be presented again in a quiet and orderly manner, by a small deputation, five days afterwards. The whole procession repaired to Kennington Common, where Mr. Phillips's reply was repeated. on various parts of the ground. There was no attempt to measure their strength against the Duke of Wellington, with his troops and cannon, no attack upon the palace, the Bank, or the Tower. No soldiers were seen in the streets, and scarcely a policeman: when London was again asleep, the artillery and soldiery were conveyed away; and, next day, the great city was as if nothing had happened. The end of the matter, as regarded the Dorsetshire laborers, was, that public opinion bore so strongly upon their case, that a free pardon was sent out to them, in Van Diemen's Land; and they returned in 1837, to be escorted through the streets of London, and past the government offices, by a procession of the trades as numerous as that which had petitioned in their favor in 1834. On the retirement of Lords Grey and Althorp, the anxiety of the nation about who was to govern the country was less eager than might have been anticipated. The cause of the comparative indifference was, that a universal persuasion was abroad that any government that could be formed out of any party must be merely temporary. The feeling in favor of a Liberal Ministry was still too strong to permit any hope to the Conservatives; while the unpopularity of the Whigs, and the known apprehensions of the King about Church questions, rendered it improbable that such a Cabinet as the last would keep any firm grasp of power. It was immediately understood that the King's desire was for a Coalition Ministry. But this was clearly impracticable. Changes in the Cabinet. The Commons would hear of no other leader on government questions than Lord Althorp; and they earnestly desired that he should be the head of the government. His station and character would have justified the appointment; and his unsurpassed popularity in Parliament a popularity which could not be fleeting, because it was grounded on fine qualities of mind and manners would have been a strong point in favor of his administration. But he had not ability for such a position. He said so himself, and everybody knew it. His being Premier was out of the question, but he was not to be parted with from office; and he gave up with a sigh the prospect of retirement to his country business and pleasures, received a pledge that the new Coercion Bill should be framed to meet his views, and became again Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was Lord Melbourne, and no one else, with whom the King consulted upon the reconstruction of the Cabinet. Lord Melbourne becoming Premier, his place at the Home Office was taken by Lord Duncannon, made a Peer; and Sir J. C. Hobhouse took the Woods and Forests, with a seat in the Cabinet. Late intrigues. The first act of the reconstituted government was to carry a new Coercion Bill, in which the clauses prohibitory of political meetings were omitted. The subject of the late intrigues and follies, by which Lord Grey had been removed from office, was not allowed to drop. Repeated demands were made for the production of the Lord Lieutenant's correspondence; and the son of Lord Grey pressed Mr. Littleton with close questions as to who, besides himself, had been the correspondent of the Lord Lieutenant. Mr. Littleton had suffered too much to be indiscreet again: he positively refused to answer; but it was not denied that there was another. In the Upper House, the Lord Chancellor astonished his hearers by declaring his dissent from Lord Grey in regard to Mr. Littleton's act of communicating with Mr. O'Connell. "He did not know how government could be carried on, if certain leading men were to be considered as tabooed and interdicted from all communication with the government.' When, after making this declaration, he proceeded to avow that he had privately corresponded with the Lord Lieutenant about the Coercion Bill, men felt that no answer was needed from Mr. Littleton to Lord Howick's pressing questions. "He was also " after mentioning Mr. Littleton's correspondence" in the frequent habit of corresponding with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He had communicated with him on every subject interesting on this or the other side of the water." The newspapers of the time pointed out the Lord Chancellor as the "accomplice" of Mr. Littleton in writing the letter which changed the Lord Lieutenant's opinion on the Coercion Bill, without the knowledge of the Premier; and they further asked whether any Cabinet could be safe with a member in it who could so perplex its councils. The experiment proved a short one. The liberal party believed that it had gained by the changes in the Cabinet; and a more frank and genial spirit of liberalism seemed to spread itself through the government after Lord Melbourne's entrance upon his new office. He was as yet little known in official life; but those who knew him best spoke well of him: he did not suffer under any lack of warning that much had been borne with from Lord Grey that would be fatal to the power of of any one else; and the new Premier took such warnings in good part. The session was nearly over, a session in which a vast amount of real business had been done, in the midst of all its mistakes and misadventures: the work of the government lay clear before it; and here was the recess just at hand, in which 1 Hansard, xxv. p. 692. Irish tithes. for no the measures of the next session might be prepared, body dreamed of a change of Ministry and of principles of government before the next session could begin. On the whole, Lord Melbourne's Administration opened cheerfully; and the King's speech, on the 15th of August, was animated in its tone. The autumn was variously occupied by the leaders of the parties and the destinies of the kingdom. Mr. O'Connell published a series of letters to the Home Secretary which could be of no service to any good cause from their violence of language, and in this case only aggravated the indisposition of his Irish supporters to receive with a fair construction any measures offered by the Imperial Government. The "Slaughter of Rathcormack," which took place in November, and which was a prominent theme with O'Connell during the remainder of his life, might not perhaps have happened if he had not exhorted the people to impatience instead of patience, pending the trial of the government measures in regard to tithe. Some peasants, who were opposing the collection of tithe, barred themselves into the yard of a cottage, as an escape from the military who were escorting the clergyman - Archdeacon Ryder Archdeacon Ryder in his tithecollecting excursion. The gate of the yard was forced, the soldiers fired, and thirteen men were killed, and eight wounded. Eleven of the thirteen were fathers of families. The widow paid her tithe, and the archdeacon "proceeded