OUR SITUATION AND PROSPECTS. 223 



of the many : and yet how obliquely their shaft strikes home ! They 

 admit the necessity of alterations, but they cannot tolerate improve- 

 ments. This is seen in the speciousness of their professions, and the 

 folly of their acts. They labour to be thought patriots but their 

 thorough knowledge of intrigue lets slip the courtier. Sir Robert Peel 

 is an apt illustration of this. Do you suppose that his speeches are 

 not intended to reach the people through the palace ? Can you imagine 

 him to be so disinterested a patriot that neither office, nor the smiles of 

 the court, are once suffered to enter into his calculation ? Sir Robert, 

 as a statesman, has this advantage over his superiors. He is aware 

 that there are those above him, not with whom he can sympathize (for 

 he is a man of talent), but who feel that he is the only man in the 

 kingdom who can rat from his principles with the best possible grace ; 

 and, by an affected concession to the signs of the times, obtain a short- 

 lived mongrel popularity. When appealed to by his sovereign, the 

 Duke of Wellington felt this. Sir Robert tried his every art and 

 failed. 



> It is not to be imagined, however, that in the event of any sudden 

 change in the administration, recourse will be had to pure Toryism : 

 for, besides the imbecility of the scheme, there is a point beyond 

 which forbearance itself cannot reach and that forbearance has already 

 been sufficiently tried that is, with safety to the commonwealth. 

 No should the elements of the Melbourne cabinet again be dispersed, 

 Sir Robert will most likely feel no objection to unite with Ireland's 

 STANLEY and the Admiralty's GRAHAM ; and, perhaps, the latter will 

 feel themselves impelled, by their devotion to their country' } s interests 

 to consent to so unnatural an alliance. Is it possible ? 

 Yet such, for aught we know, are our prospects. The question, 

 therefore, to be considered, is this Will the country lend its sanction 

 to so disreputable a job ? For, after all, of the three estates in the 

 realm, it is to the Commons we must look for the answer and for this 

 reason among others, it is at all times, and in all emergencies, in their 

 power to check the fury of intolerance, and the recklessness of ambi- 

 tion. Let it never be forgotten that the right of granting money to 

 the crown is the point upon which the very existence of the Commons 

 depends ; and that their total exclusion from all share in the executive 

 power is the only security which the people have that, in electing 

 their representatives, they do not create tyrants. This is evinced in 



