THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 

 VOL. X.] DECEMBER, 1830. [No. 60. 



THE WELLINGTON AND THE GREY ADMINISTRATIONS. 



WE are rejoiced at the downfal, the ignominious downfal, of the 

 Wellington administration. And for this rejoicing, we give the suffi- 

 cient reasons, that it was in its nature unconstitutional, as investing an 

 individual with the whole power of the state ; in its principles base, as 

 acting altogether through a cabinet, of which there was not a single 

 member who had not richly earned the scorn of the country ; and in its 

 conduct contemptible, as having characterized its power by a succession 

 of miserable failures on every point of national policy. We are re- 

 joiced, that having begun in an insolent determination to control the 

 mind of the British empire, it ended in a ridiculous display of public 

 and personal impotency, and that after having imperiously declared 

 against all improvement, it expired in the midst of a roar of public 

 laughter. 



We shall give a brief view of the history of those changes which 

 put the empire into the hands of a military governor, utterly unac- 

 quainted with the habits of civil life, ignorant of the laws of Eng- 

 land, professionally contemptuous of all feelings but those of the 

 sword, and insolently determining that the concerns of a great, free, 

 and Christian people were to be administered with the rude and 

 vulgar authority of the field. 



The death of Mr. Canning, in 1827, placed Lord Goderich in the 

 inauspicious rank of Prime Minister : half whig, arid half nondescript, 

 this cabinet could not stand. The spirit of disunion instantly developed 

 itself. Mr. Herries for such are the trifles that overthrow the weak 

 Mr. Herries was the source of contention. Lord Lansdowne had ten- 

 dered his resignation on hearing that this individual was to be imposed 

 on the cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He finally acquiesced ; 

 but the jealousy on all sides was retained. The appointment of the 

 Finance Committee, at the head of which an intrigue of the late Mr. 

 Tierney proposed to place Lord Althorp, without the cognizance of 

 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was an affront too open to be palliated. 

 The ministry was thrown into a general state of confusion. After three 

 months of correspondence, Lord Goderich, weary of the struggle, went 



M.M. New Series. VOL. X. No. 60. 4 I 



