possible for him not to acquiesce in the nomination of the chairman of the Finance Committee, which had been the subject of discussion. My right hon. friend stated, that, if the decision should be against that nomination, he would resign; and I stated also that the resignation of the Secretary of State would dissolve the government. I added to this, that his own resignation would, in all probability, be attended with the same consequences. How, then, could the right hon. gentleman state-how could any man state-that I went down to his majesty with a false pretence, to procure the dissolution of the government? Whether my proceeding was right or wrong is, perhaps, of little consequence, but the statement which I made was the sole ground of my actions: and I defy any man to say that I acted from any other. On the next day I stated my opinion to the right hon. gentleman. I recommended him to reconsider his decision. I told him I could not accede to his opinion. I urged him not to take the step he contemplated. He said he would take it; and I foresaw the consequences. I added, that we owed it to ourselves, to the king, and the country, not to break up the government, unless it was absolutely necessary. It was our duty, I said, to meet parliament and wait its decision. All this proved ineffectual. What ground, then, was there for the declaration, that I went to his majesty with a false pretence? I say that the conduct of the right hon. gentleman was the immediate cause of the dissolution of the government. These were the motives for my conduct; and it is not possible for any person justly to impute to me any other. Your lordships will

also have seen it representedthough I cannot say whether correctly or not-that there existed a design, a plot, to break up the government. Who entertained it? When was it concocted? I positively deny that I knew any thing of it; and I deny that any person, as far as I know, had any such design. I will not say that circumstances had not occurred which might make the government not receive the countenance and support of parliament; but that there was a design to alter or change the government, or to break it up, is a most gratuitous assumption.

Lord Carlisle confirmed the statement of lord Goderich; expressing his surprise that the dissolution of the government should ever have been ascribed to any other cause than the disputed nomination of the chairman of the Finance Committee, and his entire ignorance of any secret machinery or intrigue having been employed to break up the ministry.

Mr. Herries, however, reiterated his assertion in the House of Commons (Feb. 21). It had been supposed, he said, that, in what he had stated, he had meant to deny the truth of the account of the noble lord at the head of the government, as to the causes by which that government had been dissolved. When any man of character, spoke of his motives, such a declaration was unanswerable; of his own motives he must be incomparably the best judge. But, at the same time, said Mr. Herries, nothing can alter my personal conviction, founded upon all that I know of the facts, that the trifling circumstance of the difference between the Secretary for the Colonies and myselftrifling, as compared with other

matters, and, I repeat, most trifling, because I had been ready to settle it in the most amicable way, by my own resignation-by the sacrifice, if there was to be any sacrifice, of myself that a difference so easily disposed of never could be, and never had been, the true and operative cause of the dissolution of the late government. Other causes, and far more important ones, had been pressing with an embarrassing weight upon the administration; and I do believe, that no arguments will ever convince impartial persons, who take the trouble to advert to all the facts, that so trifling a circumstance as is alleged, had been the cause of so important a catastrophe.

Mr. Sturges Bourne, on the other hand, and Mr.Wynn, who had both been members of the late government, declared that they neither knew, nor had ever heard of any other reason for its dissolution than the irreconcileable difference which had arisen between Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Herries; and if there really were grounds for Mr. Herries's insinuations as to intention and design, the premier, at least, and his colleagues, had, they said, been ignorant of it from beginning to end. Lord Milton called on Mr. Herries to state what he knew of this design to dissolve the government. If he knew that it existed, and knew the parties who were concerned in it, that would be something,compared with which, all the explanations yet given would be but as dust in the balance. If he did know of this design, he must know the grounds of it, the objects of it, the parties to it; and on these heads it was his bounden duty, a duty from which he could not retreat, to give the House an explanation. Mr. Brougham added, that, as Mr. Herries had solemnly

and explictly denied the charge made against him, elsewhere, of having, in the course of these struggles in the ministry, consulted persons not belonging to the cabinet, he wished now to know from that gentleman, whether no person out of the cabinet had consulted him; whether his denial went to the fact of any individual having consulted with him, as well as to the fact of his having consulted with any individual?-Mr. Herries answered that he did not think any gentleman had a right to ask that question; that he doubted whether it ought to have been asked ; at all events, it would have been more properly omitted. All he would say was this, that he entirely abided by his former explanations. He would enter into no more. On any subject relating to the dissolution of the late government, he should decline to go further.

