A A 5 2 9 4 7 ^^ LIBRARY ^ CALIFORNIA I L SAN DIE0O J THE THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO LA JOLLA, CA'IFORNJA RESULT GENERAL ELECTION; OR, WHAT HAS THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON GAINED BY THE DISSOLUTION? ,dFourt!) tuition. LONDON : JAMES RIDGWAY, N 169, PICCADILLY. MDCCCXXX. LONDON : PRINTED BY T. BRETTELI, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET. THE I iic RESULT OP THE GENERAL ELECTION, 8$C. 1 h e question which every one now asks is, What has the Duke gained by the Dis- solution ? He and his adherents were exceed- ingly sanguine that things would wear a new face in the new Parliament, although they could not deny that, in the old, their aspect was as gloomy as possible. Some of their abler adversaries they expected to turn out, forgetting that if, by in- trigues or government influence, men of this high caste should be defeated in one place, others were sure to receive them with open arms. At any rate, an accession of numbers was reckoned upon as quite certain, because the Treasury boroughs had been partly filled with their antagonists of the Canning and Ultra-Tory schools, while they were in office in 1826. The influence of a new reign was also counted for a good deal, and no pains were spared to make His most Gracious Majesty a tool for electioneering purposes. His (> words to the Duke were cited with much em- bellishment ; frequently anecdotes were invented for him : he had given the Minister's health with a panegyric he had required certain princes to drink it, who are known to hate dictatorships he had expressed a high sense of the talents of the Ministry as a body. The scouts of the Treasury ran about with the story, that the general election would add ninety-three round numbers never gain the belief which odd ones inspire, and a vulgar fraction would assuredly have been added, had any means been discovered of making a rotten borough return a part of a man. Nay, it was even said that the Minister had so far abused his access to the royal ear _as to answer His Gracious Majesty's very natural question, " Don't you " want strengthening? " with, " The Dissolution " will strengthen us ! " Well, then, he has had a Dissolution has he gained strength from it ? Boundless indignation was displayed against Mr. Brougham, when he warned the Government against counting upon this resource. " So reckoned " Prince Jules de Polignac," said he, " and where " is he ? He dissolved his Chambers he ap- " pealed to the people. The French people, " steady to their purpose, unawed by threats, un- " swayed by influence, sent back a more inde- " pendent Parliament than before ; and if either " he or any one else, Prince or Duke, dares to " try force, he will find that the day for such " measures is gone by, and that the indignant " resistance of a free people will hurl him to " swift destruction." This has proved abundantly prophetic in one of the two countries so would it in the other, if, after the glorious punishment of presumptuous incapacity at Paris, it were to try any such atrocious experiments in London ; but, like the Prince of Polignac, the Prince of Waterloo has dissolved his Chambers has he gained more by it than his cherished and unfortunate friend ? No pains were spared to verify all these pre- dictions of electioneering success. The Treasury were never more active or less scrupulous. Besides the accustomed boards of canvass held at White- hall, a special commission seems to have sat in Regent Street Mr. William Holmes, it is said (so far will party zeal carry men), actually passed many hours a-day with a Scottish Earl, formerly one of the fast friends of Mr. Fox, as well as of M. Brissot, and up to this hour calling himself the warm friend of Earl Grey, but not remarkable for good fortune in election matters, whether among his natural peers at Holyrood House, or his political ones of the Pin-makers' Company at Guildhall. The force of the two great co-opera- tives, the Bank and the East India Company, with the weight of the West India body, were brought to bear in favour of the Govern- ment. Letters from the Treasury were sent, 8 superscribed by the Home Secretary of State, on behalf of one gentleman, who set himself up against Mr.C. Grant ; and against his brother a gen- tleman was started, who, it is said, owed his whole fortune to the Grant family. All the other accus- tomed engines of influence and intimidation were made to play ; and the Duke of Wellington, being as completely ignorant of electioneering as he is of all the other departments of his new trade, had no doubt he should succeed everywhere, and be able to stand alone for another Session, by the force of numbers, against all the weight of all the public men whom the nation confides in, and in spite of the notorious and pitiable want of talent which his colleagues nightly display. Well, then, he has tried his luck he has appealed to the people, with every advantage arising from the known popularity of all new reigns, and the absence of any great sources of party division and we ask, did ever Minister yet sustain such signal defeat ? First we shall consider the mere question of numbers that book is now, for the first time, a fatal one for the Ministers that mute eloquence, to which all the Duke's predecessors delighted in appealing, now speaks trumpet-tongued against him. The Treasury calculation is, that, on the balance of accounts, they have gained, in all the three kingdoms, twenty-one. So says Mr. Planta ; we suspect Mr. Holmes knows better. But, at least, twenty-one is not ninety-three, even at the 9 Downing Street and Regent Street Boards. A mighty falling off is thus plainly acknowledged ; and we may rest assured that no such estimates, in such