the bill was read for a third time in the House of Lords, was a memorable day in the Parliamentary annals of England. It was the fall of the ministry who had carried to success the greatest piece of legislation that had been introduced since Lord Gr's Reform Bill.

A Coercion Bill for Ireland was the measure which brought this catastrophe on the Government of Sir Robert Peel. While the Corn Bill was yet passing through the House of Commons, the Government felt called upon, in consequence of the condition of crime and outrage in Ireland, to introduce a Coercion Bill. Lord George Bentinck at first gave the measure his support; but during the Whitsuntide recess he changed his views. He now declared that he had only supported the bill on the assurance of the Government that it was absolutely necessary for the safety of life in Ireland, and that as the Government had not pressed it on in advance of every other measure— especially, no doubt, of the Corn Bill-he could not believe that it was really a matter of imminent necessity; and that, furthermore, he had no longer any confidence in the Government, and could not trust them with extraordinary powers. In truth, the bill was placing the Government in a serious difficulty. All the Irish followers of O'Connell would, of course, oppose the coercion measure. The Whigs, when out of office, have usually made it a rule to oppose coercion bills if they do not come accompanied with some promises of legislative reform and concession. The English Radical members, Mr. Cobden and his followers, were almost sure to oppose it. Under these circumstances, it seemed probable enough that if the Protectionists joined with the other opponents of the Coercion Bill, the Government must be defeated. The temptation was too great. As Mr. Disraeli himself candidly says of his party, "Vengeance had succeeded in most breasts to the more sanguine sentiment. The field was

lost, but at any rate there should be retribution for those who had betrayed it." The question with many of the indignant Protectionists was, as Mr. Disraeli himself puts it," How was Sir Robert Peel to be turned out ?" It soon became evident that he could be turned out by those who detested him and longed for vengeance voting against him on the Coercion Bill. This was done. The fiercer Protectionists voted with the Free-traders, the Whigs, and the Irish Catholic and Liberal members, and, after a debate of much bitterness and passion, the division on the second reading of the Coercion Bill took place on Thursday, June 25th, and the ministry were left in a minority of 73. Two hundred and nineteen votes only were given for the second reading of the bill, and 292 against it. Some eighty of the Protectionists followed Lord George Bentinck into the lobby to vote against the bill, and their votes settled the question. Mr. Disraeli has given a somewhat pompous description of the scene" as the Protectionists passed in defile before the minister to the hostile lobby." "Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat," cries the hero of the Eneid, as he plunges his sword into the heart of his rival. "Protection kills you; not your Coercion Bill," the irreconcilable Protectionists might have said as they trooped past the ministry. Chance had put within their grasp the means of vengeance, and they had seized it, and made successful use of it. The Peel Ministry had fallen in its very hour of triumph.

Three days after Sir Robert Peel announced his resignation of office. His speech "was considered one of glorification and pique," says Mr. Disraeli. It does not so impress most readers. It appears to have been full of dignity, and of emotion, not usual with Peel. but not surely, under the circumstances, incompatible with dignity. It contained that often-quoted tribute to the services of a former opponent, in which Peel declared that "the name

which ought to be and which will be associated with the success of these measures is the name of the man who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, has advocated their cause with untiring energy, and with appeals to reason enforced by an eloquence the more to be admired because it is unaffected and unadorned-the name of Richard Cobden." An added effect was given to this welldeserved panegyric by the little irregularity which the Prime-minister committed when he mentioned in debate a member by name. The closing sentence of the speech was eloquent and touching. Many would censure him, Peel said; his name would perhaps be execrated by the monopolist, who would maintain protection for his own individual benefit; "but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of goodwill in those places which are the abode of men whose lot it is to labor and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow-a name remembered with expressions of goodwill when they shall recreate their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice."

The great minister fell. So great a success followed by so sudden and complete a fall is hardly recorded in the Parliamentary history of our modern times. Peel had crushed O'Connell and carried Free-trade, and O'Connell and the Protectionists had life enough yet to pull him down. He is as a conqueror who, having won the great victory of his life, is struck by a hostile hand in some byway as he passes home to enjoy his triumph.

CHAPTER XVII.

FAMINE, COMMERCIAL TROUBLE, AND FOREIGN INTRigue.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL Succeeded Sir Robert Peel as First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Palmerston became Foreign Secretary; Sir Charles Wood was Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Grey took charge of the Colonies; and Sir George Grey was Home Secretary. Mr. Macaulay accepted the office of Paymaster-general, with a seat in the cabinet, a distinction not usually given to the occupant of that office. The ministry was not particularly strong in administrative talent. The Premier and the Foreign Secretary were the only members of the cabinet who could be called statesmen of the first class; and even Lord Palmerston had not as yet won more than a somewhat doubtful kind of fame, and was looked upon as a man quite as likely to do mischief as good to any ministry of which he might happen to form a part. Lord Grey then and since only succeeded somehow in missing the career of a leading statesman. He had great talents and some originality; he was independent and bold. But his independence degenerated too often into impracticability and even eccentricity; and he was, in fact, a politician with whom ordinary men could not work. Sir Charles Wood, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, had solid sense and excellent administrative capacity, but he was about as bad a public speaker as ever addressed the House of Commons. His budget speeches were often made so unintelligible by

defective manner and delivery that they might almost as well have been spoken in a foreign language. Sir George Grey was a speaker of fearful fluency, and a respectable administrator of the second or third class. He was as plodding in administration as he was precipitate of speech. (6 Peel," wrote Lord Palmerston to a friend a short time after the formation of the new ministry, "seems to have made up his mind that for a year or two he cannot hope to form a party, and that he must give people a certain time to forget the events of last year; in the mean while, it is evident that he does not wish that any other Government should be formed out of the people on his side of the House, because of that Government he would not be a member. For these reasons, and also because he sincerely thinks it best that we should, for the present, remain in, he gives us very cordial support, as far as he can, without losing his independent position. Graham, who sits up under his old pillar, and never comes down to Peel's bench even for personal communication, seems to keep himself aloof from everybody, and to hold himself free to act according to circumstances; but as yet he is not considered as the head of any party. George Bentinck has entirely broken down as a candidate for ministerial position; and thus we are left masters of the field, not only on account of our own merits, which, though we say it ourselves, are great, but by virtue of the absence of any efficient competitors." Palmerston's humorous estimate of the state of affairs was accurate. The new ministry was safe enough, because there was no party in a condition to compete with it.

The position of the Government of Lord John Russell was not one to be envied. The Irish famine occupied all attention, and soon seemed to be an evil too great for any ministry to deal with. The failure of the potato was an overwhelming disaster for a people almost wholly agri