolutely necessary that we should declare some principle, from the establishment of which the country may know that we are going to adopt and abide by the principles of popular control, and vigilant superintendence over those funds which have been notoriously mismanaged and abused. If I be asked to place confidence in the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) on this subject, I declare at once and without reserve, that it is wholly out of my power to do so. I cannot confide in the right hon. Baronet's friends; I cannot put my trust in the party with which he has long associated; and I cannot forget that the fortresses of their power—the strongholds to which they have clung most fondly during many years past—have been those very abuses of the Corporations which it is now the business of Parliament in its wisdom to amend.
The right hon. Baronet, Sir, has talked of an opposition upon this ground—an op-
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position which does not go beyond the opinions we entertained as Ministers, and which only binds us to measures going as far as our own measures would have done, —as an attempt to embarrass the present Ministers for party and factious purposes. Sir, if that right hon. Gentleman will remember occurrences that are past, he will remember that he has been in office, and that I have been in opposition to the Government for many years; but I think he will not recollect that during the whole of that time I have been at all disposed to change any opinion I have once maintained or to qualify any opinion for the sake of offering an opposition to the Government. The right hon. Baronet says, and others say, that those who were most loud against the late Government, arc now, like ourselves attacking the present. Does this observation apply only to us? Are there not among the hon. Gentlemen whom I now see arranged upon the opposite benches some who opposed the right hon. Baronet with a far other spirit, and with a very different kind of bitterness from that with which the Whigs ever attacked him? I do remember when we were attending, night after night, in large numbers to offer him our humble support, when he was acting in accordance with our principles, that at the end of the evening the right hon. Baronet got up and called the House to witness that three-fourths of the debate had been occupied in personal invective. Personal invective! from whom? Why from the very men who are now his staunchest friends, and his firmest supporters. There was a comparison made at that time affecting the right hon. Baronet personally; he was described as a Protestant Jesuit, conceding measures which he allowed to be dangerous, and altering his course when he declared that he had not altered his opinion. Did that elaborate and severe comparison come from a Whig, or a liberal Member of Parliament? Did it not come from one of the high Tories?
There was another attack made upon the right hon. Baronet. He was accused, not of yielding the Catholic Question, but of not having yielded it to Mr. Canning, the conscientious and eminent supporter of the Catholic Claims. It was urged that the state of Ireland had not changed —that the state of the Catholics had not changed—that the state of the House of Commons had not changed —and that the right hon. Baronet having no ground for his change of conduct, was

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offering an example which would destroy all confidence in public men. The orator who pronounced this strong and bitter philippic closed it by lifting up his hands and exclaiming—"Nusquam tuta fides!" From whom did this invective come? It came from the Paymaster of the Forces. Why to be sure, it might be the Ex-paymaster of the Forces,—the Member for Devonshire. Was it? No, it was the present Paymaster of the Forces, the Member for Kent! And yet after all this, we are to be told, that there is something strange and wonderful—something almost unprecedented—in our (with no change in our opinion) coming to the same vote with those who severely censured the late Government. I know very well, that there are many Members who differed from the late Government. Whether it was because the late Ministry did not go far enough, or that those Gentlemen were too impatient, is a question I will not raise again now. My opinion, of course, is the latter. I think they were going too quickly; they thought no doubt, that we were moving too slowly. I really see no reason, however, why we should discuss that question in the present House of Commons, any more than I see why the right hon. Baronet, the First Lord of the Treasury, and the Paymaster of the Forces, should discuss the question, whether all confidence in public men has been destroyed by the conduct of himself and his colleagues on the Catholic Question.
Sir, I have but one more comment to make upon the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. He said, if I understood him —and I think I remember to have met with the same assertion before, couched in somewhat similar terms—that, under the present Administration, the measures proposed to this House are likely to be carried without difficulty in the other House of Parliament. There really does arise upon this point a very nice and delicate question. That question is this—are these measures to be similar to, or are they to be different from, those measures, the announcement of which gave satisfaction to the country generally? If you say they are similar measures, you tell the country in plain terms, that the House of Lords will not agree to Reform measures unless they see in office a Ministry of their own selection. If the measures are to be different—if they are to be less effective measures of Reform then are we told that we must yield to the House of Lords with respect to the measures themselves, and that that which
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we think necessary cannot be proposed to Parliament?