quarters, ever admit the whole extent of their disappointment who make them. The principles upon which the estimate is formed are, of course, not known. Do the calcu- lators reckon every one who ever gave a single vote against the Government, and who has now lost his seat, an opposition man ? Do they, with equal fairness, in going over the names of the new Members, suppose every one a ministerial man who ever voted with Government? And, above all, catching at straws in their extremity, do they calculate among their friends, and fancy their adversaries have lost all, who ever out of doors said a civil word to the Duke, or of his conduct about Ireland, or of his military services ? Certain it is, that their adherents have been loud in their comments on some such trifling indications ; for example, they have appealed to Lord Ebrington's temperate expression of opposition principles, and to Lord Fitzwilliam's unaccountable measure of returning Sir J. Scarlett, at a time when he and his son are in the most strenuous opposition to the Government*. * If the noble Earl's patronage be unintelligible, the learned Counsel's submitting to hold such a seat, after Lord Milton's acquiescence in Mr. Strickland's attack, is, at least, equally 10 But, be the grounds of the calculation what they may, by whatsoever process of self-delusion by whatever resources of arithmetical blundering they have screwed up a false balance out of a very plain account the fact is undeniable, that a more gross misrepresentation never was made of a mere matter of figures. The Treasury estimate makes their gain forty in England, five in Scotland, and nine in Ireland in all, fifty-four ; their loss, twenty-five in England, one in Scotland, and seven in Ireland in all, thirty-three ; being a total gain of twenty-one upon the balance. Admitting Scotland to be given correctly, let us examine England and Ireland, and see whether there be any foundation for the calculation. Take, first of all, the alleged loss of twenty- five: there is nothing like the details of names. We know that the following Members have been returned in the room of those set opposite to their names, and for the places in the third column. Which of the names in column I. are likely to vote with Government ? Which of those in column II. ever voted against it? These are the only questions. Let the Duke and his flatterers answer them, or give up their calculation of having lost only twenty-five by the Dissolution. incomprehensible ; but he can not, he will not, for his honour's sake, he dares not continue so to sit. 11 I. II. III. NEW MEMBERS. OLD MEMBERS. PLACES. COUNTIES. Adeane. Lord C. Manners. Cambridgeshire. Lord Ebrington. Bastard. Devonshire. Tyrrell. Bramston. Essex. Sir W. B. Folkes. Wodehouse. Norfolk. Beaumont. Hon. H. Liddell. Northumberland. Sandford. Sir T. Lethbridge. Somersetshire. Briscoe. Pallmer. Surrey. Tyrrell. Sir T. Gooch. Suffolk. Lord Belgrave. Davenport. Cheshire. BOROUGHS. Lord Fordwich. S. R. Lushington. Canterbury. Hon. G. A. Ellis. Lord Seymour. Sir C. Domville. "* Strutt. $ Oakhampton. Ellice. Heathcote. Coventry. Labouchere. General Peachey. Taunton. Sykes. Batley. Beverley. Sir R. Gresley. Sir H. Hardinge. Durham. Grant. Peel. Norwich. Marshall. Stephenson. Leominster. General Palmer. Lord Brecknock. Bath. Wall. Norton. Guildford. Howard. Sir VV. Scott. Carlisle. Brougham. *Hon. B. Bouverie.-* Powell. j Downton. Lefevre. Lord Radnor's Uncle, and Ministerial. 12 I. II. III. NEW MEMBERS. OLD MEMBERS. PLACES. BOROUGHS. Philpotts. Sir C. Lemon. Morrison. Cooper. Barclay. Halse. Gloucester. Penryn. St. Ives. *Hon. P. P. Bouverie. Peel. Cocker mouth. Lord C. Churchhill. Lord Ashley. Woodstock. Hon. Jerningham. Villiers Stuart. Sir C. Wetherell. Sir G. Warrender. Starkie. Hon. A. Legge. Sir A. Grant. Lott. Pomfret. Banbury. Aldborough. Honiton. Lord Stormont. j- Attwood. Munday. i Dawkins. 3 Boroughbridge. Lytton Bulwer. Baker. Wilton. Hon. A. Duncombe. Bassetlarv. Hughes. Baillie. Byng. Lockhart. Arkwright. North. Oxford. Rye. Milborne Port. Sir C. Constable. Villiers. He don. Here, then, are forty changes ministerial men turned out and opposition men brought in instead of twenty-five, making a difference of exactly fifteen ; consequently, if we take the Treasury * Lord Radnor's Brother, and Opposition. t Mr. Attwood was in the last Parliament for Callington, and is suc- ceeded by F. Baring ; therefore Callington is not reckoned in this list. 13 account of its own gain of forty, upon the balance in England, instead of gaining fifteen, they gain not one ! and upon the whole election their gain is re- duced from twenty-one to six, allowing them to be quite right in their estimate of gaining two in Ireland. But their Irish calculation is still more erroneous than their English, as the following table will show : I. II. III. NEW MEMBERS. OLD MEMBERS. PLACES. O'Gorman Mahon. O'Brien. Clare. Sergeant Lefroy. Croker. Dublin University. Sir J. Burke. Daly. Galway County. A. Lefroy. Sir G. R. Fetherston. Longford County. Leader. Doherty. Kilkenny. Jones. Dawson. Derry County. D. Browne. Lord Bingham. Mayo. O'Connor Don. King. Roscommon. Wyse. Hutchinson. Tipperary. A. Chichester. Lord Stopford. Wexford County. Colonel O'Grady. Massy Dawson. Limerick County. We repeat the question upon these undeniable returns Which of the names in the first column will ever be found in a ministerial division, and 14 which of the names in the second were ever wanting to back the Duke in the last Session of Parliament ? But of these new Members, all opposed to Govern- ment, there are no less than eleven. The Treasury estimate, of twenty-one, allows the Opposition only to have gained six in Ireland; here, then, is another deduction of five to be made from the balance ; and thus it is demonstrated that, giving the Minister credit for being perfectly accurate in all his calculations, of the forty-nine which he says he has gained in England and Ireland, there must be deducted from that the Opposition gain, not of thirty-two, as he and his "parasites" (may they pardon the word, which comes so naturally !) wildly imagine, but fifty-one ; making upon the only part of the empire where there are elections, or anything like elections, a loss of exactly two votes, instead of a gain of seventeen, and upon the whole operation, a gain of one vote, instead of twenty-one ! But what right have calculators who thus plainly have underrated their adversary's force by so large an amount about one half to challenge credit for the accuracy, or the honesty of the es- timate which they put forth of their own ? We will thank them to exhibit their tables as we have ours, and we venture to foretell, it will be found that the whole amount of their gain is under twenty we believe not much above sixteen in 15 England, and only six in Ireland, leaving them in a clear loss, upon the balance, of twenty-nine in those two countries, or, allowing them in Scotland a gain of four, twenty-six. Now grant we have underrated their gain by six, this leaves them losers by twenty upon the result of the whole*. But, in truth, the names above given, as gained by the Opposition, are not by any means the whole of their acquisition by the elections. For we have made it a rule to name no person who had not openly avowed himself, either by his votes or de- clarations, as opposed to the Ministry. There are many others who are known to share the same opinions, and these we have omitted in the tables ; Ireland especially will furnish several such names. * Besides the names of anti-ministerialists mentioned in the tables in the text, there are many, who, though not so entirely pledged against the Government, are, if we mistake not, well prepared to oppose it, and who have suc- ceeded persons who were its firm supporters such as, Lord Norreys, who succeeds Mr. Ashurst, in Oxfordshire ; Mr. Herbert Curteis, who succeeds his father, in Sussex ; the Hon. Granville Ryder, who takes the place of his uncle Richard, at Tiverton ; Messrs. Freshfield, Bainbridge, and Jenkins, taking the places of Messrs. Manning, Seymour, and Corbett, at Penrhyn, Taunton, Shrewsbury, &c, &c, &c. In Ireland, we are greatly deceived, by our information from men on the spot, if many more than those we have named do not vote generally against the Government. 16 It must also be observed that, as far as regards the effective strength of their forces, the Opposition Leaders have gained in another and a very essential respect. Instead of Members, generally absent either abroad or at home, they have in several places gained regular attenders. Instead of Mem- bers nominally in Opposition, but who hardly ever could be got to vote, they have gained in other places staunch and zealous partisans. Of the force of the classes just now described, ten or twelve would be a low estimate. As regards the fate of any given question on which the Duke's strength may be tried, these are to be reckoned nearly a clear addition to the numbers of his adversaries. Here, then, we close the " Book of Numbers," for the first time, under the reign of King Arthur, a volume of pleasing contemplation to men in Op- position. We leave that potentate to the feelings which he must have respecting his ninety-three new adherents, much resembling those of Rachel in the Wilderness, and for the same reason be- cause they are not and we proceed to the other results of the Dissolution. " The Dissolution, an " it please your Majesty, will strengthen us." Never was there so lamentable a sight of weak- ness as the Ministry themselves presented during, and at the close of, the elections. First, we have the Peel family. Mr. Grant repays the attempt of the Secretary to unseat him by unseating his 17 brother at Norwich, to keep which the gallant Colonel had almost quarreled with the discreet Secretary; Mr. Lawrence Peel is turned out of Cockermouth, to make way, say the Cumberland folks, for an arrangement between the Lowthers and Broughams, upon which it does not appear that the Peels were much consulted ; Mr. W. Peel is proposed for Tamworth, but almost in- stantly withdrawn ; Mr. E. Peel is defeated, after a contest, at Newcastle-under-Line ; and Mr. G. Dawson, being first thrown out of his county, at- tempts another place, and is forced to draw back, finding the case hopeless. Here, then, are five or six defeats to this powerful and popular family in about ten days. The only one of the Wellesley family that comes before the people is the Duke's nephew, and he, after fifteen days' fighting, is left at the bottom of the poll. No other connexions of the Government ventured to show themselves at any place; and it is a fact unprecedented in the Parliamentary History of England, that not one Cabinet Minister sits in Parliament by the voice of any portion of His Majesty's subjects, except Sir George Murray, and he for a Scotch county, which is, like the rest of the Scotch counties, more rotten than most of the English rotten boroughs. It is not possible to avoid here asking how the great popular seats are filled at the close of the late elections. That no one in office, except Lord B 18 Lowther and Mr. F. Lewis, sits for any popular place is admitted, and of these the one sits for a tiny Welch county ; the other for the only borough- county in England. Let us then observe how the Government supporters bear their share in the popular representation. First, as to coun- ties, there are in England forty counties. Of the eighty-two members which these return, no more than twenty-eight are