overnment and of the measures themselves.

I feel myself, Madam, under the necessity of stating that the
dissolution of the Parliament appears to me wholly without
justification, either from principle or from policy. They who advise
it must needs proceed upon the supposition that a majority will be
returned favourable to the continuance of the present Administration
and favourable to their lately announced policy. On no other ground is
it possible that any such advice should be tendered to your Majesty.
For no one could ever think of such a proceeding as advising the
Crown to dissolve the Parliament in order to increase the force of the
Opposition to its own future Ministers, thus perverting to the mere
purposes of party the exercise of by far the most eminent of the Royal
prerogatives; and I pass over as wholly unworthy of notice the only
other supposition which can with any decency be made, when there is
no conflict between the two Houses, namely, that of a dissolution
in entire ignorance of the national opinion and for the purpose of
ascertaining to which side it inclines. Your Majesty's advisers must,
therefore, have believed, and they must still believe, that a majority
will be returned favourable both to themselves and their late policy.
I, on the other hand, have the most entire conviction that there will
be a considerable majority against them, and against their policy a
majority larger still, many of their supporters having already joined
to swell that majority. Whoever examines the details of the case
must be satisfied that the very best result which the Government can
possibly hope for is a narrow majority against them--an event which
must occasion a second dissolution by whatever Ministry may succeed
to the confidence of your Majesty. But those best acquainted with
the subject have no doubt at all that the majority will be much more
considerable.

I beg leave, Madam, humbly to represent to your Majesty, in my own
vindication for not having laid my opinion before your Majesty as
soon as I returned from the Continent, that when I first heard of
the course taken by the Government early in May, I formed the opinion
which I now entertain, but conceived that I must have mistaken the
facts upon which they were acting; and when I arrived twelve days ago
I was confirmed in the belief (seeing the fixed resolution taken to
dissolve) that I must have been under an erroneous impression as to
the probable results of the