Sir, I have always been opposed to attacks upon the authority of the House of Lords. My own opinion has been, and is, that if measures, which had the cordial concurrence of the country, were sent up to the House of Lords, though they might have been rejected once, though possibly they might have been rejected twice, still the House of Lords would eventually yield to what was the well-expressed and deliberate sense of the people of this country. In thinking and saying this, I pay a due tribute to the wisdom, I pay a due tribute to the patriotism, of the House of Lords. I wish them to have their due part and share in the Constitution, but I cannot allow that that power over the House of Commons which was held by them indirectly before the Reform Bill was passed, shall now be restored to them to be used directly. Sir, I know that we are now placed in a difficult crisis—the consequence I must say, of the events of November; because I do not believe that if Parliament had met at its usual time, with no interruption, any one would have thought for a moment that there was any difficulty in the case. But, without having had anything to do with the creation of that crisis, I must say that we are all bound to see that it passes over with safety to the peace, and with safety to the institutions of the country; but, at the same time, with good effect, and with success to the reformation of the Church and State. If this House should yield too ready and implicit an obedience to everything that is suggested from the Crown, we may incur the danger of losing the just and necessary reforms we seek to obtain; if, on the contrary, we proceed too rapidly and impatiently in the exercise of our highest prerogatives to alter that which the state of the country and the welfare of the people do not require to be altered, we shall be deeply responsible to our constituents and to posterity for our act. That we may safely steer between these two dangers is my fervent prayer —and I think that if we send to the foot of the Throne the Address, as amended by my noble Friend, stating clearly, but stating respectfully, the Reforms which are required, we shall have done our duty to those constituents and that posterity; and that we shall not deserve either to be reproached with pusillanimous weakness on the one hand, or inconsiderate rashness on the other.

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House turned to the discussions which occurred on the issuing of the Irish Church Commission by the late Government he (Mr. Goulburn) believed, that they would hardly be found to support the views of the noble Lord. Lord Lansdowne did not go the length of some of the Members of the late Cabinet, but reserved his opinions in common with others upon the subject. It was observed, that Lord Lansdowne laid down one principle; and although much had been said about the method of appropriating the surplus property of the Irish Church, the late Cabinet had not bound themselves to any particular appropriation; if surplus indeed might be found, which some took for granted, but which to him was not so manifest. At any rate to decide upon that appropriation was premature. There might be no surplus; and if there were he felt himself bound to assert, that he could not be a party to its application in any way other than analogous to, or in some way supporting Ecclesiastical purposes. The noble Lord had stated the views which influenced the late Cabinet in issuing that Commission, but in proof that the Cabinet were not, as the noble Lord had said, united on the question, he begged leave to quote, in addition to the testimony of Lord Lansdowne, another authority, and one which would, in all probability, stand higher in the estimation of the noble Lord, in consequence of the weight that attached to it in a legal point of view—he alluded to what had been advanced by the late Lord Chancellor, who had always professed his whole heart to be bound up in the welfare of the community, and particularly as far as related to increased and extensive improvements in education. The authority was, therefore, the greater. On this point his Lordship had expressed himself plainly, and the importance of his declaration was increased by its having been made in no casual speech, he had not been betrayed into any unguarded admission, but had deliberately stated it, for the distinct purpose, as the noble and learned Lord then expressed himself, of guarding against any misunderstanding upon a question of such magnitude. In the course of an explanation between the noble and learned Lord, and the Duke of Wellington, he said that he would make use of any surplus that might arise for Protestant purposes in contradistinction to giving any—ay, even a farthing of it—