steady supporters of the Ministry ; forty-seven, or nearly double that num- ber, are avowed adherents of the Opposition, and seven are of a neutral cast, not leaning much to the Government. Did ever Minister yet meet Parliament with such a preponderance of the county representation against him? Of the thir- teen great popular cities and boroughs with hundreds (London, Westminster, Aylesbury, &c.) returning twenty-eight Members, only three seats are held by decided ministerial men ; twenty-four by men in avowed opposition. There are sixty -two other places which may have contests, being more or less open, they return one hundred and twenty- six Members. Of these only forty-seven are mi- nisterial, all the rest are avowed opposition men, save eight, whose leaning is rather more against the Government than for it. Of the two hundred and thirty-six men, then, returned by elections, more or less popular, in England, only seventy -nine are ministerial votes ; one hundred and forty-one 19 are in avowed opposition, and sixteen of a neutral cast. If, therefore, the Ministers are to make any- head against a force of two to one against them, from every part of the country where the popular voice is heard in elections, it can only be by means of the rotten boroughs and the Scotch Members; Every where else they are in a minority altogether without a precedent. But before proceeding to ask whether this nation can be governed by a Minister who has no support from the constituent body of the country, we must look to one or two remarkable lessons taught by the late General Election one of the most memorable in the history of England. At no one place where the public voice could be raised, did any Member of the Government attempt to show himself all took refuge in rotten boroughs but not so their antagonists. Mr. Hume was returned for Middlesex, with Mr. Byng no at- tempt being made on the part of the Government to oppose him. A Whig colleague was given to Mr. Coke, in Norfolk, and another to Mr. Deni- son, in Surrey. In Devonshire, Lord Ebrington was borne to the head of the poll on the shoulders of the people, and was enabled to bring in Sir Thomas Acland with himself. In Cambridgeshire, the Rutland family had long ruled superior, and they are one of the very few great houses that support the Duke of Wellington indeed, what 20 Minister do they oppose ? Their fate has been a signal punishment to themselves, and a warning lesson to their neighbours. His Grace of Rutland possibly reflected, when his brother was defeated by two staunch Whigs, how he had signed his name first of so many thousands against the Catholic Question, and then, simply because His Grace of Wellington willed it so, had voted against the prayer of his own petition. These things cannot no, they cannot be done always with impunity. If a like fate should now befal the Lowthers, they will at least have the consolation of reflecting that their conduct was consistent, and that they forced the Dictatorial Minister to bend, and suffer them to vote as they had previously done upon the great question of the day. But the triumph of Mr. Brougham in Yorkshire is by far the most remarkable feature in the late general election. As he himself has observed, to what can this be ascribed, but the universal acquiescence of the community in his principles ? But no opinion did he promulgate more uniformly, during his memorable progress through Yorkshire, than his opposition to the present Ministry, whose utter incapacity to govern the country he never seems to have lost any opportunity of exposing. For a Ministry to permit their most prominent adversary in the House of Commons to be thus elected, almost unanimously, by 1,200,000 peo- 21 pie of all descriptions, must be allowed to be the very depth of discomfiture and disgrace. To a proud and honourable mind, a mind that regards any thing but mere place, it must be the most insufferable of all humiliations. But does any one suppose that the very same event would not have resulted from Mr. Brougham's standing for Lan- cashire ? What connexion had he with the county of York ? It is plain that the principles he stood upon, joined to his power of maintaining them with effect, alone carried him into Parliament as Re- presentative of Yorkshire ; and that the same principles, and the same confidence in him who held them, would have crowned his canvass any where else with the same success. But the election has other matter of serious reflection to afford the Duke of Wellington. The Aristocracy has been taught a lesson, which, if received in the spirit of wisdom and humility, may prove most salutary, but can in no way be pleasing. The secret has been imparted, which all men ever wish to shut their eyes upon the secret of their weakness. The people of England have begun to exert the power with which extended knowledge arms countless numbers, and they will, beyond all doubt,obtain an influence in the management of their own affairs commensurate with their just title to it. They have thoroughly discovered their own strength Yorkshire Devonshire Cambridge- shire Surrey even Leicestershire certainly 22 Suffolk bear witness to it. Woe to the rest of the community, if they long remain blind to it, or incredulous of it, or careless of the consequences which must, and that speedily, flow from it ! The schoolmaster is abroad with a vengeance ; and now will be fulfilled that which was spoken " With " his primer he will prove an overmatch for the " Field-Marshal's baton." But in such times, at a season when their whole influence is at stake, will the Aristocracy of England blindly trust their case in the hands of the most ignorant and inexpe- rienced of Ministers, with colleagues, the pity or the jest of all beholders ? At