sonally gave the whole orders, and made the entire arrangements for the small but brilliant expedition which left the British shores in the middle of December, and did such service to the interests of humanity by preserving the peace of Europe, when violently threatened in the close of 1826. On the 28th December the sacrament was administered to him, along with his sister the Princess Sophia, by the hands of the Bishop of London; on the next day he received the parting visit of his royal brother; and on the 5th January he expired, in the sixtyfourth year of his age.

said to have laid the foundation of the edifice of which Wellington raised the superstructure.

59. Indefatigable in his attention to business, zealous in the discharge of duty, easy of access, affable in manner, he won the hearts of the officers by the courtesy of his demeanour, the straightforwardness of his conduct, and the equity of his distribution of patronage; while he endeared himself to the private soldiers by his unwearied attention to their interests, and the vast improvements which he introduced both in their material comforts and moral training. With truth he said, 58. The character of the Duke of on his deathbed, that if the condition York, as of all persons who have taken of the first English expedition, which a decided part in great political ques- landed at Ostend in 1794, were comtions which divided society, has been pared with that which he had recently variously drawn by writers of different despatched to Lisbon, it would not parties; but it is possible at this dis- be believed that they belonged to the tance of time to represent it in its same age or nation. Mr Peel said, in true colours, without intemperate bias moving an address of condolence to the on either side. By one party he is re- King on the death of his brother, that presented as a firm patriot, a sincere he did not believe that, during the ten politician, the intrepid assertor of the thousand days he had held his exalted principles which had placed his family situation, there had been one on which on the throne; by another, as an ob- he had not devoted some time to its stinate bigot, who wilfully shut his duties. It was by his long and judicious eyes to the lights of the age, and ob- efforts that great part of the numerous structed, as long as he had the power, abuses existing in the army at his entry the greatest social amelioration in the on office were rooted out, promotion put British empire. He was in reality on a better footing, the station of the neither so great a man as his panegyr- soldier elevated, and that noble body ists represent, nor so reprehensible as of men created, who carried the Enghis detractors assert. He was an hon-lish standards in triumph to Paris, est, kind-hearted, intrepid Prince, Delhi, Washington, and Pekin. That without any extensive reach of vision, he was not an immaculate character, but with a clear perception of his duty is only to say that he was a child of within the limits over which it ex- Adam. Liberal even to profusion, he tended, and the resolute will which, was generally deeply in debt; his athaving once discerned, never hesitated tention was so incessantly absorbed by to discharge it. Possessed of good the cares of his office, that he allowed abilities, he had exhibited early in his private affairs to fall into confusion, life, in the campaign in Flanders, the and he left nothing but the memory decision and daring which form such of his great services behind him. His material elements in the character of irregularities of another kind, the frea good soldier, though without any of quent accompaniment of exalted rank the coup d'œil or comprehensive mind and an ardent disposition, and allied required in a great general. But with undue meretricious influence in when subsequently raised to the im- the disposal of commissions, were fasportant situation of Commander-in-tened on, during one memorable inChief, which he held for thirty-two years, the services he rendered to the army were such that he may be truly

vestigation, by the combined forces of scandal and faction, with such intensity as rendered his temporary retire

!

ment from office a matter of necessity. | another kind were accumulating round But he was soon restored to it, with the throne, when new ideas were ferthe unanimous approbation of the na- menting in the nation, when extended tion, which, however frequently over-power was loudly demanded by the borne for a time by the vehemence people, and whole classes of society, of party or the clamour of the press, is enriched by industry and peace, were rarely in the end unjust in the esti- prosecuting their objects of separate mate of private character, or ungrate- aggrandisement. The utopian dream ful for public services. His decided of the interests of all classes being and manly declaration of his senti- identical, was then fast giving way to ments on Catholic emancipation, short- the stern reality of the more powerful ly before his death, exposed him again seeking to enrich itself at the expense to unbounded obloquy at the time; of the weaker. The opposite parties at but experience has long since stilled that period were so nearly balanced, that clamour, and suggested a doubt that if he had acted with decision, and whether those who are reckoned, dur- thrown himself, without reserve, into ing their life, to have been behind the the arms of either, he would have inage, were not sometimes in reality in evitably brought on a collision, which advance of it. would have certainly proved fatal to his administration, probably to the peace and liberties of the country. The Conservatives were too firmly intrenched in power, and rested too strongly on ancient traditions, to relinquish it without a struggle; the Liberals too aspiring, and too sensible of their growing ascendancy, to shrink from the encounter. Lord Liverpool's whole reign was a long preparation on either part for the strife which all foresaw was approaching; and his great skill and prudence in postponing the period of collision, was proved by the rapidity with which it ensued when he was removed by the stroke of fate from the helm.