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to the Catholic hierarchy. He had stated as distinctly as he possibly could, that if there should be a surplus (and that question could not be ascertained until a report should be made to that House) that surplus should first of all be employed for Ecclesiastical purposes, but they must first of all be satisfied. He had then followed up this declaration by stating his opinion, that any further surplus should be applied to the purposes of education upon the principles of the Established Church. Lord Melbourne had also doubted whether the additional wants of the Established Church would not demand a different appropriation of its revenues. If upon the result of the inquiry then instituted, it appeared, that a surplus should be found unapplied, it was the expressed intention of his Lordship, that such surplus should be appropriated to purposes, if not strictly Ecclesiastical, yet, for the support of a system of education on Protestant principles. He would ask, therefore, whether they were to take the opinions of Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Melbourne, with the express declaration of the late Chancellor, that the surplus, if any, was to be applied to no other than Ecclesiastical purposes, or the argument of the noble Lord, which went to destroy what they had asserted? Judging by the speech to which he had referred, and to the sentiments of the other noble Lords, it must be clear to the House—it became impossisible for any man to deny it—that there were divisions in the Cabinet, and that there were among its Members the elements of discord, if not of animosity. These differences it was true need not have prevented the late Ministers from continuing in office a short time longer, and they might even have met the Parliament at the commencement of another Session; but other measures must then have been adopted, or, if the same were persisted in, it could only have been at the expense of principle abandoned by one party or the other. The noble Lord had said, that it was incumbent upon that House to pass the proposed Amendment, because he thought it necessary for that House to mark its sense of a necessity for a Reform in the Church of England. Now, he would ask any man on what ground he could vote for the Amendment to the address, the Amendment being vague and unsatisfactory, and the announcement from the Throne plain and ex-

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plicit, which announcement of Church Reform it had been demonstrated by the Government to be their sincere intention to act upon, they having already taken the first steps by issuing a Commission of Inquiry for the furtherance of that object? The noble Lord had objected to the Address passing without amendment on account of the Speech from the Throne containing no account of specific measures on the subject of Corporation Reform. The noble Lord bore rather hard on his adversaries. Had he not, in the speech he had just delivered, when alluding to the Commission of Inquiry on the of the Irish Church, declared that it was his plan first to express general principles, and then when in possession of details—which in this instance the Government could not be, in consequence of the delay that had taken place in submitting the Report—to bring forward measures founded upon the information conveyed. But the noble Lord declined to judge the conduct of others by a similar test. He repudiated the idea that any but the party to which he was attached should act according to the principles he had laid down, and he called upon them to state their measures before they were acquainted with the facts upon which those measures must be founded. He had this further observation to make upon the subject of Municipal Corporations, that so far as the subject was introduced into the speech, such introduction did by no means and in no degree pledge those who were responsible for that speech against the adoption of any measures whatever. Speaking for himself, and he felt assured he might say the same for his colleagues, he felt no hostility to the reform of corporate abuses—why should he? he had not, nor could he have, any interest in preserving Corporations throughout the kingdom in their present state, or in any state adverse to the public advantage. The noble Lord deeply censured them for not having called together the Parliament which they found in existence at the time of their accession to office. If they were to judge of what might be the conduct of the noble Lord in circumstances similar to those in which the present Government stood, it might perhaps be easy to frame a retort. He admitted the difficulty of forming any opinion of what might take, from what had taken place; he knew how hazardous it was to predicate anything respecting the noble Lord, but judging from the circumstance of the choice of a Speaker being made a ground for dis-
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placing a Government, he professed himself unable to comprehend upon what rational grounds it could be contended that the present advisers of the Crown ought to have met the late Parliament. If tile appointment of Speaker were opposed in a new Parliament, what might have been done in an old House of Commons, before the recently appointed Ministers of the Crown could have taken their seats? He was not aware that there remained any material topic in the speech of the noble Lord to which he need address himself at that late hour of the night. He had succeeded, he flattered himself, in showing that divisions did exist in the late Cabinet, and that in consequence of those divisions, as well as from other causes, it could no longer carry on the business of the country. For those who had replaced them, he could undertake to say, that they were as anxious to promote, and as unwilling to retard, improvement as any of their predecessors, and that he fully concurred in the concluding opinion of the noble Lord—namely, that they lay under the weightiest obligation to discharge their duty to the public without pusillanimity on the one hand, or inconsiderate rashness on the other.