a time when the utmost vigour and the largest provision of civil wisdom is manifestly required to keep the system together, by a happy union of needful firmness with well-timed concession, will they be content that the chief power in the State should remain in men who, having no influence or credit with the country, can have no will of their own, nor keep to any fixed purpose for twenty-four hours to- gether; but must needs be the sport of every breath that blows, and be tossed about as the force or caprice of any party may chance to point ? The great families are, indeed, with one or two exceptions, all against this incredible Ministry. In the whole Cabinet there is neither rank nor property ; and among its supporters, the Beauforts and Rutlands, whom all Governments reckon upon, stand aloof from the rest of their order ; for even 23 the Lowthers lend it a most reluctant and divided support. The aspect of affairs abroad, however, forms the most gloomy portion of the Duke's prospect. That he urged the wretched Polignac to his crimes is utterly incredible; that he helped him to his place a year ago seems hardly to be doubted. His praise of him, as " by far the ablest French " minister since the restoration," cannot be re- tracted or explained away. Lord Aberdeen, whose opinions are those of Metternich's very enlightened and constitutional school, hardly looked to the restoration of the Spanish yoke in South America with more sanguine hopes than he did to the establishment of a " vigorous" system in France. But two defences have been set up on this most important question by the " parasitical" tribe : The Duke, it is said, has been ready to acknow- ledge the King of the French ; therefore he approved of the glorious event which has made every free heart in Europe leap with joy. In other words, the policy of the Polignacs being irretriev- ably discomfited, and disgraced, past redemption, in the eyes of all mankind, the step which fol- lowed of necessity, of allowing that Louis Philip was reigning Sovereign of France, proves our Minister to have rejoiced in Polignac's ruin. As well might it be contended that Napoleon's retreat to Paris, and from thence on shipboard, proved him 24 to have exulted in the Battle of Waterloo ! As well might it be argued, that the Duke rejoices in the honours paid to the ashes of Marshal Ney, because he does not send forth an army to tear them from the Pantheon, where the hands of his grateful countrymen have enshrined the victim, of what Mr. Fox justly called, " that worst of revolutions, " a restoration !" No, no; many things that are impossible will come to pass, and much that is incredible will be believed, before any man of ordinary observation will credit so vain a tale as, that the Duke of Wellington ever knew a more bitter moment than that in which he read of the summary triumph of the French people, and saw in it the triumph of the people's rights all over the world. The other ground of defence is this : Does any one, it is said, suppose the Duke, with all his hatred of popular rights, and all his love of legi- timacy, a mere driveller? Then how could he approve of conduct so insane, an exhibition of weak- ness so deplorable, as that of Polignac and his Mas- ter? But who ever said that he did? or ever dreamt that he approved the course which those in- fatuated creatures took to gain their object ? It does not follow, however, that he did not wish heartily well to that object ; possibly veiling its deformity to his own mind, under the specious phrases of " firm " Government" " legitimate throne" " vigorous 25 " support of the existing arrangement" and so forth. That he may dearly have desired the end, and bitterly regretted the means, is altogether conceivable, without the least impeachment of his honour, or his consistency, or even his good sense. What pope was it that remonstrated vehemently against our James II., for hurrying on the recon- cilement of England to the church of Rome, with such fatal impatience ? What prelate was it that soon after saw the royal fanatic an exile, and exclaimed, " There goes an idiot, who gave three " kingdoms for a mass !" But the pope and the prelate both wished well enough to James's project, and only blamed or ridiculed him for pursuing it like a fool; nay, they may easily have set him upon the adventure, and then, like another in- triguer, of high name and ancient authority in all courts, have grinned at the failure of their victim. The lessons, however, which the Duke of Wellington may learn from this great event are neither few nor of light account. First of all, it may teach him that an army is more to be depended on in the field than in the city. Beyond all doubt, he counted on the French troops standing by Charles X. and his insensate ministers, and was somewhat staggered when he saw some battalions of those brave men refuse to fire upon their fellow-citizens. Beyond doubt also, he expected regular troops, when they did fight, to 2G gain an easy victory over an unarmed rabble. The finest soldiers in Europe beaten by a mob the boys of the Polytechnic School destroying five hundred of one regiment, and all the officers but three streets in half an hour barricaded, and every house become a garrison, from which the very women and children fired shot, and poured down huge paving stones upon veteran troops this is the very irregular, unscientific, unmilitary spec- tacle which the recent history of France presents to the tacticians of the Horse Guards, and records, for the encouragement of all freemen and the terror of all military tyrants, in all countries and in all times. It is also a page of history which will be read with advantage by the soldiers themselves^ of all ranks ; and may have some influence on their