When one looks at the admission of lord Goderich himself, that there were circumstances in the condition of the ministry which rendered it doubtful whether it would be safe for them to meet parliament, and at the declaration of Mr. Huskisson that there were many things in its prospects which were, in his estimation, signs of evil omen, he will probably arrive at the conclusion, that the averments of lord Goderich and Mr. Herries differed more in words than in reality. It may be perfectly true that lord Goderich, even embarrassed as he was, would not have broken up the ministry when he did do it, unless Mr. Huskisson or Mr. Herries had threatened a resignation; but this is by no means inconsistent with its likewise being true, that he would not have broken it up on account of Mr. Herries's resignation, had there not been pre-existing

causes which threatened it with speedy decay, and rendered the post of honour neither comfortable nor safe. Had there not been "something rotten in the state of Denmark," lord Goderich probably would not have seen the necessity of making its existence dependent on the continued adherence of a single member of the cabinet. If the ministry was otherwise sound and cordial, why did not lord Goderich accept of Mr. Herries's resignation? The space which that gentleman filled in the public eye, was by no means so large, that his loss could not have been supplied; and lord Goderich never gave any answer to the question, how happened it that your ministry was dependent on the continuance of Mr. Herries in office? Why did you not accept of his resignation, appoint a new chancellor of the exchequer, and go on with the government? The dispute between that gentleman and the colonial secretary may have been the last straw that broke the elephant's back; but if so, it must have been already sinking under the pressure of accumulated burdens.

Lord Goderich retired from office with the character of being an amiable, candid, and honourable man, but without the praise of being a firm and energetic minister. He had manifested no talent for commanding and controlling; he had shewn no confidence in his own resources.

Mr. Huskisson, too, suffered in public estimation, from the readiness with which he had fallen into the ranks of the new ministry. He had used strong expressions, when the late ministry was formed, as to his reluctance ever to take office with those who had deserted Mr. Canning on his elevation to the head of the government: in the

cabinet in which he now sat, these very men were his superiors and his colleagues; and the more attached admirers of Mr. Canning regarded him as having betrayed both the policy and the memory of his friend. When he said that the policy of the present cabinet was to differ in nothing from that of Mr. Canning, he was told to recollect, that its head and most influential members had refused to take Mr. Canning for their leader in politics, and had chosen to go out, rather than go along with him. When he pointed to other members of lord Goderich's ministry in the same situation as himself, as securities that all would be right, he was told that it was scarcely logical for a man, whose conduct was suspicious, to justify it by the conduct of others who were obnoxious to the very same suspicions. Although, too, it was perfectly true, that nobody imagined him to have meant, when he spoke of guarantees, a written instrument binding the premier; yet many people could not help thinking that the language, which Mr. Huskisson had used at Liverpool, conveyed, and was intended to convey, the idea that he had made special stipulations with the duke of Wellington regarding particular measures of policy, as the price of his accession to the ministry; and nobody could forget the instant and contemptuous disclaimer with which the duke of Wellington had scouted the supposition, or the submission with which Mr. Huskisson had acquiesced in the correctness of that disclaimer. The public were impressed with the belief that there were many very valuable things, which Mr. Huskisson would sacrifice, rather than abandon office, or the hopes of office.