Mr. Harveyobserved, that the new Administration drew a large draught upon the credulity of the House when they called upon them to suspend their judgment as to the intentions of the present advisers of the Crown, and at the same time they succeeded to a very considerable extent in convincing the country that they were resolved upon disabusing the mind of the people of all vulgar prejudices, as to the value of consistency in public men. They now came before Parliament heedless of the taunts to which their disregard of former principles exposed them, and declaring that the benefits and blessings of freedom which they intended to confer would raise up for them a monument of imperishable fame. Referring to the course which the present debate had taken, he could not but observe the wide discrepancy between the commendations now bestowed upon the Ecclesiastical Commission, and the denunciations with which the right hon. Gentleman, who last spoke, had assailed it in the last Session. Some attempts had been made to defend the grounds upon which the late Parliament had been dissolved—it was very easy to understand why the dissolution took place. If the country had been made fully aware of the

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sentiments, and if the late Parliament had but heard the speech that night delivered by the noble Lord near him,—if there had been time for the public to become aware of the benefits which the recent Government intended, the effect upon the constituencies would have been far different. It would seem that the present Government rested their claim to public favour upon the opposition which they described themselves as having offered to the unpopular measures of the late Administration. Of the foundation upon which those claims rested he should leave the House to judge, and proceed to notice the Speech which gave rise to the present debate. It was the longest, and, in one respect, the clearest Speech which he had ever heard from the Throne. As it appeared to him, nothing was more evident than an unequivocal design on the part of the Government to conduct the affairs of the country upon high Church and Tory principles. While the right hon. Gentleman took great credit to himself for not intending to proceed directly to the repeal of the Reform Act, he plainly betrayed the intention of governing the country just as it was governed before the enactment of that great measure. The question for the House to determine was, whether the people were to expect a continuation of those measures of Reform of which the Reform Bill laid the foundation, or whether these just expectations of the people were to be checked and defeated? Among the many prominent topics that occupied the mind of the public, the question of an alteration in the application of the revenues of the Church held the first place. On that point the right hon. Gentleman expressed himself distinctly enough, so that there could not possibly be any mistake about the designs of the Government. He had stated, that whatever turned out to be the amount of the Ecclesiastical revenue in either country, however large and enormous, must be limited strictly to Ecclesiastical purposes. The Government had issued another Commission, although there had been one sitting for nearly two years, whose labours were almost closed, and who had doubtless accumulated important particulars as to the nature and amount of Church-property. He took it for granted that the Report of that Commission would be submitted to the House, and that they would soon be in possession of that great body of hitherto concealed information, which would tend materially to satisfy the
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public mind. This being the case, he could see no reason for a second Commission. From inquiries he had made, he understood that the amount of the annual income of the clergy was between four and five millions. Hon. Gentlemen might express their disbelief by such exclamations, but his inquiries justified his assertions, and he should not retract what he had stated until he saw by the evidence of the Report that he had been deceived. But whether it was between four or five millions or not—however large the Church revenues might prove to be—however much exceeding the necessity of the case—still they were to be applied exclusively to Ecclesiastical purposes. This was not the doctrine held on other subjects. The same principle as to the application of surplus funds that he would support with regard to the Church, obtained in the Court of Chancery. When the funds became redundant, outgrowing the original design for which they were intended, the surplus was applied to objects coincident with the nature of their original destination. And this, he would contend, should be the course with Church revenues, and the education of the people according to the precepts of Christianity was an application of Ecclesiastical funds on a similar principle. With regard to the Corporation inquiry they could not appreciate the value of the existing Commission until the Report of the Commissioners was placed before them; but if the measures to be brought forward by the Government were to place our Municipal institutions on a popular principle, what objection could they have to the Amendment that asserted that principle? They did not call on the Government to detail the measures they proposed respecting the Reform in Corporations; but, surely, there could be no impropriety in asking, and the Ministers could have no difficulty in stating, if they meant to confer on the inhabitants of towns, boroughs, and cities the same right of election to the respective civic offices under which they were governed as they now possessed in the election of Representatives to that House? Could any one say that this was an unreasonable requisition? He was told that those who pressed the Ministers on such points —and they were the entire people—aimed at the destruction of the institutions of the country. No accusation was more unjust and unfounded. Whatever was the state or condition of the people of this country, however lowly in their fortune, or distressed

