plained in the House of Commons, that his words had been misrepresented. He had, he allowed, used the expression guarantee; but he had used it in no other sense than this, that the presence of his friends in the offices which they had held under Mr. Canning was a sufficient understanding as to the views on which the new government was to be conducted.

It is certain, however, that these occurrences injured Mr. Huskisson in public estimation. Amid all changes he was too regularly in office; his political life had rendered it indubitable that he loved place; and he seemed not indisposed to rest the defence of his consistency on fine-drawn distinctions. On the present occasion he appeared to feel that part, at least, of the public confidence was gone; that his late friends considered him as having betrayed them; that his new colleagues scarcely trusted him, though they found him useful, and imputed his adherence to an inability to resign or refuse place, rather than to any cordial community of sentiment. He seemed anxious to redeem himself by some act that would look like an assertion of independence; yet he took his opportunity so unfortunately, and followed it up with such a miserable want of steadiness and self-respect, that it left him almost without a public character; and, while it dismissed him from the ministry, allowed him to depart scarcely followed by a single regret. In the course of the session, bills were introduced into parliament to disfranchise the boroughs of Penryn and East Retford, which had been convicted of repeated and incurable bribery. Two opinions prevail ed regarding the mode in which the vacant franchises should be disposed

of. One was that they should be extended to the neighbouring hundreds; the other was, that they should be transferred to some of the populous unrepresented towns, Birmingham for instance, and Manchester. Mr. Peel, as leader in the House of Commons, had declared, that, having two boroughs to deal with, he would, in the one case, extend the franchise to the hundreds, and, in the other, transfer it to a town. Mr. Huskisson, however, had gone farther, and had stated in the house, that, if there should be only the franchise of one borough to dispose of, he would vote in favour of the transference to Birmingham or Manchester. Penryn was first dealt with in the House of Commons: a bill transferring its franchise to Manchester was sent up to the Lords, while the case of East Retford was allowed to stand over, as the decision of the Commons in the latter might be materially affected by the decision of the peers upon the former. By the 19th of May, when the East Retford bill was again moved, it was considered so certain that the Penryn bill would be rejected by the House of Lords altogether, that the ministers, who had pledged themselves, only in case of two boroughs being in question, to give the franchise of one of them to a town, considered themselves as in fact having only one borough to deal with. They voted, therefore, with the exception of Mr. Huskisson, against transferring the franchise of East Retford to Birmingham. But Mr. Huskisson, who had tied himself up by his former declaration, even in the case of only one being disfranchised, felt himself bound to redeem his pledge, and divided against his colleagues. This was, no doubt, an awkward

con

occurrence; but as the intentions of government had been involved in some obscurity, it does not seem that it would have led to any consequences, if Mr. Huskisson himself had not sidered it to be of such importance, as to affect his connection with the ministry. So soon as he got home from the House of Commons, he sat down, at two o'clock in the morning, and wrote to the duke of Wellington the following letter, marked private and confidential, and inclosed in a cabinet box;-circumstances, on which Mr. Huskisson subsequently laid great stress as modifying its plain import.

66 Downing Street,

"Tuesday morning, 2 a. m. May 20. My dear Duke.-After the vote which, in regard to my own consistency and personal character, I have found myself, from the course of this evening's debate, compelled to give on the East Retford question, I owe it to you, as the head of the administration, and to Mr. Peel as the leader of the House of Commons, to lose no time in affording you an opportunity of placing my office in other hands, as the only means in my power of preventing the injury to the king's service which may ensue from the appearance of disunion in his majesty's councils, however unfounded in reality, or however unimportant in itself the question which has given rise to that appearance."

If words had any meaning, this was a resignation of his office. The epistle was couched in almost the express terms of Mr. Herries, not many weeks before; which lord Goderich and all the world had rightly looked upon as a resignation, and on which, as a resignation, Mr. Huskisson himself had built his belief that the then government

could not stand. The duke of Wellington read and understood it as a resignation, and as such he laid it immediately before the king, returning to Mr. Huskisson this laconic answer.

"My dear Huskisson,-Your letter of two this morning, which I received at ten, has surprised me much and has given me great concern. I have considered it my duty to lay it before the king."