W

THILE these explanations were taking place regarding the share, which a dispute about the nomination of a chairman of a Finance Committee had had in dissolving a ministry, the committee itself had been named on the 15th of February. The motion was made by Mr. Peel. He prefaced it by a general review of the financial condition, and prospects of the country, and of the objects which it was proposed to gain by the appointment of the committee. He would attempt, he said, to consider the state of the finances, on precisely the same principles which an individual would apply to his private concerns. He would first determine what were the incumbrances to which we were liable; secondly, the nett amount of the income for some years past; thirdly, the nett amount of expenditure during the same period; and fourthly, what reasonable prospects there might exist as to the future amount either of our expenses or of our income.

pur

On the first point, it would, he said, be quite sufficient for his pose, if, taking the amount of the general debt, funded and unfunded, at a recent period, he should compare it with the amount of debt in the first year after the late peace, looking likewise at an interme

diate period between that year and the present. He would take, therefore, the years 1815, 1822, and 1827, premising that he would call the year 1815-but which ended on 5th Jan. 1816-the year 1816, as being a more compendious way of describing it, and so of the other years which he might name. Now, the total capital of the unredeemed funded debt in the year ending on the 5th January, 1816, was 816,310,000l. In 1822, the total amount of the unredeemed debt was 796,530,000l. Last year, the amount or capital of the unredeemed debt was 777,476,000l., omitting the hundreds, and stating it in round numbers.

The next matter to be considered was the amount of charge. The amount of charge for debt to which the country was annually liable, included the amount of interest payable to the public creditor, on account of the funded debt, and the cost of management. This charge amounted,

in the public funds were terminable in point of fact; but at so distant a period as scarcely to warrant the introduction of any calculations founded on their expiration. In the next place, a portion of this charge was permanent, and a portion temporary only. To ascertain the total amount of charge occasioned to the country by reason of the unredeemed funded debt, at the first period-the year after the peace the intermediate period 1822-and in the last year, he proposed to add to the charge of the unredeemed debt, the amount of the charge in the shape of annuities; in order to show the total amount payable by the country, in consequence of the unredeemed debt and annuities taken together. The annual amount of charge on the funded debt and annuities was,

Thus the diminution of the public expenditure, on account of interest, was last year, as compared with the year 1815, 2,106,000l., but, as compared with 1822, only 216,000l.

This regarded only the funded debt. As to the encumbrances to which the country was liable, on account of the charge of the unfunded debt, including Exchequer bills (under various classes), public works, Irish treasury, deficiencies, and outstanding monies; it might be stated that

In Jan. 1815 it amounted to......

L. 44,544,000 42,209,000 34,770,000 The total annual charge, therefore, for these three years, namely, 1815, 1823, and 1827, for funded debt, annuities, and unfunded debt,

was

VOL. LXX.

The total decrease of the capital of the unredeemed funded debt, since the year 1815 had been 38,835,000l.: that is to say, such was the amount of stock, which, since 1816, had been purchased with the sums appropriated for the redemption of the funded debt. The unfunded debt, last year, on a similar comparison, was lessened by the sum of 9,770,000l.: so that the total diminution of the funded and unfunded debt, since the year 1815,amounted to48,608,000l. The total decrease of the annual charge of the funded and unfunded debt and annuities, since 1815, amounted to 4,424,000l.: The total charge of the unredeemed debt and annuities in 1815 amounted to 30,488,000l., of which sum the total amount in annuities was 1,924,000l.: the total charge in 1822 amounted to 28,596,000l., of which sum the total amount in annuities was 1,892,000l. and the total charge in 1827 was 28,381,000l., of which sum the total amount in annuities was 2,602,000l.

This being the amount of the in cumbrances, it was necessary to look next at the revenue and expenditure; and he intended, in the mean time, to keep out of account what was called the "dead weight;" though he would afterwards give a statement including it. He would state, then, the gross amount of the expenditure of the country, under all the ordinary branches of out-lay-the interest of the na tional debt, the services of the army, navy, and ordnance, miscellaneous services, and civil list,→→→ including the charges arising upon both the funded and unfunded

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