and the action of the Executive was again impeded, and discredit cast upon our constitutional system by the humiliating spectacle of a Cabinet divided and broken up almost as soon as it had assumed the responsibilities of office.

On the 22nd of February, Lord Palmerston, from his place in the House of Commons, announced that Mr. Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert, had resigned their offices.

Mr. Disraeli said, he heard with deep regret, and some consternation, that the Cabinet so recently formed, and which he hoped would have had a much longer existence, had come so suddenly to a disruption. In the absence of the gentlemen who had resigned, it would be improper to make any remarks on their conduct, which, on a proper occasion, as well as the conduct of Lord Palmerston, would be canvassed.

It was subsequently arranged, that Mr. Roebuck's motion for nominating his Committee should, on the 23rd of February, have precedence of the orders of the day, and that then the three outgoing Ministers should make their explanations.

At an early hour on that day, the House of Commons presented an unusually crowded and excited appearance. The first order of the day, the Committee of Supply, having been put, Lord Palmerston moved that it should be postponed until after the consideration of Mr. Roebuck's Committee. Sir James Graham, who spoke from below the gangway, then rose and opened the series of explanations. He vindicated the course he had taken by at once entering upon a statement of reasons against the appointment of the Committee, which his late

illness had disabled him from doing before. First, he remarked upon the amended list of names for the Committee. "If the Executive Government have, on the whole, made up their minds that the appointment of a Committee of this vast importance, in the present circumstances of the country, shall be granted, I regret extremely not to find, in the list of names to be proposed, any member of Her Majesty's Government included in it. I have a strong opinion, that if this inquiry is to be conducted, in circumstances so delicate, with due regard to the interests of the country, there would have been great advantage in having a Minister of the Crown present on the Committee, from whom, if subjects of inquiry were opened which, from his knowledge of our foreign relations, appeared to him inexpedient and dangerous, warning might be given to the Committee, and some influence exercised to check inquiry, when venturing upon dangerous ground." Further, he objected to a Select Committee. Would it be open, or secret? If it is to be a Secret Committee, all check of public opinion, which has so operated on its appointment, will be withdrawn; the proceedings of the Committee will not be known, and the persons implicated by the evidence will not have the opportunity of defending themselves, of preparing for the defence, of crossexamining the witness, of rebutting false accusation. Until the termination of the inquiry, the tendency of the examination will be secret and unknown. If it be an open Committee, then the evidence will, from day to day, be published, and the most adverse comments of a party character will

be applied to the evidence so published. Again the most erroneous impressions, bearing hard on distant individuals, who have no power of cross-examination or of defence the most painful imputations on the character of those filling high stations, will be deduced; and altogether, during the conduct of the inquiry, there will be no appeal from any member of the Committee to this House, when once the delegation has been made, until the Committee have presented their report." Such a delegation would be most dangerous. He should prefer an inquiry at the bar, for which there were some precedents, to inquiry by a Committee, for which there were none. The motion for inquiry was intended as a vote of censure. But if so, how were the circumstances altered by what had occurred? If it were a vote of censure in January, surely the nomination of the Committee was a vote of censure in February; for, with the exception of Lord Panmure, all the important members of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet were members of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet. "Allow me, in passing, to observe, that on Friday last, when the head of the Government, the noble Viscount the member for Tiverton, opened the policy of the Cabinet, he appeared to me to distinctly recognize the existence of this Committee of Inquiry, if passed, as a difficulty not to be lightly regarded. He volunteered to the House the functions of the Executive as their Committee. It will be said to me, how came you to accept office under the noble Viscount, if such were your impressions with respect to this Committee? I wish to state the case with perfect frankness. I had great difficulty,