to collect his tithes throughout the parish without further molestation." He left behind him the people shutting their shops in the village, and driving every cow and pig out of sight for miles round; and bereaved fathers kneeling, with clasped hands, to utter curses on the government, civil and ecclesiastical, which brought such desolation in the name of religion. O'Connell lost no time, and spared no strength, in exasperating the discontent, as if no healing measures had yet been entered upon. The Lord Meantime, the Lord Chancellor was recreating himself, after a long stretch of arduous business, with a journey in Scotland; before the close of which some incidents occurred which deeply affected a part of the history of future years. He went from town to town, from one public reception to another, opening his mind to any hearers, on any subject; and thus the amount of egotism and indiscretion accumulated in ten days' time so as to fill the newspapers of the day, and fix universal attention. It was on this journey that he declared, at Inverness, that he should let his sovereign know by that night's post how loyal were his subjects in the north of Scotland; a promise which was found not to have been fulfilled. About such proceedings as these, men might laugh and be amused; but a 1 Spectator, 1834, p. 1226. ham. scene full of seriousness and significance, and pregnant with political results, took place at Edinburgh, which caused the shedding of many tears in private, and the disappointment of much national hope at a subsequent time. Lord Grey was travelling northwards during this autumn, conveyed in a sort of triumph to his home, and beyond it, to Edinburgh, where a great banquet was given in his honor on the 15th of September. Among the members of his family who attended him was Lord Lord DurDurham, at once the trusted friend of the old statesman, and the beloved of the people. He was the principal framer of the Reform Bill, the consistent advocate of all genuine reforms, a man of the rarest honesty, which took the character of genius for the recognition of truth and right, and for the expression of it. When Lord Grey had earnestly desired his presence in the Cabinet in the summer, he was kept out by the Lord Chancellor and another, and the Liberals in the Commons had expressed their sense of this act by an address to Lord Grey. Notwithstanding these circumstances, the Lord Chan- The Grey cellor appeared at the Grey banquet at Edinburgh; banquet. and nothing, as far as was known, had passed between the honored guest of that banquet and himself, which need hinder his being present. He made a speech, the most prominent part of which consisted of rebuke to reformers, who, in a fretful impatience, endangered all progress by rash attempts to go too fast.1 His language was so figurative, that it is possible that he lost sight, in the pursuit of a succession of metaphors, of the substance of what he meant to convey, or of the impression which it would who were make on his hearers; but the great body of listeners nearly three thousand certainly understood him to desire a slackening pace of reform, and less pressure of popular will on the government; and it was in this understanding that Mr. Abercromby, Mr. Ellice, and Sir J. C. Hobhouse responded to the appeal of Lord Durham, and followed up his speech, celebrated speech of that day, of which some words passed into a proverb, which sustained the heart and hope of the people at the time, but which, in the end, cost him his life, and set back the great work of colonial reform. The most memorable words of that speech, the words which were received at the moment with an enthusiasm that spread over the whole kingdom, were these: 2 "My noble and learned friend, Lord Brougham, has been pleased to give some advice, which I have no doubt he deems very sound, to some classes of persons I know none such who evince too strong a desire to get rid of ancient abuses, and fretful impatience in awaiting the remedies of them. Now, I frankly confess I am one of those persons who see with regret 1 Spectator, 1834, p. 891. 2 England's Seven Administrations, iii. p. 114. the was every hour which passes over the existence of recognized and unreformed abuses." These words were received with cheers which seemed as if they would never end; and, when single voices could be heard, one member of the government after another responded heartily, and said that it was good for public men to witness such scenes and hear such truths: it kept them up to their duty. Among these voices, however, the Lord Chancellor's was not heard. He sat mute, mute at the moment, but not elsewhere. He travelled fast, and was presently at Salisbury, making a speech of defiance against Lord Durham, in which he challenged him to a meeting in the House of Lords. In the number of the "Edinburgh Review" which appeared immediately afterwards, there was an article whose authorship was evident enough, and was never denied by either the editor or the presumed writer, which charged Lord Durham with having opposed a thorough reform of Parliament in the Cabinet, and with the gravest breach of trust, with revealing the secrets of the Cabinet. By the Salisbury challenge, this quarrel-interesting in itself, as between two eminent liberal leaders made a matter of public principle; and it was inevitable that Lord Durham should be regarded as the stanch reformer that he had ever shown himself to be, while Lord Brougham offered himself as the representative of the retarding or "drag" system of government, as it was then called. Hence it was that those Prospect of words of Lord Durham at the Grey banquet passed imnew parties. mediately into a proverb, and were taken as a text for political discourses, and were seen on banners, and as mottoes to newspapers and tracts. Hence it was, too, that the vindication of Lord Durham's honor became a public concern. It is probable that no one ever doubted his honor; but such a charge as that of betraying cabinet secrets must be met, difficult as it was to do so without a betrayal of cabinet secrets in the act of defence. The thing was done, and well done, at a banquet given to Lord Durham, at Glasgow, on the 29th of October. He there read a letter from Lord Grey which settled the question. Lord Grey declared his opinion that it was impossible for Lord Durham to reveal, for his own justification, any thing that had passed in the Cabinet; but he offered his own unqualified testimony to Lord Durham's fidelity to his public professions and his official duty. This testimony of the Prime Minister was enough; and the past was settled. As for the future, there was to be first a passage of words in the House of Lords. To this men began to look forward eagerly. They saw no further, and little dreamed what consequences of this hostility lay hid in the future. And, as a few days proved, they could not see so far as even the opening 1 Spectator, 1834, p. 1033. 1 |