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in their general circumstances, they had no interest beyond the protection of industry, and the security of their accumulated wealth derived from that source. And, talking of wealth, wealth it was said, was power. He would admit it. But what was wealth? Wealth was the industry of the people; and, whatever might be said to the contrary, the real power, and strength, and greatness of the country lay in the middle and the producing classes. The hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets had mistaken the true nature of wealth, when alluding to the City of London, he spoke of its monied opulence. The true, and not the factitious wealth of that great city was represented by its present hon. Members, for, the real wealth of every community consisted in the industry of its inhabitants. When, therefore, attempts were made to ridicule its inhabitants, and those hon. Members who owed their seats to popular influence, and to place above them those who represented select bodies, great accumulations of money, and large lumps of unproductive property, those who made these remarks, were unaware of the little reason they had to support them. The real wealth of a state was its industry; mid this once established, he did not much wonder at the efforts made by the partisans of the present Government to depreciate the opinions of the million-and-a-half of people, inhabitants of the great city in which the House was then sitting, in the selection of their Representatives. But with reference to the subject before the House, the question on the Address, and the Amendment thereto. It might seem strange to hon. Members, and to the public, that after the King's Speech had been discussed in all its obvious bearings—after every topic in the slightest degree pertinent to it, had been over and over again, turned, and tortured, and treated in the many speeches which had been made on the subject during the debate —it did seem strange, he would repeat, that one topic, perhaps the most obvious of all, had absolutely escaped the notice of every one of the speakers. Yet so it was. And it was the more remarkable, looking at the number and importance of the members connected with that interest. He meant the agricultural interest. What was proposed to be done for the farmers? What was said of it in his Majesty's Speech? It was protected by the elo-
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quence, the zeal, and the ability of the right hon. the President of the Board of Trade, who represented one of the most decidedly agricultural districts in the country, a district to which he (Mr. Harvey) was attached by every tie of gratitude and affection, and also by the talents and equal zeal of other hon. Gentlemen, the colleagues of that right hon. Member; yet what were the hopes held out to the occupiers of the soil, and what single cheering allusion had been made to it? Like all other King's Speeches of recent date, the documents put into the mouth of his Majesty by his present advisers "lamented the unprosperous state of that important interest," and what was the relief proposed in prospectu? A reduction of the Malt Tax at least? No such thing. The only prospect held out to them was the hope—the hope that when all the other interests of the country which were described to be in a prosperous state had been sufficiently attended to, if anything remained of a surplus, a little of the oppressive load under which it at present laboured would be shifted from it, and laid upon some other interest with which it had nothing whatever to do. That was all the assistance agriculturists had to hope for—a little relief, or rather an unimportant adjustment of their local burthens. After this, it would be a puzzle to him if the noble Marquis, the Member for Bucking-hamshire, took office with the present Administration, or even afforded them his countenance and support. Such was the way in which the most important interest in the country was disposed of by those champions of vested rights. Equally unsatisfactory was the Speech as it regarded the prosperity of the community generally. Throughout the debate, he had not heard a single expression of sympathy for the people; all appeared to be monopolized by the great and the noble. He could not help repeating, that through the entire debate the anxiety of parties devoted to the consultation of exclusive interests was too manifest; interests which were only tolerable from the highly artificial state of the society in which the people were placed, while the substantial, real, and essential interests of all, that of the people, was totally neglected, and never once alluded to. But it was useless for the House to attempt to conceal the fact from themselves that this interest was by far the most important; or to persuade themselves, while they were passing it over, that they would