when the noble Lord paid me the undeserved compliment of wishing me to become a member of his Government. The House will pardon me for saying that I was confined to my bed, and not in a condition to carry on a lengthened correspondence, or to make many inquiries. I should tell the House that there was one difficulty on which I required explanation. I wished to know from my noble Friend whether there was to be any change in the foreign policy pursued by Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet, to which, as colleagues, we had given our united consent; and whether, with reference to negotiations now pending at Vienna, any alteration was contemplated in the terms which, in our opinion, were held consistent with the attainment of a safe and honourable peace. I thought it my duty to satisfy myself on that single point. My noble Friend, in the most frank manner, gave me an explanation on that head, which was entirely satisfactory. The explanation having been satisfactory on that point, I made no further difficulty on any other subject; neither did I make any other inquiry. I frankly said, that having been satisfied on that point, I would do my best, if he thought my services necessary, to serve him and to assist his efforts. Sir, perhaps greater caution might have been exercised with respect to this Committee." He had been of opinion until lately, that the changes made-two Ministers sacrificed and unjustly loaded with obloquy, and the measures proposed-would have satisfied the country. He thought the Committee unnecessary, unjust to officers, and dangerous. Taking his own department, Sir James showed one source of danger by a reference

to the question of the blockade. "Suppose the Committee calls for the Admiral who was charged with the execution of that duty, and asks him to go into the reasons to which I have referred. He, under the compulsion of the Select Committee, is forced to disclose all the reasons which led to delay. It depends on the questionable prudence of six out of eleven gentlemen whether this inquiry shall not be so prosecuted; and if, unhappily, imprudence should prevail, I state positively that I am confident this inquiry will run directly into questions connected with our great and powerful ally, with whom it is of the last importance nothing unfriendly should occur. I warn the House, distinctly, that it is delegating its powers, unaccompanied by any check or control, to the chance-medley of six out of eleven gentlemen, and that it may thus involve the country in the most fatal consequences. I have said this with respect to the delay. Let me carry this one step further, and let me allude to the position of Lord Raglan, which bears distinctly on the question of the state of the army in the Crimea. I imagine that of all the difficulties with which the most splendid human talents can be tried, the successful command of an army in the presence of superior forces of the enemy is the most severe trial-that the elements of success in that command rest mainly on an undivided authority. It has been truly said, I think, by one of the greatest commanders of antiquity, 'Id est viri et ducis non deesse Fortunæ præbenti, se, et oblato casu flectere ad consilium'-that is, the operations of one undivided superior intellect. But if you command an army by the side of an

ally, there must be constant communications, involving complicated considerations; there must be dif ferences of opinion; there must be, more or less, a compromise of decision, which is almost weakness in itself; and in the direction of their relative forces there must be inqualities." He demurred to the doctrine that the demand for inquiry was irresistible-itself a most dangerous doctrine. He denied that he was a deserter from his colleagues. "I took my position in common with them on the resolntion to resist this inquiry. It was resisted-the position was takenthe post was firmly occupied-I still stand to my guns, and the position is not untenable. They have abandoned the position they have proclaimed it to be untenable, and have spiked the guns and fled away." If Ministers of the Crown were convinced that a course was dangerous, it was their duty to stand in the breach and resist; and that unpopular and painful duty it was his to perform. Nothing could be more dishonourable than to assent to measures adopted by the majority of your colleagues, which you believed to be dangerous, especially when you felt that you had not the confidence of Parliament. There were indications not to be mistaken that the new Administration constructed by Lord Palmerston did not really possess the confidence of the House. He declined to say much about the future. "Honied words of parting with colleagues are almost always nauseous, generally delusive, and like lover's vows in similar respects, always unavailing and laughed to scorn." But with strong friendly feelings towards his late colleagues, he should generally support them, and prove by his conduct that with

him the safety of the State was paramount to all other considerations. Sir James Graham's speech was received throughout with much cheering, and he sat down amidst general applause.

Mr. Bright said he was one of a majority of the House who looked upon our present position as one of more than ordinary gravity, and he regretted the secession of the members who had withdrawn from the Government, though he thought no one could have listened to the speech of Sir J. Graham without being convinced that he and his retiring colleagues had been moved to the course they had taken by deliberate judgment, and upon honest grounds. He regretted their secession, however, because he did not like to see the Government of Lord Palmerston overthrown. For a month there had been a chaos in the region of administration; nothing could be more embarrassing and humiliating to this country, and the sentiment was not confined to these islands. We were at war with the greatest military Power in the world; terms of peace had been agreed upon by this country and her Allies; but there were writers and members of Parliament who had indulged dreams of vast political changes and conquests, and of a new map of Europe, as the objects of the war, and who urged the head of the Government to carry it on with vigour, and to prosecute enterprises which no Government could ever have seriously entertained. He trusted, however, that if our Government had offered terms of peace to Russia, we should not draw back and demand harder terms; and that if there should be a failure at Vienna, no man should impute to the rulers of this country that they had prolong