For such prompt and straightforward conduct Mr. Huskisson was not prepared. He had expected that the minister would entreat him to remain in office, as a person without whom the government would be helpless; he did not seem to have once calculated on the possibility of the duke dispensing with his services. He was in conversation with lord Dudley, when his grace's answer arrived, and astounded him. Lord Dudley, to whom he shewed it, said the duke, was labouring under a mistake, which he would go and clear up. He soon returned however, with the intelligence that the duke maintained, "it is no mistake, it can be no mistake, and it shall be no mistake." Here Mr. Huskisson ought to have stopped short: any step towards explanation was, after this, degradation; to volunteer it farther was to supplicate for permission to remain in office from a master who had thus brought him to his knees. But Mr. Huskisson did not stop here. Lord Dudley was immediately followed by lord Palmerston, commissioned to tell the duke, that Mr. Huskisson was surprised at his grace not having called for any explanation of the vote of the preceding night, and was ready and willing to state to his grace the reasons on which he had acted. The secretary at war was not a

more successful ambassador than the foreign secretary. The answer he brought back was, that, in the view which the duke of Wellington took of the matter, Mr. Huskisson's letter was an absolute and formal resignation, and could not be looked upon in any other light whatever. Even this was not sufficient to recal the placeman to a sense of self-respect. Two ambassadors had failed: he tried the effect of a written explanation of his own, in the following terms.

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"Downing Street,

"May 20, 1828, half past 6 p. m. My dear duke,-Having understood from lord Dudley and lord Palmerston, that you had laid my letter of last night before the king under a different impression from that which it was intended to convey, I feel it due both to you and to myself to say, that my object in writing that letter was, not to express any intentions of my own, but to relieve you from any delicacy which you might feel towards me, if you should think that the interests of his majesty's service would be prejudiced by my remaining in office, after giving a vote, in respect to which, from the turn which the latter part of the debate had taken, a sense of personal honour left me no alternative."

The duke's answer placed the matter on its true footing; the footing on which Mr. Huskisson's self-love must have hoped and intended that it should be placed, although the issue had so unluckily disappointed his expectations. It

was in these terms:

"My dear Huskisson,-I have received your letter of this evening. I certainly did not understand your letter of two this morning as offering me any option; nor do I understand the one of this evening,

as leaving me any, except that of submitting myself and his majesty's government to the necessity of soliciting you to remain in your office, or of incurring the loss of your valuable assistance to his majesty's service. However sensible I may be of this loss, I am convinced that, in these times, any loss is better than that of character, which is the foundation of public confidence.

In this view of the case, I have put out of it altogether every consideration of the discredit resulting from the scene of last night; of the extent of which you could not but have been sensible when you thought proper, as a remedy for it, to send me the offer of "placing your office in other hands."

Still another attempt was to be made; and Mr. Huskisson, next day, dispatched another apologetic epistle to his grace, vowing that he had never intended to resign; that, in truth, he had never expected to be taken at his word.* His grace's

"Colonial Office, May 21, 1828. "My dear Duke,-In justice to myself, I cannot acquiesce for a moment in the construction which your letter of last night puts upon my conduct.

knowing the motives of my own actions; "You cannot refuse to me the right of and I solemnly declare that, in both my letters, I was actuated by one and the same feeling. It was simply this:That it was not for me, but for you, as far my vote made it expedient to remove head of the government, to decide how me from his majesty's service. I felt that I had no alternative, consistently with personal honour (in a difficulty not of my own seeking or creating), but to give that vote; that the question, in itself, was one of minor importance; that the disunion was more in appearance than in reality; but I also felt that, possibly, you might take a different view of it, and that, in case you should, I ought, (as I had done on a similar occasion with lord Liverpool), to relieve you from any

answer was in the same clear and decided style as before, that it was impossible to put any other rational meaning on the letter than that of a resignation; and that to have interdifficulty, arising out of personal consideration towards me, in deciding upon a step to which you might find it your public duty to resort on the occasion.

"It was under this impression alone, that I wrote to you immediately upon my return from the House of Commons.

6

"If you had not misconceived that impression, as well as the purport of my second letter, I am persuaded that you could not suppose me guilty of the arrogance of expecting that you and his majesty's government should submit yourselves to the necessity of soliciting me to remain in my office,' or do me the injustice of believing that I could be capable of placing you in the alternative of choosing between the continuance of my services, such as they are, and the loss to your administration of one particle of character, which I agree with you, is the foundation of public confidence.

"If, understanding my communication as I intended it to be understood, you had, in any way, intimated to me, either that the occurrence, however unfortunate, was not one of sufficient moment to render it necessary for you, on public grounds, to act in the manner in which I had assumed that you possibly might think it necessary, or that you were under that necessity, in either case there would have been an end of the matter. In the first supposition, I should have felt that I had done, what in honour and fairness towards you, I was bound to do; but it never would have entered my imagination, that I had claimed or received any sacrifice whatever from you or any member of his majesty's government.

