War-supported their leader. The majority decided to do nothing till the end of the month. The assembly of the Cabinet and its frequent sittings agitated England; its separation made a profound impression. "Instead of an Order in Council for opening the ports, the London Gazette contained a further prorogation of Parliament;" "the Government must be more sick than the potatoes," said Lord Roehampton in "Endymion." 1

The Cabinet adjourned till the end of the month. It reassembled on Tuesday the 25th of November. All the news which reached Peel in the interval confirmed his previous opinion. There was no doubt of the extent of the disaster. Fear, indeed, temporarily postponed the famine which was steadily approaching. The few people who had good potatoes to sell hastened to sell them before they became bad, and the market was in this way glutted for the moment, at the cost of aggravating the difficulties which loomed in the future. Some people even imagined that, as potatoes did not rise in price, the disease had been exaggerated, and failed to see that the present cheapness was itself enhancing the future dearth. Peel, of course, was not deceived by this circumstance. He, from the first, foresaw the coming famine; he was convinced of the necessity for preparing for it; and he only reluctantly assented to the postponement which the attitude of the majority of his colleagues made necessary.

Grave, then, as the crisis had appeared when the Cabinet adjourned in the beginning of November, it was much

1 The two quotations which are given in the text are from Disraeli's Life of Lord G. Bentinck, p. 6; and Endymion, ch. xxx. The "councils called without a cause and dismissed without a consequence" (Hansard, vol. lxxxiii. p. 117), which "agitated England, perplexed the sagacious Tuileries, and disturbed even the serene intelligence of the profound Metternich" (Life of Bentinck, p. 20), fill a prominent position in Disraeli's writings.

2 It is remarkable how little Peel's position was understood out of doors. On the 21st of October the Times alluded to rumours of differences between Peel and Stanley; on the 23rd of October it declared that the sliding scale had "palpably failed;" on the 28th of October it proclaimed the "doom" of the Corn Laws. But, on the 6th of November, it ascribed the difficulty to Peel. "The most prudish of premiers may hesitate before he condemns what he has sanctioned, and sanctions what he has strenuously denounced. If this be so, there is only one course for him to take, . . . to resign."

At

graver when it reassembled at the end of the month. a preliminary meeting on the 25th, it agreed to some draft. instructions to the Lord Lieutenant on the course which he should pursue in the emergency. On the following day, however, Peel read to it a memorandum in which he stated that he could not consent to the issue of these orders if the Corn Laws were to be maintained. He added that he thought the proper course was to suspend the law by an Order in Council, and summon Parliament to "deliberately review the whole question of agricultural protection." For himself, while ready, if his colleagues desired it, to undertake the review, he thought it better for the country that it should be undertaken by others. This declaration necessarily produced a profound impression.

Its significance was increased the next morning1 The Edin by the publication of a letter which Russell four burgh letter. days before had written from Edinburgh to his constituents, the electors of the City of London. Russell was alarmed at "the indecision and procrastination" which the Cabinet was apparently displaying. He thought that the danger of the crisis was aggravated by the Corn Law of 1842. At the time that Act was passed, he had desired a fixed duty on wheat. In his judgment it was "no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty;" and he called upon the electors of the City to unite to put an end to the "system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce and the bane of agriculture. . . . The Government appear to be waiting for some excuse to give up the present Corn Law. Let the people, by petition, by address, by remonstrance, afford them the excuse they seek." There could be no doubt about the meaning of this letter. The leader of the Liberal party had adopted both the creed and the machinery of the AntiCorn Law League.

Thus, while the Prime Minister of England was formally refusing to maintain the Corn Laws, the leader of the Liberal party had pronounced an unqualified preference for free trade.

1 The Edinburgh letter is dated the 22nd of November. It appeared in the Times of the 27th of November.

On the 29th of November Peel circulated another paper among the members of the Cabinet, urging the necessity of immediately opening the ports, and of subsequently modifying the existing system of protection. On Tuesday the 2nd of December, when the Cabinet met for the third time, Peel was prepared with a memorandum explaining the principles on which modification should be based. A new sliding scale was to be substituted for that of 1842, but the duty was to be annually reduced by one shilling, and, in the course of eight years, to be thus gradually abolished. For a moment Peel thought that the Cabinet would accept this proposal. Wellington, regarding Peel as more important than corn, decided to support the minister. Two men, howeverStanley and the Duke of Buccleuch-declined to be parties to the new policy. Peel himself thought it im- Peel possible to persevere with a mutilated Cabinet, and, on the 5th of December, placed his resignation in the queen's hands.1

resigns.