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be permitted to do so with impunity. The people knew their own rights, and that House, however boastful of its wisdom, would soon be taught to attach importance to them. It was sought by the party now in power, to pledge the House to their support, under the pretence of being Reformers, and a speech of his in the last Parliament was ludicrously misquoted to serve the purposes of an argument, and as an illustration to that effect. But when he compared the conduct of the late Cabinet to a strike among the taylors, it was not with a view to hold them up to ridicule; but to show, that it was not more difficult to supply competent men to govern the State, than for master tailors to supply the places of their refractory servants. The right hon. Baronet, in his eloquent speech of the previous night, argued on the absurdity and impolicy of the nation being pledged to any set of public men, and especially to the framers of the Reform Act; but in the argument, the right hon. Baronet unwittingly comprehended himself, for in modelling his Administration, he most sedulously selected all those who were most averse to it at the time of its passing. It was urged by the supporters of the present Administration, that if it were overthrown, the consequences to the country might he dangerous, if not fatal. How absurd! Why, for a period of upwards of three weeks during which the right hon. Baronet was on his return from Naples, there was absolutely no Government in the kingdom, and yet what evil came of it? The people had then the power of casting out their tyrants, if they thought they had any; but they showed themselves to be real friends of order. They awaited in breathless anxiety the return of the right hon. Baronet, and the announcement of the measures he proposed to carry into effect in his Administration. The right hon. Baronet came, and his plans were announced in an address to his constituents,—in a speech at the Mansion-house, and again in one of the most eloquently elaborate speeches ever made in that House; and have they satisfied the country? The result would show that they gave deep and bitter disappointment. What were they? First, there was an Ecclesiastical Commission, composed of whom? Of Ecclesiastics. It was too ludicrous. As well might he (Mr. Harvey) propose that a Commission should be appointed for the purpose of inspecting, analysing, and reducing pensions; no one to be eligible
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to a place in it who had not been, and was not then in the actual receipt of a pension. The idea was a new one; and if it had not something of the character of an insult, it would be absolutely ludicrous. To suppose that all the right reverend Fathers in God, with which the Commission was crowded — with all the reverends who crowded the stalls, and filled the prebends, and enjoyed the canonries of our cathedrals —living on the fat of the land produced to them by the power of the Church, would sit quiet under the abandonment and resignation of their temporal interests—and not this alone, but be expected to search into and examine the revenues of the Church, with a view to their more equal distribution to their own infinite prejudice,—was to presume, that these men were actuated by higher motives and kinder feelings, and capable of greater sacrifices for the cause of Christianity, than human nature ever yet got credit for. As he had already said, it would be found, that the revenues of the Church in England and Wales fell little short of five millions annually. How was that enormous suns to be dealt with? Though the Commissioners' Report might not answer this question; the right hon. Baronet had informed the House on the subject. All, every penny of it, was to be devoted to strictly Ecclesiastical purposes. From his (Mr. Harvey's) knowledge of the people of these countries, he never felt more convinced of anything than he did of their indifference to any such mode of distribution; and lie was sure that it would never have their sanction unless a very large part of the surplus was devoted to purposes different from those contemplated, not questionable in their nature and designs, but national, and of public utility. The Reform of the Church, in as far as the intentions of his Majesty's Ministers were discoverable, was only an empty name, and on that head the country would stand exactly in the same position as it stood before the question was mooted at all. The next reform suggested but not specified, was Corporate Reform. As the Ministers had offered no development of their plan, he could not enter into it; but he conscientiously believed, that when it came before the House, it would be precisely of the same character as their Church Reform. Next, with respect to the prospects of the present Government, it had been stated by the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets, and he

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gave the fullest credit to the statement, that the destruction of the late, and the existence of the present Administration was owing entirely to the result of a successful intrigue in the other House of Parliament. Was the country to be told again, as it had been before, that the exclusive right to the Government was vested in the hands of an hereditary Peerage? An experiment was going on, to subvert the great benefits of the Reform Bill. Formerly, the hereditary legislators governed the country by means of the rotten boroughs; each monopolist selected his chosen men of consummate talent, and sent them into that House. By them was the battle fought, the remaining portion of the Representative body being merely quiescent co-operators. The effect of Reform was to make the people of England the patrons of the House of Commons. A bold, bare-faced, and dangerous stand was consequently now made by the other branch of the Legislature to regain that power which they had so long and so profitably held for themselves, and so long and so ruinously held for the country. No one could take note of passing events, if he lived in the world, and not perceive that the late Administration fell a victim to an intrigue in the other