he genius of Chatham; the
disasters of the American contest; the frequent defeats of the first years
of the Revolutionary war, afford decisive evidence how deeply this
degrading and corrupting system had entered into the vitals of the nation
during the eighteenth century. Every one knows that America was lost in
consequence of the imbecility and selfish views of the commanders, whom
the corrupt system of government in Great Britain had raised to the head
of affairs. On several occasions, they might, with a little energy, have
terminated the war with glory to themselves and their country. The
disasters of Flanders, in 1793 and 1794, were in a great measure owing to
the same cause. During peace, influential imbecility is constantly rising
to the head of affairs, and the consequences immediately appear on the
first breaking out of hostilities. Nothing but the pressure and disasters
of war, can drive government out of the inveterate vice of purchasing
parliamentary support by the promotion of incapable and improper persons.
The Whigs, since they were driven from the helm of affairs in 1761, have
been constantly declaiming against this system, which they themselves had
introduced and matured during the preceding seventy years; and the clamour
they raised at last became so violent, that it brought about the great
organic change of 1832. But no sooner were they again seated in power,
than the same system was not only pursued by them, but extended: patronage
was augmented in every possible way; a new machine for influence, adapted
to the time--that of commissions--was introduced and largely worked, and
promotions in every department were rigidly confined to political
partisans. It has been a frequent subject of complaint against the Tory
government, both before the Revolution of 1832, and on their return to
power in 1841, that they were too liberal to their opponents, and
forgetful of their friends, in the dispensing of the public patronage; and
we have only to take up the Red Book, to see that this praise or
imputation justly belongs to them. But no man alive ever heard of a Whig,
during the ten years they were in power, being accused of giving any thing
to a Tory. The saying, which had passed into a proverb during that period,
that "the Whigs could do with impunity many things to which the Tories
could never set their faces," proves how rapidly this degrading system of
official corruption was again spreading, during the Whig ten