minds, when they are poring over that other page, wherein is recorded the great virtue of those patriotic troops, who, in the soldier, forgot not the citizen, and refused to obey the unlawful command that would have pointed their arms to shed the blood of their unoffending countrymen ! Next, the Duke of Wellington must now, whe- ther he find it to his taste or no, lay his account with the French governing themselves choosing their own kings and ministers making such con- stitutions as they think proper for their own coun- try in short, managing their own affairs without ever consulting him, or throwing away a thought 27 upon him, any more than if there were no such person as Arthur Duke of Wellington, in this world of vexation, of folly, of rash presumption, and of disappointment. France will be free, and great, and have all the rights of free states, and all the influence of a powerful one, whether it like him or no. The French can see nothing whatever in him that gives him a claim to their deference or re- spect; because he is wholly ignorant, narrow-minded, inexperienced in state affairs, and, as he said himself two or three years ago, nothing but being stricken with madness could ever account for his trying to be a Prime Minister. Moreover, his arbitrary principles of government are not to their mind ; and there are passages in his life (we allude not to them) which have by no means won their confidence. This lesson of his utter and absolute insignificance in French affairs, is one which he will be expected to learn speedily, both by France and by England, should any miracle keep him longer in place (power he has none) among ourselves. Again, the Duke may extend his views to other nations, and mark how vain a thing it is for him to expect his principles any longer to maintain their ground in any part of Europe. His friends, Metternich Ferdinand Miguel are all at a sore discount Freedom can no more pervade all France and not cross the Rhine, and the Alps, and the 28 Pyrenees, than the knowledge which gave it birth can be hemmed in by the stream and the mountain. The principles of the Holy Alliance are, therefore, doomed to destruction, and they who maintained them, and embattled their legions to uphold them, must be prepared to retrace their steps betimes, and to make just concessions soon, lest, by ill- advised delays, they suffer all to be wrested from their grasp. It is time for the Duke to foresee the coming tide which may lead on to fortune or utterly overwhelm him, according as he tries to ride it or to stem it. He lost one opportunity of the same kind before, when he emancipated Ireland, or rather suffered her to emancipate herself, whether he would or no. He might then have placed him- self in the van of improvement with the friends of freedom ; but his personal jealousies combined with his prejudices to make him prefer the other course. If he now again commit the same error, his own fate is sealed ; but he cannot delay the triumph of liberty for an hour. Of this great truth let him be well assured. Last of all, the effects of the French Revolution must teach him the absolute necessity of reforms in all the abuses of our own system. This is a fruitful topic, and as he is really, to all appearance, not destined to be the Minister who shall regulate them, suffice it to say, that if he persists in clinging by the helm he has not strength to hold, not a 29 debate will take place in which he, and his Peels, and his Aberdeens, will not sorely feel the effects of the French Revolution. The mention of Sir Robert Peel's name, na- turally enough overlooked among objects of greater moment, recals to mind the question so often asked, How is the business of Government now to be conducted in the Commons ? But who can answer this question ? The excess of human vanity the most indecent presumption must be Sir R. Peel's, if he dreams of going on for one month longer as he endeavoured to do last session. His failure recals the worst days of Mr. Addington, who was, however, compared with our present doctor, a firm and a successful minister. As the Right Honourable Baronet has some excellent qualities, and has done the State good service, it is to be hoped, he will never again think of trying the ex- periment , for it is needless to show him how many things are changed for the worse, even since his last, not very splendid, exhibitions. One name, however, has not been introduced into these pages The Sovereign of the country, at a crisis like the present, has a duty to perform. He unfortunately suffered the Ministers of his brother to remain in office, and to dissolve the Parliament; he will now have to choose between a difficult, a turbulent, an inglorious reign, under the vice-royalty of his military Minister, and one 30 of ease, tranquillity, and respect, by means of con- stitutional Ministers. His Majesty has probably begun, before this time, to inquire why the present Ministry should remain in office at all ? what claims they have to his royal confidence where their strength lies in the country what power they have in Parliament what weight with the Aristocracy, or the Church what title to respect at home or consideration abroad ? His Majesty is indeed most deeply interested in this inquiry ; and one thing may be very safely pro- nounced as certain, that if he endeavours to main- tain them in office, they will have but the single title of his royal pleasure, whereby to hold it. Never before, since the family of Brunswick held the throne of these realms, was there another in- stance of a Ministry which had no one other hold over their stations no one other claim to fill them, save and except the choice of the monarch ; and nothing but sad experience will persuade any loyal and reflecting