1830.] France, Wellington, and jEurope. 379 



life that history records. Every man who loves personal honour,, 

 filial duty, and patriotic wisdom, will be in favour of this elevation ; 

 and all will indulge the hope that this amiable and able individual 

 has come to the close of his vicissitudes, and that no cloud may 

 darken the brightness of his proud and fortunate day. 



The present state of the British ministry may be disposed of in a 

 very few words. It is at this hour trembling in every limb it feels 

 that the country is totally against it that London is against it that 

 the Tories, who can never forgive the treachery of the year 182&, 

 are against it ; that the Whigs, whom it has attempted first to cajole 

 for the purpose of division, and next to divide for the purpose of 

 making them at once weak and ridiculous, are against it, and that no- 

 thing is for it but that worthy whipper-in, Mr. Holmes, the new police, 

 and the hangers-on about the Horse Guards. In all the elections the 

 Field Marshal has been utterly beaten. The Treasury computation 

 cheers him with the falsehood that he has gained twenty-nine the true 

 computation beats him down with the truth that he has lost twice 

 that number. 



But the point is not the number of votes, but the nature. Of course 

 the Field Marshal will have all the Bathursts, to their last generation ; 

 Mr. Arbuthnot is a sure vote, and gentlemen like Mr. Arbuthnot, are 

 sure votes too. But can he suppose that the refuse of the House, if they 

 were ten times the number, can support him against the sense of the 

 House, aye, and more, against the sense of the nation ? Then, let him 

 look to the men who are arrayed against his trained bands, and let him 

 look to the mode by which they were chosen, the places for which they 

 were chosen, and still more, the purposes for which they were chosen ! 

 Let him look to York, Middlesex, Southwark, Cumberland, and a 

 crowd of other places, returning members on the sole ground that they 

 are sworn to hostility against the Horse-Guards' cabinet. Let him see 

 every thing that bears the despised name of Peel, cast out into weeping 

 and gnashing of teeth, half a dozen of those would-be legislators less 

 ejected than hurled from the representation, in which the whole interest 

 of the Treasury, the pathetic letters of Mr. Planta, and the glow- 

 ing promises of Sir Robert Blifil Peel, could not keep them an hour 

 longer. 



And what is his prospect of defenders in the House of Commons ? 

 Are we to have another session of the frigid eloquence of Sir Robert Blifil? 

 Is a house of six' hundred and fifty-eight gentlemen, entrusted with the 

 national business, to sit listening to the heavy fictions and ice-bound 

 graces of Sir Robert's eloquence ; and listen, while the country is calling 

 upon them to act ; while every interest of England at home and abroad is 

 in the deepest perplexity? Listen, while our manufacturers, our currency, 

 our trade, our laws, our popular privileges, and our religious liberties, 

 are calling, trumpet-tongued, to the wisdom of the great national legis- 

 lative assembly to restore their vigour, and save them at once from the 

 rash tampering of fools, and the sullen designs of those who see nothing but 

 themselves, and think of nothing but the perpetual increase of an ob- 

 noxious power ? Listen, while Europe is heaving with universal convul- 

 sion ; while thrones are crumbling down under the tread of the multitude ; 

 while France rises before them with a national, self-equipped, self- 

 officered, self-commanded army of a million of men, a force such as 



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