House. If it were otherwise, what cause had the present Government to dissolve the late Parliament? Why not meet it as men unconscious of acting unfairly? Why not court the candid exposition made by the noble Lord (Lord Melbourne) and reply to it as beseemed men void of offence and innocent of evil? There were many persons who complained bitterly of the dismissal of the late Ministry and the dissolution of the late Parliament. He was not one of them. He, for his part, rejoiced at it, because he thought it an advantage to the country as well as to the individuals composing the late Cabinet and that branch of the Legislature? Why? It showed the Members of Lord Melbourne's Government, that whatever course they might take to conciliate their natural enemies—whatever name they might adopt, whether a new one like the Tories, or an old one, like nothing that they professed to be, Conservative or any other—whatever they said or did, or endeavoured to do, they had no hold on the affections of the Court—that they were never for a single moment free from the influence of the Janissaries by whom it was always surrounded, and that they were never secure
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of office from one day to another, nay, from one hour to another, unless they cast anchor in the hearts of the people, and sunk it deep in the soil of public confidence. They would shortly be replaced by the voice of the country in that position from which they had been driven by intrigue; the
good sense of the people would soon sift the measures of the present Ministry, and fathom the true character of their Government. When the late Ministers should again be borne into power on the full tide of public affection, he hoped they would not forget their reverses and the cause of them. If they did not they would find in the confidence of an approving people, and an enthusiastic nation, a sufficient and sure protection against all the machinations of faction, and an effective support against all intrigue, domestic or foreign, by which they might be surrounded.
Mr. Baringsaid, that he should not have risen but for the allusion made to him by the hon. Member for Southwark, (Mr. Harvey) and the cheer with which the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets had greeted it. The hon. Member for Southwark had stated, that the great commercial interests of the City of London were proved by the last election to be adverse to the Government. It was however, a fact well known to almost every one at all acquainted with the condition of that great city, that in any election that had ever taken place for its numbers and property were never so decidedly at variance. It was perfectly well known to all persons at all conversant with the politics of the City of London, that an Address had been prepared and presented to his Majesty, congratulating him and the country on the accession of the present Ministry; that Address was signed by 5,000 individuals, whose names represented more of real substantial wealth, respectability, and intelligence, than had ever before been appended to such a document on any similar occasion. He was not one of those who was at all disposed to distinguish between different classes of a constituent body. The sitting Members for the Metropolis were undoubtedly returned by a majority of votes; but he did so then merely to correct a mistake into which the House was likely to be led by the broad assertions of hon. Gentlemen opposite on the subject; he felt a justification, and trusted to its good sense for excuse. If he stated, not alone

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that the wealth of the City of London was unrepresented in that House generally, but that nine-tenths of the real wealth of that great city was not represented at all, he should not, he sincerely believed, overstate the fact ["No, no"]. Such was in his belief the condition of London at that moment. With respect to the cheer of the hon. and learned Member for Southwark, he could not help congratulating those hon. Gentlemen who were now employed in opposing his Majesty's Ministers on the, accession to their strength which that hon. and learned Member would be found when they again entered on the arduous duties of office. They would in case of his junction with them have that to say which no other Administration ever had, that they had neutralised the hon. and learned Member's uniform and universal opposition. On the general question involved in the Address and the amendment before the House, he did not feel it his duty to trouble them at any length. The able and eloquent speech of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the preceding night's debate had so fully, so amply, and so distinctly treated all the topics involved in the discussion—had so minutely detailed the causes which led to the dissolution of the late Parliament—the motives which influenced him to accept office—the measures he proposed to bring forward, and the plans for the public weal which he had in contemplation, that nothing was left to be said on either of those topics. Hon. Gentlemen, however, persisted in their opposition, upon the presumption that sufficient and adequate measures of improvement and Reform would not be presented to the House. For this there was no ground. When his right hon. Friend should have specifically brought them before the House then would be the fittest time for opposition. He would wish to call the attention of the House to the fact of how these questions stood with reference to the present Parliament. Most of these questions had been entangled and perplexed by the late Administration, and it was only by examining them in detail that it could be ascertained whether there had been on the part of that Administration any exclusive merit in the management of those questions. The late Administration had attempted a commutation of tithes in England; they had attempted a system of general registry; they had attempted a