persons, that our present Gracious Sovereign will sacrifice his popularity, and risk all the best interests of his kingdom, by setting the first example since the Revolution, of a struggle between the Crown and the Country the more especially as he has neither any personal interest to serve nor any prejudices to gratify by pursuing so ill-omened a course. But let us turn from the consideration of foreign 31 affairs, in which, by the way, the Duke of Wel- lington's failures, concluded as they have been by the expulsion of the Bourbons from France, are so numerous and so complete as fairly to balance his military successes, and reflect for a moment upon the domestic prospects of him and his associates. The question is, what will he do next to what expedient will he resort to conceal his hopeless debility, and to strive to keep himself in place for another session ? He cannot dissolve again, like his pupil Polignac ; still less dares he try now any such coup d'etat as those which have " damned to ever- " lasting fame" the previously obscure name of his unfortunate friend. But something he must do to gain applause ; and, by yielding to the wishes of the people, to disarm, for the moment, opposition. Will he touch the tithe ? hardly yet. But pro- bably he may propose some mitigated measure of Parliamentary Reform such as giving Members to the great manufacturing towns. It is true, that Sir Robert Peel and all his other colleagues are deeply committed against this ; but not more so than they were upon the Catholic Question. Or he may make the King, his only friend, his victim ; and come down with a proposition for a Civil List, reduced below even the utmost wishes of the most sanguine economists ; or perhaps the East India Company may be offered up a sacrifice on the altar of popular feeling. Let no one, therefore, be surprised, if such be the topics of his 32 Majesty's speech if he be made to implore his faithful Commons to be as penurious towards him- self as possible ; or call down their vengeance upon the monopolizing rulers of Leadenhall Street ; or advise the restoration of the Constitution by means of a Reform of the Commons House of Parliament. Such things are possible, nay, pro- bable ; some one of them must indeed almost indubitably be resorted to, to give his Grace even a chance of continuing in the situation of Prime Minister. Then will Sir Robert Peel, as we have already heard him do upon other memorable occa- sions, declare his own opinion to be " entirely un- " changed ;" but that he yields to the exigencies of the State or the cry of the people. But by what- ever subterfuge or sophistry he may endeavour to disguise that always unpleasant operation, known in common parlance by the expression, of eating his own words, the nation cannot fail to be the gainer by the popular measures he may thus be compelled to support, peradventure to propound. But what will the Aristocracy say to such proceedings ? We fear they must submit ; and at the same time let them rest fully assured, that if annual Parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot, could, for ever so short a time, prolong the Duke of Wellington's power, he would support them, and oblige his col- leagues to do the same ; which colleagues, their " opinions remaining entirely unchanged ;" would yield a ready and a cheerful obedience. 33 Personal topics may be invidious; but when the question is, Whom shall the King trust, and the nation be ruled by ? the matter ceases to be merely personal, and rises into the highest public importance. Can any one, then, doubt that the following sketch paints, to the life, those weak but presumptuous men who affect to administer our affairs ? It would be easy to find an abler man than the Prime Minister ; but impossible to name any one less popular, whether with the aristocracy, the church, or the community at large. Civil expe- rience he has hardly any political knowledge, none his talents lay in war, and with the peace they have ceased to be of any more use than an old matchlock or a battering ram. He was of some service while the King's personal prejudices and unsteadiness required the controul of a strong hand : with the life of the late monarch, that use too has ceased. If he has any other claims to his station, except his extravagant estimate of his own universal genius (a new light since his memorable self-denying declaration), neither the Nation nor the Parliament have as yet been able to discover them. Let them be plainly brought forward, however, by any one who is quixotic enough to maintain them, and they may be fairly discussed. The Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst has notoriously disappointed, by his indolence, all who had formed c 34 any expectations of him. He is, by common consent, the most inefficient Keeper to whom the Great Seal has been entrusted, since Lord Bathurst whose heir-at-law would make as good a chancel- lor as either his noble and learned ancestor, or his noble and learned colleague. No doubt, as far as personal weight and consideration goes the dignity derived from consistency, steadiness of principle, and all that goes to make up public virtue the present Ministry may boast of a share in the person of its First Law Officer, such as none other ever had, and such as it would be absolutely cruel to examine in detail. Among his colleagues the Earl of Aberdeen stands distinguished (bold as the assertion may to some appear) for that union of feebleness with presumption of incapacity in every other man's eyes, with all-sufficiency in his own which con- stitutes the ridiculous in character. It is from such originals that the pencil of Cervantes drew the Baratarian Government of Sancho Panza, that of Sheridan his Lord Burleigh, and of