- 1 S27.J The New Ministry. 573 



imprudent friends may always do him more mischief by their cheers and 

 encouragement, than his open foes will by the hardest and heaviest blows 

 they can deal against him; throughout the whole career of these three 

 statesmen, from the first to the last, we should doubt if ever a very long 

 and very striking parliamentary speech had been delivered by either which 

 did not contain many statements which the speaker never could abide by : 

 -many things which he would be very glad (the moment his speech was 

 over) to retract some which he must eventually having no choice at all 

 about it abandon; and not unfrequently some, which, having uttered, 

 he cannot retract, but which remain on record, to do mischief, both to him- 

 self and to the cause which he has supported. 



This is the real state of discussion in the great legislative assembly of 

 Great Britain. But, in the midst of all this mass of daily menace and 

 profession, which means almost nothing, and which flies out, partly pro- 

 voked by party spirit, partly by personal hostility or pique, but very often by 

 the mere spirit of controversy, subject to which a speaker in Parliament 

 must deliver himself, in the midst of all this, there is still a declared and 

 understood disposition always and opinion about every leading man on every 

 side, with reference to practical questions and general principles of policy, 

 from which no set of men can swerve without the loss of personal credit and 

 political reputation. And the question is Have those leaders or members 

 of the Whig party, who have lately coalesced with Mr. Canning's adminis- 

 tration, abandoned or swerved from any such general principles or practical 

 opinions ? We think that they have not. 



The only point to which the country will look, and the only point really 

 worth looking to, is this Does that junction which has taken place 

 between the Whigs and Mr. Canning tend to advance those general prin- 

 ciples of policy which the Whigs have been in the habit of advocating ; or 

 is its tendency to stifle and retard them ? It is impossible to answer this 

 question, except by saying that such a junction does tend most materially 

 to advance those principles some of them, at least, if not the whole ; and 

 that it was the only visible arrangement by which they could be advanced, 

 or even kept from retrograding. Upon the face of the affair, indeed, it seems 

 almost absurd to suppose any doubt can exist as to such a question. Is a 

 government, composed of Mr. Canning, Lord Goderich, Mr. Huskisson, and 

 Lord Plunkett supported by Mr. Brougham, Mr. Tierney, and Sir Francis 

 Burdett (even supposing the two first of these gentlemen not to take office) 

 sustained and accredited by Lord Althorp, Lord Milton, Lord Nugent, 

 Mr. Hobhouse, Sir John Newport, and Sir James Mackintosh almost 

 every individual of influence belonging to the Whig party in the House of 

 Commons not to speak of its support (which is pretty nearly, however, 

 undoubted) from the same party in the House of Lords : is such a govern- 

 ment more likely to carry, for example, the question of u Catholic Emanci- 

 pation," than a ministry led by the late Lord Chancellor, Mr. Peel, Mr. 

 Dawson, and Mr. Goulburn persons, tooth and nail, by every pledge that 

 words or acts can give even to the very resignation of office in preference 

 to enduring it opposed to such a measure ? We repeat, that it seems 

 almost like absurdity to put such a question. The argument of Sir Francis 

 Burdett of Lord Althorpe (whose short speeches in the House of Com- 

 mons contain more matter than many long ones) ; the argument of Mr. 

 Brougham of Lord Nugent in fact, of the Whigs generally is 

 unanswerable. " If there was any doubt, on the commencement of the new 



