how, under the operation of that measure, the King's government was to be carried on. Time has answered that question. It has been found possible, thus far, to carry on the Kingly government of this country under the Reform Bill, because, and only because the Conservative party has kept well together, and co-operated with alacrity, confidence and zeal, under its well-chosen and well-trusted leaders. The eminent reputation and the exalted merit of the Duke of Wellington; the consummate prudence, the indefatigable industry, the clear and steady intellect, the lofty spirit, the untiring energy, the cloudless and spotless character of Sir R. Peel; the boundless and unfaltering confidence which the entire Conservative party, including all its ranks and classes, have from the time of the Reform Bill to the accession of Sir Robert and the Duke to office, reposed in these distinguished men, these have been the causes why it has not been found. impossible to carry on the King's government under the Reform Bill. By the power of these causes the current of innovation was arrested, and time was afforded for the public mind to resume its habitual sobriety. The House of Lords strengthened and emboldened by the unity of the Conservative mind of England, courageously and nobly stood in the gap, and resisted successfully the further progress of the democratic movement. The Church of England and her Irish sister were made stronger and safer than before. All this was done by the repressive

B

energy of the Conservative party, united in harmonious and cordial co-operation under its well-chosen and well-trusted leaders, even while that party was not yet sufficiently strong to expel its opponents from office. And if danger greater even than that which extorted from the Duke of Wellington the desponding question I have just quoted, is permanently to be averted, I fearlessly assert that it can only be by similar means.

The Conservative party, during a long series of triumphs in the defensive warfare in which it was its lot and duty to be engaged, on behalf of the institutions of the country, assailed by an executive government, in alliance with the fiercest and most reckless section of the democracy, began gradually to make its way to that lofty position in the esteem and confidence of the nation at large, which it had never justly forfeited, but from which it had been cast down during a period of popular excitement and delusion. It went on, exhibiting all the qualities which can entitle a political party to the government of any state, and predispose a reflecting people to acclaim and cherish its dominion, until it completely re-established its habitual ascendancy over the public mind, and the government of the Country passed naturally into its hands.

This consummation had been regarded during the period at which it was seen gradually to advance, as the climax of Conservatives' desire, as the truly effective, the only effective, guarantee of the safety of the state.

The formation of Sir Robert Peel's government was hailed with satisfaction and delight by Conservatives of every class, and acquiesced in by a great majority of those who are not Conservatives, as the inevitable result of the wisdom, ability, energy, and patriotism displayed by that statesman in opposition, and by the Conservative party, under his consummate leadership.

And how much must it be lamented, however naturally it might have been foreseen, if now, the struggle seeming to be ever, the cohesion of the Conservative party, which secured its own triumph and preserved the state, should become less firm and perfect than it was during the contest, if individual Conservatives should seek to discredit a government constituted after so arduous a struggle, through such fearful risks, for an end and purpose so important and so noble, by affecting to withdraw from it their individual confidence, upon frivolous or unworthy grounds, if, in a word, new hopes and vigour should be infused into revolutionary parties, from whose destructive efforts the state has had so recent and narrow an escape, by dissention and distrust, or the appearance of either, among the Conservative body.

There are indications of this calamity though they are slight, but no indications, however slight, of so great a calamity can be unworthy of notice. I notice them therefore, by submitting two questions to the consideration of the Conservatives of

England. What has Sir Robert Peel done, since constitutional questions began to be questions of urgent and practical importance, to entitle himself to the gratitude and confidence of the Conservative body? What has Sir Robert Peel done to defeat or impair those claims to the gratitude and confidence of the Conservatives of Great Britain which his previous conduct had originated and established? I rest his claim to gratitude and confidence upon the fact, that three times within the last thirteen years the nation has been rescued from the horrors of a combined revolution of government, of social order and of property, by that party of which his vigour has been the main spring, and his prudence the chief and constant guide. Let me state the grounds upon which I venture to assert this. Whoever recollects the circumstances in which the Reform Bill was urged forward to completion, and duly considers the events that have succeeded it, will be ready to acknowledge, that the Parliamentary resistance to that measure was necessary and successful as a means of sustaining the character and prolonging the existence of a compact, hightoned and influential Conservative party in the country. And is there any man who can doubt, that if the existence and character of this party had not been prolonged and sustained, the revolutionary passions which had seized the minds of all the lower and a large proportion of the middle classes of society, would have run through their

unbridled career until they had overthrown the entire machinery of the state and destroyed the whole social structure of Great Britain? Whoever recollects the same circumstances and events, will on the other hand be ready to acknowledge, that had not the direct resistance to the Reform Bill ceased at the very moment at which it was in fact discontinued, the House of Lords would have existed as a deliberative and independent branch of the British Government no longer; that by the irredeemable and hopeless prostration of this noble assembly, the crown for ever deprived of this its constitutional barrier, the breakwater which repels from too near an approach the turbulent surges of democracy would have been cast into the tempestuous ocean, where after floating for a few moments on the surface, the toy and sport of the waves, it must speedily have sunk; that the revolutionary party flushed by a triumph so far beyond any that even the Reform Bill had presented to its hopes, would have been carried forward from pretension to pretension, and from victory to victory, until every vestige of the British Constitution and of the social organization of Great Britain had been trampled under foot and obliterated, in its irresistible career. Scylla and Charybdis with the most violent tempest that ever agitated the strait that divides them, would present a faint and puerile image of the opposing dangers through which the Conservative statesmen of Great Britain, among whom the