Swift his Gulliver drawing upon the King of Brobdignag. Mankind have yet to learn one single ground upon which this lord should affect to hold any other given lord cheap ; and yet he never opens his mouth but to try some clumsy sneer. He is supposed to have studied under Mr. Pitt, who had some right to indulge in such supercilious, demeanour. The Hindoos have an apologue of 35 a dwarf who used to keep company with a giant, and, seeing him always look down upon the crowd, got the habit of looking down when he saw men whose middles he could just reach standing upon tiptoe. The other members of the Cabinet it is really difficult for any one not having a peculiarly re- tentive memory, or, as Mr. Brougham would say, " not being good at proper names," to recollect. One, indeed, Lord Ellenborough, is remembered, not from the possession of any shining or states- man-like qualities, but on account of certain awk- ward passages in his history. This individual pro- fessed himself at different times the follower of Lord Lansdowne and of Lord Grey ; but he left them all upon the first hint of a place from the Duke of Wellington, and he accepted it, with an amend- ment to the Duke's address ready written in his pocket, which he had had the imprudent vanity to show to several persons. To the Government he joined, he brought a weight of personal un- popularity, which it rarely falls to the lot of any one so little conspicuous as himself to acquire. And if to this disadvantage is added, an overweening conceit overweening apparently in proportion to the absence of merit a total want of judgment, and a singular faculty of attracting the derision of others, it will be easily granted that his co-operation is, in fact, a grievous misfortune to the administration which is encumbered with it. 36 Of Lord Bathurst, lives there the man so un- feeling, so lost to all the softer emotions of our nature, as to speak in an enumeration of states- men fit to administer a great empire? If such there be, and of heart so flinty, then the same might also view unmoved the sorrowful plight of Mr. Goulburn, and weigh the merits of that good sensible man and most able Quarter-Master-Gene- ral, Sir George Murray, as a parliamentary chieftain. Whether or not Lord Francis-Leveson Gower be a Cabinet Minister, may be a question ; it can be none that, in such a Cabinet, Nature has well qualified him to hold a place, and a prominent one. But though he may rival Lord Aberdeen in hopeless debility, he falls so infinitely short of him in presumption, that it would be a shame to speculate upon the amount of his gain by his late removal from Ireland. He was found to be per- fectly unfit for the Parliamentary conflicts of that department; some change of climate was abso- lutely necessary to preserve his existence. So he is to battle the estimates, night after night, against Mr. Hume, for six or eight weeks of the next session, by way of having an easy life, and a task he is fit for. Of Sir Robert Peel we have not spoken. He is a man of respectable talents, moderate acquire- ments, unquestioned propriety, undeniable self- complacency, and brilliant and boundless wealth. Whether these, added to the possession of as much 37 unpopularity as ever fell to one man's share, be exactly the qualifications that will fit him for leading such a House of Commons as is just re- turned, and against such an Opposition, may be a different thing. He is supposed to have so deep, so devout a veneration for himself (testified among other things by reverently dropping the voice upon naming the object of his adoration), as rather to have enjoyed standing alone last session. He probably is now hugging himself in the hope of a like enjoyment at the approaching meeting. If so, it may be asserted with great safety, that, though his portion of bliss be not the greatest, it is at least the most unenvied ever yet bestowed upon mortal. Such are our Ministers such their personal qualifications, to govern the country and guide the Parliament. Of their adversaries it may be un- necessary to speak ; for when was there ever an Op- position so weak that such a Ministry could stand before it ? But for whose profit is it to uphold a Cabinet like this ? The Country's ? But it is her interest to be ruled by men whom some party in the State holds to ; whom Parliament will, ge- nerally speaking, respect and follow ; whom other nations can confide in ? The King's ? But no king is interested in surrounding himself with men whom no other man but himself deems worthy of their station, and whose continuance in it can only make his reign a succession of uncertainty, anxiety, 38 and trouble. His Majesty had the sagacity to per- ceive that the Duke wanted strength to conduct his Government ; but he was silenced by the answer, " Wait till the elections are over." So were Lord Grey's adherents silenced, as long as the late King lived, " TheKingwori't hear of him" Well, then, the King died ; and his successor would willingly not only hear of Lord Grey, but speak of him too. What excuse was now to be made ? There was none. So his Majesty has waited, and the elec- tions are over. Peradventure, to the question " Have you strengthened yourself?" the answer now is, " They won't have me the Whigs won't " have me the Tories won't have me the Hus- " kissons won't have me no one but your Majesty tf will have me." What then remains, but for the King to follow the prevailing opinion, and, before it is found that " Parliament won't have me" give his people the inestimable blessing, and share himself the unspeakable comfort, of a Government which has some chance of being firm at home, and respected abroad! FINIS. LONDON I PRINTED BY X. BRETTELL, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET. 9UH