exhibited on the part of our opponents such a spirit of illiberality and bigotry as would have been worthy of the darkest ages of superstition and intolerance."

That bill was the downfall of the Grenville cabinet; but it is curious to remark how Lord Sidmouth, who helped to procure its overthrow, proposed ten years later, when a member of the Liverpool Administration, a measure neither more nor less in substance and effect, respecting oaths to be taken by Roman Catholic officers. Lord Howick's determination to abide by the Catholic cause contrasts well with Pitt's proposal to abandon it in 1801, before the Addington ministry was confirmed in office.* This fidelity caused the exclusion of Lord Howick (Grey) from all share in the government during three-and-twenty years. Thrown out of the representation of Northumberland by the No-Popery cry, he was elected for Appleby; but by his father's death in November, 1807, he removed from the Lower House, where his services were greatly needed, and took his seat as Earl Grey, by the side of Lord Grenville, in the House of Lords.

The Opposition in the Commons suffered greatly by his loss. George Ponsonby, the late Chancellor of Ireland, did his best to keep them together; but they barely recognised his authority, and followed each man his own bent. The peace-at-any-price party, led by Mr. Whitbread, gave Lord Grey much trouble, particularly as he himself had "Fox's Correspondence," April 19, 1804.

never gone quite so far even as Fox in advocating peace with France. Whitbread lugged in the topic in all companies by the head and shoulders, and was as earnest in urging it in season and out of season as Wilberforce was in pleading for the negroes. Whether Lord Grey was right in the view which he took of the seizure of the Danish fleet which Canning so warmly defended, may reasonably be a matter of doubt. It seems to have been one of those acts which are justified by the unscrupulous logic of war; yet Canning, who often indulged in declamation and claptrap, may not have been wholly undeserving of the charge that Lord Grey brought against his speech in his defence. "It will, I have no doubt," he said, “be very much celebrated. It certainly was eloquent and powerful, at least the parts I heard of it; but for audacious misrepresentation, and even for positive falsehood, I never heard it equalled.”

In supposing that the Irish bishops would ever submit to a veto on the appointment to sees being yielded to the Crown, Lord Grey strangely miscalculated the firmness of the Episcopal body. The notion of such a compromise had, indeed, been started by some Liberals as one of the adjuncts of the Union, but never received, and never could receive, the formal sanction of the heads of the Church. The Duke of Bedford, Lord Grenville, and Mr. Whitbread did wisely in disagreeing with Lord

*Flanagan, "British and Irish History," p. 881. Tablet, Jan. 21, 1871. "English Administrations."

It

Grey in his opinion as to the expediency of requiring it. Strong, indeed, as Grey's judgment was in most cases, he was sometimes at fault. There were moments in the course of the Peninsular War when the enormous number of the French troops, the disasters sustained by Sir John Moore, the retirement of Wellington within the lines of Torres Vedras, and the faithless, irresolute conduct of Spaniards and Portuguese, made him doubt the propriety and possibility of continuing the conflict in Spain. was a want of faith on his part, as he afterwards allowed. The ultimate success of our dogged resistance to Napoleon in Spain has, more than any other circumstance, justified Pitt's war policy in the eyes of his partisans, and exalted it above that of Fox. Neither Pitt, Perceval, nor Lord Liverpool, staked the issues of the war on the individual exertions of Great Britain, but they relied on the chance of unforeseen catastrophies befalling the French legions, as in effect they did befall them in the retreat from Moscow. He who pursues the difficult path of duty must always trust largely to providential contingencies.

When Mr. Perceval was called upon to construct a ministry in the place of that one which had been broken up by the quarrel between Castlereagh and Canning and the paralysis of the Duke of Portland, Lord Grey was requested to take part in it. Of this polite offer, Sir Samuel Romilly says: "It was probably not intended as an insult to Lord Grenville and Lord Grey. But surely no greater insult could be offered to any public men, than

to suppose them to be so eager to be in power." Lord Grey's refusal was immediate and by return of post. The Prince of Wales, in spite of all his profession of Whig principles, retained the Perceval Administration when he came to the Regency in 1811, and, in consequence of the Opposition being much divided, that administration managed to linger out an unhealthy existence till an assassin brought it to an end. The negotiations which the Prince entered into with Grey and Grenville led to no result, except that of convincing them that the Regent was gradually identifying himself with a policy the very reverse of that which he had espoused in his youth: he did not even make use of a speech which these noblemen prepared, at his request, in answer to the addresses of parliament on his coming to the Regency.*

In the following year those negotiations were renewed, but with infinite dissatisfaction to all the parties concerned. The Prince was guided by no principle but that of selfishness, every species of double dealing was employed by him in treating for new ministers; he was more and more careless about relieving Catholics and purifying the representation; and at last he refused to accede to the demand of Lords Grey and Grenville respecting appointments to offices in the Household, and conferred on Lord Liverpool the task of forming a cabinet. The privilege of dismissing the members of the Household and appointing fresh ones is a recognised part of a premier's office

*English Cyclopædia. Art. "Grey."

when he comes into power; and Sir Robert Peel, it will be remembered, refused to be made head of the government in 1840 because the Queen was not willing to yield to him the dismissal of the wives and female relatives of former ministers.

During ten years-from 1807 to 1817-Lords Grey and Grenville stood side by side in the Opposition offered to the Duke of Portland, Mr. Perceval, and Lord Liverpool. The former of the two noblemen was the acknowledged chief of the Whigs, and his attendance in parliament was more or less active during the whole time just mentioned. In 1817, however, differences arose between them, which it may be well to explain, for in consequence of these they separated completely, and the band of resistance which they had headed was broken up.

The proceedings of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 had been highly distasteful to them both. They saw with regret that it re-established in Europe the same system of arbitrary rule which had provoked the spirit of revolution, and apportioned provinces to kingdoms and empires without regard to the wishes and interests of the populations concerned. They agreed in thinking that (in spite of these deplorable arrangements of the Congress of Vienna) it was necessary for England to remain strictly in concert with the Allied Powers, when Napoleon had escaped from Elba in March, 1815. But having gone thus far together, they diverged. Grenville was for immediate action, for war with Napoleon per