110 THE ELECTIONS. 



pledged, incorrigible enemies by whom they were incessantly op- 

 posed. Conversion, virtually governed by cupidity and selfishness, 

 may possibly be pleaded in behalf of fresh apostacy ; the. ends 

 of personal solicitude may easily be gained by a renewed affront 

 to common sense and decency ; a spiritless subservience to the 

 resolution of the people, may entail on the administration of the 

 country a reluctant acquiescence in its will. But surely all the 

 vigour of sincerity the vigilant alacrity of purpose which inspired 

 the parent party of reform, will not be found among the pliant and 

 degraded servants of a policy, which conscience has already forced 

 them to impugn and stigmatize, and which the plea (ridiculously and 

 impertinently urged), of public duty, at length has won them 

 to fulfil. In the corrupt and sordid history of party politics, no 

 passage can be found of more offensive and unmasked indifference to 

 public estimation, than the succession of Sir Robert Peel and his 

 associates to the recent servants of the crown. The list of hacks, 

 who fill the offices of government, may challenge general contempt : 

 but, that the Duke of Wellington should coalesce with such a clique 

 of servile incapacity that he should ever have produced a scheme 

 so utterly unworthy of his understanding, so derogatory from the 

 splendour of his reputation, is a subject of no ordinary lamentation 

 to the numerous admirers of that great and extraordinary soldier. 

 That Sir Robert Peel should once again have suffered a relapse into 

 the soft facilities of recantation, and the soothing pleasures of official 

 power, will gratify the watchful enemies of Tory prostitution. They 

 will hail, in this repudiated and readopted colleague of conservatism 

 in this irreconcileable opponent, but eventual supporter of Roman 

 Catholic emancipation in this irreconcileable opponent, but now 

 relenting friend to parliamentary reform a specimen of com- 

 promising pliancy, which must eternally denote the moral of his 

 politics, and fix the lasting brand of defamation on his party. The 

 imbecile coquetry of the premier's parasites, both in the press and 

 out of it, has struck the public with disgust. It naturally asks, on 

 the subversion of a popular administration, what mysterious charm 

 confines the power of national salvation to a person professedly the 

 enemy of all its indispensable reforms. The former ministry beat 

 down the safeguards of corruption, and proceeded visibly and firmly 

 to the abolition of abuse. The accumulated evils of a vicious system 



