THE ELECTIONS. 113 



tate ; the latter were indignant at the pompous nullity acquired by 

 their victorious clamour. They were taught by the open declara- 

 tion of the government, that insurrection might command from 

 British ministers the satisfaction of a wish, which they obdurately 

 refused to the irrefutable claims of justice. Such was the conduct of 

 Sir Robert Peel ; so boldly and precisely designated by the king's 

 attorney-general. If we differed from the policy of Sir Charles 

 Wetherell ; we still admired his manliness, his indignation, and con- 

 sistency : " He must say that he agreed with the honourable mem- 

 ber for Kent, that with only seven days' notice, the Protestant party 

 in England, and the Protestant party in that house, had been aban- 

 doned and deserted ; deserted by their leader, and cast away to the 

 waves and winds. * * * He had no speech to eat up. He had 

 no apostacy disgracefully to explain. He had no paltry subterfuge 

 to resort to. He was not in one year a Protestant master of the rolls, 

 and in the next a Roman Catholic lord chancellor. He would rather 

 remain as he was, the humble member for Plympton, than be guilty 

 of such apostacy such contradictions, such unexplainable conversion, 

 such miserable contemptible apostacy."* Such is the designation of 

 the conduct of the premier and his party, of him who when ad- 

 dressing his constituents relies on his " opinions to establish such a 

 claim on public confidence as shall enable us to conduct with vigour and 

 success the government of this country" (Sir Robert Peel's Address to 

 the electors of the borough of Tamworth.) 



The memorable passage we have cited in the Premier's public life, 

 suffices to reply to all the promissory language of his late address. 

 The meagre generality, the mingled supplication and abashment of 

 that weak and prolix document, imply so fearful a mistrust of public 

 confidence, that all the organs of the press enlisted in the ministerial 

 cause and never were their efforts marked with greater tact or 

 vigour have failed to gladden its forlorn complexion. It conveys 

 a sad conviction of degraded character ; the tone of sycophancy and 

 repentance ; the public is besought to pity and forgive ; the dis- 

 sembled hope of an expiring party is expressed with all the languor 

 of confirmed despair. The pitiful position of the ministry enforces 

 an important moral that the vital spirit of a statesman is integrity ; 



* Speech of Sir Charles Wetherell, 1829. 

 M.M. No. 2. Q 



