1820.] Domestic Politics. 243 



must we see it lifted into sudden power ? And with what aspect must 

 we look upon the apostate tribe who have thvis " broken down the 

 Constitution?" If to restore it be yet possible, there is but one way. 

 The morbid place must be cut out. A line must be drawn round the 

 quarter of the plague : the man that passes within it must be warned 

 that he cannot be suffered to return — that he volunteers infection, and 

 must be left to the course of the disease. Thus, and thus only, may the 

 contagion be extirpated, and the land know health once more. Delenda 

 EST Carthago ! 



But it is said, that though England hates the Peels and their odious fra- 

 ternity, she cannot do without the Duke of Wellington. Heavens ! is it 

 come to this ? — that the mightiest empire of the world, a dominion which 

 has gi'own by the wisdom of brave, manly, and virtuous genei'ations to an 

 unexampled grandeur and glory, is to live upon the precarious powers of 

 an individual ? We answer, not more in the pride of Enghshmen than 

 in the truth of experience, that, as the British empire grew by no single 

 mind, its fate cannot be dependant on any single mind ; that its true 

 strength is in its National Honour, its Freedom, and its Religion ; that 

 tlirough those alone it can be wounded, if the whole embattled force of 

 the world were urged against it ; and that with those it could see the 

 Duke of Wellington, and fifty Dukes of Wellington, go down to the 

 grave without seeing its mighty dominion diminished by an acre. If 

 England could lose Pitt and Nelson with no other shock than the natural 

 sorrow for the wise and the brave, she may well disdain to tremble for 

 the fall of the sceptre from the hands of the Duke of Wellington. But 

 the whole is an idle misconception. No country every perished by the 

 loss of any man ; and no country could better afford the loss of any man, 

 let his eminence be what it may, than England. 



It is not our desire to deny the Duke of Wellington's merits as a sol- 

 dier. We believe him to be a most able officei*. We disdain to listen to 

 those idle insinuations which have attempted to tarnish his military fame. 

 But we have yet to learn his title to the honours of a great statesman. 

 We demand, what has he done in two years of unlimited powei: — of 

 pov/er unthwarted by cabinet or king ? We answer, nothing that can 

 substantiate his claim. In our foreign policy, he has given no evidence 

 of exertion of any kind. This may have been wise; but this is the 

 cheapest kind of wisdom : he could not have done less, had he been 

 asleep. In the east, Russia conquers, and the Turk retreats ; Austria 

 musters her army of observation, and Persia sends her supplicating 

 envoys. In the west, the South American Republics break up our com- 

 merce, and defraud our merchants ; North America encroaches, and 

 Spain invades. Yet this vast scene of commotion has no power to shake 

 the official tranquillity of the British premier. His tranquillity may be 

 tlie calmness of a sage ; but it is still the calmness of slumber. The 

 dead might as well gain credit for guiding the affairs of the world. 



One measure he has carried in his whole administration : of that we 

 shall yet speak. But, beyond the Catholic Question, what question has 

 he actually decided within his two years of absolute supremacy ? — Not 

 one. The abuses of the law courts liave been forcibly urged upon liis 

 attention. Has he corrected a single abuse? — Not one. The trade of 

 the country has laboured under the most formidable evils. Has he 

 applied a remedy in a single instance ? — Not one. The Corn Laws are 

 in as much perplexity as ever ; the manufactures sinking faster and 

 faster ; the proliibitions of British commerce in foreign countries 

 increased and enforced with more severity day by day ; tlie question of 



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