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measure with respect to Church-rates; all these, and many other questions they had propounded to Parliament, and had been able to effect nothing. They had failed in everything. The noble Lord the Member for Devonshire had spoken of the tithe question, but so little had he known of the history of the transaction, that he evidently supposed the Bill of the late Government introduced into that House had been defeated by the Bishops in the House of Lords. He had a right to complain, for the late Government had produced measure after measure, and all of which had proved unsatisfactory to Parliament; and yet the House was to be told that the late Government had been composed exclusively and solely of persons who were entitled to present reasonable measures of Reform to the country. He knew that the questions that had been proposed were all of them attended with great difficulty; but his opinion was, that with respect to tithes, the Bill which the present Administration would introduce for a commutation would be a very great improvement upon the scheme which the late Ministers had proposed. He was not aware that there was any party in that House that had any interest in withholding from the people every rational and practicable improvement of the institutions of the country. He had never met any party, whether belonging to the Church or not, which was not fully desirous that all reasonable reform should take place. He would take up very little more of the time of the House. As to the justification of the change of Administration, undoubtedly much would rest on the position which had been advanced—that the last Government was in perfect harmony in all its parts, and having no differences on the great principles of internal Governments. In the first place, be thought that the statements which had been made by his right hon. Friend (Sir Robert Peel) had been quite conclusive upon this subject. He would venture to say, that no man, acquainted with the public business of the country, that no man informed of the public transactions of the last two years, whether be were in or out of Parliament, could be ignorant of the differences and difficulties which had made it a miracle that the late Government had been able to exist even as long as it had existed. The surprise in every man's mind must be, that a party so situated could have been kept together so

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long. He had need only to refer Gentlemen to the language that had been used by Lord Brougham in every case in which he had made a speech, and they were not a few, in order to prove the endless differences in the views and opinions of the different Members of the late Cabinet. Even at a great public entertainment given in Scotland, in honour of Earl Grey, the great idol of the Whig party, for whom all parties entertained respect, the members of the party could not meet, even on an occasion of such a description, without going out of their way to dispute whether the advocates of Reform were going too fast or too slow. No, the party could not meet even convivially, when the members of it were disposed to smother all differences, without exposing to the world that they all thoroughly differed on this the most material of all points. The House had quite evidence enough to be convinced that the King could have had no alternative but the course which he was necessitated to adopt. He would assure the House, speaking of himself personally, that he was quite sensible of the little pretensions which he had to hold the situation which he did hold; and he could assure the House that he accepted it from a sense of duty, under the necessary circumstances of the times; and that no Gentleman whom he had the honour to address could feel more satisfaction in taking office than he should have pleasure in yielding it on any occasion in which it could promote the best interests of the country. He felt convinced, that the feelings of the country were so far with those with whom he had the honour to act, that if a fair trial should be given, and a fair exposition allowed for the measures which Ministers would feel it their duty to propose, lie was in no apprehension as to the ultimate decision of the House. Let them consider whether there was any party in that House more likely to form a Government than that which now filled the public departments. He conceived it to be quite impossible that any man could reflect upon the present situation of the House, and the state of parties both within and without the walls of Parliament, and entertain a hope for the formation of another Government. It might be true that when all the parties opposite were united there might be a small majority in the House adverse to the present Administration; but still
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every Gentleman must perceive that the chance of such a union was so small that the Government of the country was in reality not only the majority, but a very material majority, over any body of Gentlemen prepared to act together on any public principle in that House. Could the late Administration, he asked, govern the country except by associating with those against whom they had always acted with hostility, or with whom they had always felt the strongest differences of opinion? Those were the points which he thought should induce the House to consider that it was their duty to vote for the Address, and against the Amendment.
The Debate was again adjourned.