60. The Duke of York was soon followed to the grave by another public man, who had long held a prominent | place in the councils of the country. Lord Liverpool, who since 1812 had been Prime Minister, had himself moved the address of condolence to the King on his brother's death in the beginning of February, and had announced that he would on the 15th introduce the intended alteration on the Corn Laws in the House of Peers, when he was suddenly seized with a paralytic attack, which, though not at the time fatal, was of such severity as to render his retention of office impossible. tendered his resignation to his Majesty as soon as returning consciousness, six weeks after, enabled him to do so; and his situation was such as to give the Sovereign no alternative but to accept it. During the long interval the nation remained without a Prime Minister.

He

61. Lord Liverpool was not a man of striking abilities, and still less of decision of character; but on that very account he was peculiarly fitted for the situation which he so long held. The period during which he was Prime Minister was, at least during its last twelve years, essentially one of transition. He came into office when the crisis of the war was over, and he had only to reap the fruits of the courage and capacity of his predecessors. His long reign occurred when difficulties of

62. Prudent, sagacious, and reflecting, carefully watching the signs of the times, and still more carefully shunning those which portended danger, his great object was to steer the vessel of the state in present safety through the shoals by which it was surrounded. His skill consisted in his discernment of the means by which this was to be brought about, and the characters by whose agency it was to be effected. In these respects he had very great merit, if merit it can be called, which consists in adjourning danger, not averting it, and purchasing present tranquillity by postponing the conflict to future times. He clearly discerned where the ruling party on every great question was to be found, and ranged himself with the dominant

side; holding out, at the same time, | from the direction of the Government the olive branch to the minority, by conceding to them lesser, but still material objects of ambition. Thus, while he stood firm with the then ruling Conservative majority in the nation on the great questions of Catholic emancipation and reform in Parliament, he cordially joined the Liberals on the minor, but still important, points of incipient free trade, a contracted currency, and the reciprocity system, which were so many outworks, the possession of which enabled them to breach the body of the place. By standing firm on the first, he retained the confidence of his old Conservative friends; by yielding on the last, he awakened the hopes and disarmed the hostility of his new Liberal supporters. 63. He brought Mr Canning and Mr Huskisson into the Cabinet, and had influence enough to make them act along with Lord Eldon and the Duke of Wellington-a perilous conjunction, as much fraught with future danger as it was with present tranquillity. His greatest failing was a constitutional nervousness, which made him, as he himself said, never on one day during which he held office break the seals of a heap of letters without a feeling of apprehension; his greatest error, the cordial support which he gave to the measure for the contraction of the currency, urged upon him by the Liberal portion of the Cabinet, and supported by so great a majority in both Houses of Parliament. But that was the error of the age in which he lived, and it would be unjust to visit upon him the responsibility shared by him with nearly all the strongest heads in the realm. He was disinterested and just in the extreme in the administration of Government; unostentatious and conciliatory in private life; his mind was stored with a vast variety of facts on every important question, which he brought out with equal judgment and skill in debate; and he left behind him the reputation of being, if not the greatest, certainly the most prudent and fortunate Minister, that ever conducted the affairs of Great Britain.

64. Lord Liverpool's retirement

brought the schism which had long existed in the Cabinet prominently into their own view, before the dissension was yet fully known to the country. The King was under the necessity of appointing a successor; and the question was, who was to be the new Prime Minister? The temporising system could no longer be carried on; the selection must be made; the leader of the Cabinet could only be taken from one or other of the parties into which it was divided, and the appointment would at once confer or indicate the superiority. The King, for many reasons, was averse to Mr Canning, who had on several occasions exhibited symptoms of an ambitious, intriguing spirit, little suited for a Prime Minister, and had rendered himself personally obnoxious to the Sovereign, by the prominent part he had taken as an adviser of Queen Caroline. But the circumstances left him no alternative. Mr Canning was the leader of the House of Commons, and the most popular minister who, since the days of Chatham, had directed the foreign affairs of the country; while the antiCatholic party in the Cabinet did not contain any man qualified to be placed at its head. Lord Eldon was disqualified by age, the Duke of Wellington by his military habits, and Mr Peel was as yet too young for such a situation. In these circumstances, the King, though most reluctantly, sent for Mr Canning, with whom he had a long conference, which, at first, led to no definite result, and Mr Peel was sent for to advise his Majesty as to the possibility of constructing an anti-Catholie Ministry. But that gentleman, to whom the balance of parties in the House of Commons was well known, gave it as his opinion that an antiCatholic Ministry could not be formed; and the issue was, that, after a fortnight of anxious suspense and difficulty, the King intrusted Mr Canning with the formation of a Ministry; and the Duke of Wellington, Mr Peel, Lord Eldon, Lord Bathurst, Lord Westmoreland, and Lord Melville, resigned.