1 Sir R. Peel's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 173-222. Most writers on the subject have referred to the fact that the Times announced on the 4th of December that Parliament would meet in the first week of January, and that it would recommend a consideration of the Corn Laws, preparatory to their total repeal. Miss Martineau says that "the Times had true information," but she declines to reproduce the chit-chat of London" for the sake of disclosing the means by which the information had been obtained. Mr. M'Carthy is less scrupulous. He states that "the blandishments of a gifted and beautiful lady had somehow extorted the secret from a young and handsome member of the Cabinet, and that she had communicated it to the Times. But neither Miss Martineau nor Mr. M'Carthy seems to have noticed that the Times was wrong. So far from the Cabinet having decided to summon Parliament and to repeal the Corn Laws, it had made up its mind to retire. The secret which the gifted and beautiful lady extorted from the young and handsome member of the Cabinet was not the decision of the Cabinet, but the wishes of Sir R. Peel. The Times clung to its own view on the next day (the very day on which Peel resigned). "Mrs. Harris don't believe a word about it, for she has heard nothing about it from Mrs. Gamp, who is the only authority for the opinion of Mrs. Harris.... They (Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Gamp) have not succeeded in getting hold of a scrap of truth which they can turn to profit. . . . The reason is obvious, the repeal of the Corn Laws is a thing for statesmen to do, not for old women to maunder about." It again clung to its story on the 6th when the queen had actually sent for Lord John Russell, and it did not ascertain the true state of the case till the 11th, the day when Lord John Russell went to Windsor; and then it inaccurately flung the whole responsibility of the crisis on the shoulders.

...

Russell in

a ministry.

So.

The queen had no alternative before her. Of the four chiefs who had led the Liberal party in prosperity and adversity during the fifteen years which had passed since the death of George IV., two were dead; one-Melbourne-was incapacitated by illness; and the fourth-Russell- was alone available for public service. The queen accordingly vited to form sent for Russell. But she was at Osborne, Russell was still at Edinburgh; communication between the Isle of Wight and Scotland was slow, and six days passed before Russell was able to obey the queen's summons. In asking him to undertake the Government, the queen was able to announce the removal of one great impediment to his doing Peel had written to her, promising "to support in a private capacity measures which may be in general conformity with those which he had advised as a minister." Russell, therefore, could rely on his great opponent's supporting the measure which it would be the first object of his ministry to propose. But another difficulty occurred to him. The Parliament of 1841 was a Conservative Parliament; the majority of its members were ostensibly opposed to free trade; and the queen, therefore, might do well to ask those members of the Cabinet who were seceding from Peel to undertake the formation of a new ministry. The queen submitted this difficulty to Peel. Peel consulted both Stanley and Buccleuch, and on the 15th of December was enabled to state that those of his colleagues who differed from him were not prepared to form a ministry. Any impediment to the construction. of a new Cabinet was, in this way, apparently removed. But a new and insurmountable obstacle was raised within the ranks of the Whigs themselves. Russell, naturally desiring to obtain the assistance of all his old colleagues, offered to restore Palmerston to the Foreign Office; and Lord Grey-for Lord of the Duke of Wellington. To talk of such announcements, as Miss Martineau does, as true information, or even, as Mr. M'Carthy writes of them, as information substantially true, is to ignore all the facts and all the dates. Since this note was written, the true facts have been brought out clearly in Greville's Memoirs, Second Series, vol. ii. pp. 309-315.

1 Peel's Memoirs, pp. 225, 234.

Howick had now succeeded to his father's title-recollecting the crisis of 1840, objected to risk a quarrel with France by entrusting the Foreign Department to the statesman who had concluded the Quadruple Alliance. Palmerston, on his part, was willing to waive his claims, but he declined to accept any position in the Cabinet except his old office. Lord Grey, in short, was willing to see Palmerston in anything but the Foreign Office; and Palmerston was insisting on the Foreign Office or nothing.1

office.

Russell, unable to conclude any compromise between Palmerston and Lord Grey, found it necessary to confess his inability to form a ministry; and on the 20th of Peel resumes December the queen asked Peel to resume office. Peel at once expressed his readiness to do so; and, summoning his old colleagues, communicated to them his sovereign's offer and his own decision; and asked for their support. The courage of the minister in resuming his position, without seeking extraneous advice or taking time for deliberation, delighted Wellington, who at once professed his intention to stand by him. Stanley, on the contrary, announced his resolution to retire. Buccleuch, who in the previous crisis had thrown in. his lot with Stanley, asked for time to consider what he should do. Hesitation is the natural prelude to concession. In two days Buccleuch determined to go on.2

Stanley's resignation necessitated the partial reconstruction of the Cabinet. On the eve of the day, moreover, on which Peel resumed office, one of his old colleagues, Wharncliffe, died suddenly in London. Two vacancies, therefore, almost simultaneously occurred in the Cabinet. The Duke of Buccleuch 1 Greville's Memoirs, Second Series, vol. ii. p. 323. Martin's Prince Consort, vol. i. p. 310. Bulwer's Palmerston, vol. iii. p. 184. Trevelyan's Macaulay vol. ii. p. 169. Sir T. Martin says that Lord Grey also desired to obtain for Cobden a seat in the Cabinet. But I know of no other authority for this statement, which, however, is indirectly supported by the fact that, according to the Times of the 19th, Cobden called on Lord Grey on the 18th of December. Russell made Cobden the curious offer of the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade. Morley's Cobden, vol. i. p. 344. The Times declared on the 26th of December that "Lord Palmerston and his organ had done all that it was possible to do to excite distrust and alarm in every part of the world and in every Cabinet of Europe." 2 Peel's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 253.