ed the war. He dwelt upon the miseries of war and the disadvantages to the country resulting from it, and concluded with the following earnest appeal to Lord Palmerston. "The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the very beating of his wings. There is no one to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the sideposts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on; but he calls at the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, equally as at the cottage of the humble, and it is on behalf of all these classes that I make this solemn appeal. I tell the noble Lord that if he be ready honestly and frankly to endeavour, if possible, by the negotiations to be opened at Vienna, to put an end to this war, no word of mine, no vote of mine, will be given to shake his power for one single moment, or to change his position in this House. (Hear, hear.') I am sure that the noble Lord is not inaccessible to appeals made to him from honest motives, and with the deferential feeling that he has been for more than 40 years a member of this House. The noble Lord, before I was born, sat upon the Treasury bench, and he has devoted his life to the service of his country. He is no longer young, and his life has extended almost to the term allotted to man. I would ask-I would entreat-the noble Lord to take a course which, when he looks back upon his whole political career-whatever he may therein find to be pleased with, whatever to regret-cannot but be a source of gratification. By adopting that course, he would have the satisfaction of reflecting that, having obtained the laudable object of his ambition-having become the fore

most subject of the Crown, the dispenser of, it may be, the destinies of this country, and the presiding genius in her councils-he had achieved a still higher and nobler ambition; that over Europe he had returned the sword to the scabbard -that at his word torrents of blood had ceased to flow-that he had restored tranquillity to Europe, and saved this country from the indescribable calamities of war."(Loud cheers.)

Mr. Sidney Herbert, who was suffering from illness, took the same ground as Sir James Graham; but his position, he said, differed somewhat from that held by Sir James and Mr. Gladstone, having been connected with one of the war departments, and, therefore, implicated in the censure passed by the House upon the management of those departments. The motion of Mr. Roebuck, he observed, might be divided into two portions: one related to the conduct of the departments at home, connected with the supply of the army in the field; the other referred to the state of the force before Sebastopol. It was the duty of Parliament to institute a searching investigation into the conduct of Ministers of the Crown; he had, therefore, no objection to that part of the motion, being ready to go before the Committee, and having nothing to conceal. But the Committee had another and a wider scope. He considered, with Sir J. Graham, that the motion was regarded as a vote of censure; and that the general expectation was, that when Lord Aberdeen's Government was at an end, no more would have been heard of this Committee. But if the country were determined that there should be a searching inquiry, a Select

Committee was not the best, most constitutional, or most efficient mode. As a vote of censure, therefore, the motion was now valueless; as an inquiry, it would be a mere sham. He disapproved this Committee; and if it was resistible, he would not be a party to it.

Mr. Gaskell was surprised that any person could think it possible that the Prime Minister should insist upon the reversal of a decision by so large a majority of the House, upon a question of such vast public importance. He felt bound to give effect to that decision, believing that by reversing it, the House would inflict a fatal blow upon representative institutions.

Mr. Drummond said, that notwithstanding he had voted for the inquiry, if he saw any reason for retracting his vote, nothing should prevent his doing so. He did not deny that much danger was to be apprehended from this Committee; but was the House to be scared by danger? He insisted upon the necessity of inquiry, which he promised Mr. Herbert should be no sham; but he thought it was so dangerous that the House should take it upon itself, and that it ought not to be left to the discretion of a Committee.

Lord Seymour believed that such an inquiry would with fraught with inconvenience to the public service, embarrassing to the next campaign, and dangerous to our alliance; but, on the advice of Mr. Ellice, he had suffered his name to be put on the Committee by Government. All the military departments would be engaged in preparations for the spring campaign; but the inquiry must be strict and searching, and they must have the officers of those depart