Fal " 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. og 
vigorous councils: he could not 
witness, without bitter pangs, the 
approach of that enervating. lan- 
guor, which had already stolen 
upon the councils, andvover the spi- 
rit of the people; nor without a 
secret determination, to rouse the 
antient energies of his country, and 
rescue her from that sleep of death 
which had already palsied her ex- 
tremities, and threatened to sieze 
upon her vitals. Yet was he un- 
willing all at once to drive back to 
obscurity those whom he, and he 
alone, had raised into notice.— 
Antient habits, personal friendship, 
and perhaps thatdesire of preserving 
consistency, which must ever have 
its due weight with every public 
man, deterred him from appearing 
in the foremost ranks of opposition 
on the present occasion; but his 
support was no longer to be found: 
he did not appear, as he was wont, 
the prop and bulwark of the admi- 
Nnistration; and both its friends and 
itsenemies, in his absence saw the 
grounds of future irresistible oppo- 
sition to its existence. Nor was this 
all—that person* who was supposed 
to be, more than any other indivi- 
dual, interior with his councils and 
determinations, in the most marked 
manner disapproved of the conduct 
of ministers, since the conclusion 
of the peace, and coincided with 
them in the address, only as it ap- 
roved that state of preparation 
which the speech from the throne 
announced as necessary, and which 
in itself conveyed the severest cen- 
‘sure on the disarming system pur- 
sued since the treaty of Amiens. 
Many of those who were considered 
personally attached to the late mi- 
* Mr. Canning. 
nister, in both houses of parliament, 
avowed the same sentiments; nor 
from the periog of the discussion we 
allude to, was there thenceforward 
any cordiality or eifectual co-oper- 
ation looked for, from any quarter, 
between the late and _ present 
ministers. 
The defalcation from the side of 
government, of those who originally 
supported the peace, did not include 
great strength of numbers—But 
their leader was himself a host— 
They might be considered as the 
converts of circumstances. —Not so 
the steady band of politicians, who, 
generalising their ideas, and argu- 
ing from the immutable nature of 
things, had early applied political 
science to the existing circum- 
stances, at the periods of the preli- 
minary and definitive treaties ; had 
exposed their insufficiency and pre- 
dicted their instability; who now 
come forward in formidable array, 
to take credit for their prescience; 
to re-urge that charge of incapacity 
and imbecility, the eflects of which, 
often predicted by them, now began 
to be severely felt by the country ; 
again to call for a complete change 
of measures and of men, as the only 
means of preserving what yet re- 
mained to Great Britain of conse- 
quence and independence. They 
shook the walls of the senate with 
their convincing and luminous elo- 
quence; and their opinions, now 
confirmed to the conviction even of 
their enemies, became the standard 
and measure of those of the public. 
All the clamour which had been 
industriously raised and propagated 
against the views of those who 
were designated by the appellation 
of 