65. In taking this decided step, the

Lyndhurst; Earl of Harrowby, Lord PresiChancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord dent; Duke of Portland, Lord Privy Seal; Bexley; Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Viscount Dudley; Secretary for Colonies, Viscount Goderich; Secretary for Home Departnient, Mr Sturges Bourne; President of Board 66. In the midst of these dissensions, of Trade, Mr Huskisson; Secretary at War, however, the King remained firm to Viscount Palmerston; First Lord of the Treahis new promise; and after a consid-sury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Canning. erable delay and much difficulty the new Cabinet was formed, containing, as might have been expected, a decided

The first changed the heir-apparent to the new Premier made his triumphant the throne, and brought forward as its explanation from the head of the minimmediate inheritor a prince who, with isterial bench; but they were still many good and amiable qualities, was louder when Mr Peel from the cross. by no means endowed with the strong benches out of office said, "They may understanding and masculine intre- call me illiberal and Tory; but it will pidity of the Duke of York, and was be found that some of the most necesinfluenced by a secret love of popu- sary measures of useful legislation of larity, the quality of all others the late years are inscribed with my name." most dangerous in a ruling character The tide of reform had become so strong in stormy times. The second placed that even the avowed Tory leaders in the avowed and elegant leader of the the Lower House were fain to take House of Commons in the situation of credit by sailing along with it. In the Prime Minister, and that not as the House of Lords, on the other hand, the "Great Commoner" in the days of feeling of the majority was decidedly George II., from the combined influ- hostile to the new administration, and ence of aristocratic connections and that not merely on the Tory benches, personal talents, but from the last of where it might naturally have been these influences alone. The steady and looked for, but among the old Whig intrepid opponent of Catholic emanci- nobility, who had long considered govpation now rested in the vault of Wind- ernment as an appanage of their sor, its supporter wielded the whole estates. The forms of that decorous power and patronage of Government; assembly prevented any outward indithe hero of the Peninsula was in re- cation of excitement, but it was not felt tirement, and the new Premier had the less strongly within; and it was not recently sent the British standards to easy to say whether the old Peers on Lisbon to support a Liberal constitu- both sides responded more strongly to tion, and boasted he had severed the the Duke of Wellington and Lord Eldominions of an ancient ally, and don's explanation of their reasons for "called a new world into existence to re- declining to hold office, or to Earl dress the balance of the old." Changes Grey's powerful and impassioned atso vast could not fail to exercise a tack on the new Premier. The division powerful influence on the course of of the two Houses was clearly proevents in future times; and it was the nounced: the one presaged its apgreater that they were in great part proaching triumph, the other its comthemselves the result of an alteration ing downfall. A secret sense of unavoidin general opinion, and the approachable change had ranged their members of a new era in human affairs.

68. The magnitude of the change which had taken place appeared in the most decided manner when the ministerial explanations, as usual in such cases, took place in Parliament. Both Houses were crowded to excess, both in the highest degree excited; but the excitement in the two was as different as the poles are asunder. In the Commons it was the triumph of victory; in the Peers, the consternation of defeat. So clearly was this evinced, that it obliterated for a time the deep lines of party distinction, and brought the two Houses, almost as hostile bodies united under different standards, into the presence of each other. The Commons rang with acclamations when

in unwonted combinations; and the vital distinction of interest and order had for the time superseded the old divisions of party.

69. LORD ELDON, who resigned with his Tory colleagues on this occasion, and, from his advanced years, and the semi-liberal character of all subsequent administrations, never was again called to the labours of office, was one of the most remarkable men who ever sat on the Woolsack, and, from the decided uncompromising character of his political opinions, the most exposed to party violence and misrepresentation. Indeed, so uniformly has such vituperation, for a long period, attached to every independent intrepid character on either side in politics, that its in