THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Vol. VIII.] SEPTEMBER, 1829. [No. 45. 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, AND DOMESTIC POLITICS. 



The rumours of a change in the inferior members of the Administra- 

 tion have died away. And glad we are that they have so. At a total 

 change we should rejoice, because VvC believe it essential to the public 

 safety, to the peace of the nation, the security of the throne, and the 

 hope of recovering the Constitution. But no change for us, with the 

 Duke of Wellington at its head ; for we feel that no change can be safe, 

 honourable, or salutary to the Constitution, with the principles which 

 that noble personage has adopted for the guidance of his public conduct. 

 We know his eagerness to grasp at power, his unhesitating use of means, 

 and the matchless readiness with which he contrives, by influences 

 which we disdain to penetrate, step by step, to sap the resistance of those 

 who were bound to resistance alike by lionour and dutj', by the loftiest 

 pledges to man, and the most awful responsibility to Heaven. 



On those grounds, Ave have said to the true friends and champions of 

 the Constitution — and our language is only the common sentiment of 

 honourable men throughout the nation — " Shrink from all contact with 

 the Duke of Wellington's system. If he offers you concession, he offers 

 it but for objects ten times its value ; — if he offers to sacrifice the con- 

 temptible persons round him, he loves you as httle as he respects them ; — 

 if he tramples on the Peels, the Dawsons, and the Copleys, be convinced 

 that he would trample as readily upon the Newcastles, the Chandoses, 

 and the Cumberlands, if they once put themselves in his power." On 

 the culprit cabinet of this fatal session, we solicit the heaviest hand of 

 justice ; and justice will be done. But we are not to be satisfied with 

 partial examples of the great vindicatory process, by which the triumph 

 of rapacity is almost atoned by the warning of its close. We are not so 

 anxious to huriy the judicial consummation of such a career, as to lose 

 the benefit of the complete catastrophe. We must see that cabinet 

 extinguished, one and all. We must not suffer the cause of the country 

 to be identified for an hour with the cause of that cabinet. The strength 

 of Protestant names must not be applied to buttress the falling rottenness 

 of a popish administration. As it has begun, so let it go on. If the 

 Duke of Wellington feel himself sinking, the nobles and gentlemen of 

 England must leave him to struggle with the stream. If he have hung 

 the Peels and tlieir contemptible adherents round his neck, the only 

 wish that we can form is — that they may cling closer and closer to liim, 

 be mill-stones round his neck, and go to the l3()ttom together. 



In admitting popery into the government of the empire, the head of 

 the present administration perpetrated an act which lias for t^vcr put him 

 beyond the hope of alliance with the genuine mind of England. Becon- 

 ciliation is out of tlie question. He has taken his side deliberately — 

 witFi what final |)urpose, we may all conjecture. But having led the way 



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