1830.] The Wellington and the Grey Administrations. 619 



allies were to be protected, a new era of national vigour was to com- 

 mence under the direction of the Duke of Wellington. Every one 

 of those promises was violated. In this administration, which 

 was to keep England at the head of Europe, the supremacy was almost 

 instantly lost, and given over to a barbarian power. Russia became 

 the first empire of Europe. Our ally Turkey was broken down before 

 our face. Spain defied us ; Portugal held us at bay. France sent an 

 expedition to Greece in direct contempt of the Duke of Wellington's 

 remonstrances; she sent another expedition to Algiers in direct con- 

 tempt of his remonstrances, and conquered it. He remonstrated against 

 her keeping it. She defied him again, and kept it. Feebleness like 

 this produced its effect gradually on the British nation. The military 

 premier was discovered to be a boaster, fit for nothing beyond the 

 coarse work of a campaign, and acquainted with nothing beyond the 

 harshness of military command. But his character was to enjoy a still 

 further development. 



While the late king lived, worn down with disease, and surrounded 

 by a set of people who make the natural curse of an idle court, the Duke 

 of Wellington, insolent by nature, and surrounded only by the Peels 

 and other slaves who knew that a murmur would strip them of their 

 quarter's salary, was paramount, and all discontent was carefully sup- 

 pressed in high quarters. But the accession of a new king changed the 

 scene. The premier was no longer the lord of the ascendant, he found 

 that he too had a master, a fact which he had forgotten for some years ; 

 his nod could no longer do every thing, he grew angry, and he was 

 fool enough to let the world see that he did so ! 



The nation, disgusted with the gross displays of the last Parliament, 

 had determined that some attempt at purification should be made ; they 

 insisted on the palpable guilt of buying and selling the votes of men, 

 who were called on by the law to swear that they received nothing for 

 their votes. They cried out against the waste and corruption of the 

 public resources merely to pamper the pride of a crowd of dependants 

 who were a disgrace to the country that fed their mendicant pride. 



A man of sense would have acknowledged that the national opinion 

 was right, that the vileness of Sinecures, vested interests, and Pensions 

 for no one knows what services, should be extinguished, and that the 

 Parliament should be free from the stain of personal corruption. But 

 the Duke was angnj. He delivered opinions which were first received 

 by the nation with defiance, and next with ridicule ; until the House of 

 Commons at length taught him the difference between the command of 

 colonels of police or corporals of the guards, and the representatives of a 

 country which still hates military arrogance. 



But there is no downfal so complete as that which a man makes for 

 himself, and the Duke was to have the consolation of knowing that he 

 had made himself an object of laughter in all directions, east and west. 

 We allude to the Guildhall dinner, which will henceforth make a pro- 

 minent figure in his grace's biography. It was among the most blun- 

 dering exhibitions on record. All London laughed at the announcement 

 that the King, the most popular King within memory, the King who 

 has been walking day after day unattended through the streets, and who 

 might have walked to Guildhall, with no more attendance than the re- 

 spect of the people, could not go to dine with the citizens without 

 the chance, nay, the certainty, of being attacked if not shot, on his 



412 