"On the other hand, nothing can be further from my intention than to express an opinion that the occasion was not one in which you might fairly consider it your duty to advise his majesty to withdraw from me the seals of office, on the ground of this vote. I do not, therefore, complain; but I cannot allow that my removal shall be placed on any other ground. I cannot allow that it was my own act, still less can I admit, that when I had no other intention than to relieve the question on which you had to decide VOL. LXX.

preted it otherwise would have exposed the government to very painful misconstructions. In the mean time, Mr. Huskisson, when he found that these repeated and humble

from any personal embarrassment, this step, on my part, should be ascribed to feelings the very reverse of those by which alone I was actuated, either towards you or his majesty's government." This Letter produced the following answer from his grace;

"London, May 21, 1828.

"My dear Mr. Huskisson,-In consequence of your last letter, 1 feel it to be necessary to recal to your recollection the circumstances under which I received your letter of Tuesday morning.

"It is addressed to me at two o'clock in the morning, immediately after a debate and division in the House of Commons. It informs me that you lose no time in affording me an opportunity of placing your office in other hands, as the only means in your power of preventing an injury to the king's service, which you describe. It concludes by regretting the necessity for troubling me with this communication.'

"Could I consider this in any other light than as a formal tender of the resignation of your office, or that I had any alternative but either to solicit you to remain in office contrary to your sense of duty, or to submit your letter to the king?

"If you had called on me the next morning after your vote, and had explained to me in conversation what had passed in the House of Commons, the character of the communication would have been quite different, and I might have felt myself at liberty to discuss the whole subject with you, and freely to give an opinion upon any point connected. But I must still think that if I had not considered a letter, couched in the terms in which that letter is couched, and received under the circumstances under which I received it, as a tender of resignation, and had not laid it before the king, I should have exposed the king's government and myself to very painful misconstructions. My answer to your letter will have informed you that it surprised me much, and that it gave me great concern. I must consider, therefore, the resignation of your office as your own act, and not as mine."

On the 19th or 20th of December, the ministry again righted for a while, and lord Goderich was still at the helm. Mr. Herries, to bring the affair of the finance committee to a close, addressed to him on the 21st the following letter.

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My dear Goderich, It is now full time that some further steps should be taken with respect to the committee of finance.

"It would, I believe, naturally be my duty to bring that subject under the consideration of the cabinet; but, after what has passed (and I advert to it with much pain), I feel that it is not at present in my hands. I must, therefore, learn from you, as head of the government, what is the course intended to be pursued for the formation of this committee, and the regulation of its proceedings.

"What has hitherto been done in this matter has taken place without consultation or communication with me, although it would seem to belong principally to my department of the public business. A negotiation has been carried on, and completed by Mr. Tierney, with your sanction and that of Mr. Huskisson, for the nomination of the chairman of the committee. The government is, I presume, fully committed to the individual fixed upon for the purpose, and to the noble house of which he is a member; and this proceeding, as I am given to understand, has been adopted with a view, in a great measure, to a political object, and as being calculated to strengthen the hands of the administration. I doubt much, whether that view be correct, and whether the calculation be a just one. But I have an objection to the arrangement upon a much higher ground. I conceive, that, in order to derive, in

the utmost possible degree, from this important measure all the public benefit which it is capable of affording, and at the same time to avoid the inconveniences to which it is liable, all political views of the narrower kindall those which are connected with particular parties and influences only-should be utterly discarded in the formation of the committee. It appears to me, that these objects would be best secured, if the committee were composed of the most eminent individuals of the several parties in the House of Commons, and the chair filled by some person of high character and respectability, either entirely unconnected, or connected as little as possible, with any of the political parties into which the House is divided.

"Whether this be a proper view of the subject, and whether, if it be so, you could yet proceed upon such a principle, you are best able to judge. I do not feel that I could act in it upon any other. In order, therefore, to relieve you from any difficulty, as connected with my situation, respecting the course which you may deem it expedient to pursue, I beg to assure you, that if, by putting my office into other hands, you can more satisfactorily execute this difficult measure, you may command my most ready and cheerful resignation of it. I place it (and I beg it to be understood as being done in the most friendly manner) entirely at your disposal.'

The answer of lord Goderich, was in the following terms:

"My dear Herries,-I received your letter of the 21st, and I agree with you, that the time is at hand when it will become necessary to consider the direction of the finance committee in all its bearings, with