elections. But I have since found ample
reason for believing that my original conviction was perfectly well
founded, and that no grounds whatever exist sufficient to make any
one who considers the subject calmly, and without the bias of either
interest or prejudice, really believe that this ill-fated proceeding
can have any other result than lasting injury to your Majesty's
service, to the progress of sound and just views of policy, and to
the influence of those in whom the Crown and the country alike should
repose confidence.

That a number of short-sighted persons whose judgments are warped by
exclusive attention to a single subject, or by personal feelings, or
by party views (and these narrow and erroneous), may have been loudly
clamorous for the course apparently about to be pursued, is extremely
possible, and affords no kind of excuse for it. Many of these will be
the slowest to defend what they have so unfortunately called for; some
will be among the first to condemn it when a manifest failure shall
have taken place, and general discomfiture shall throw a few local
successes into the shade.

My advice is humbly offered to your Majesty, as removed far above such
confined and factious views; as the parent of all your people; as both
bound and willing to watch over their true interests; and as charged
by virtue of your exalted office with the preservation of the public
peace, the furtherance of the prosperity, and the maintenance of the
liberties of your subjects.

I am, with profound respect, Madam, your Majesty's faithful and
dutiful Subject,

BROUGHAM.[59]

[Footnote 58: Mention has been made earlier of the resentment
which Brougham cherished against his late colleagues, after
his exclusion from the Whig Cabinet, and this letter, on the
proposal to dissolve Parliament, was, no doubt, prompted by
that feeling.]

[Footnote 59: Parliament, however, notwithstanding this
rescript of Lord Brougham, was dissolved, and the Ministry
went to the country with the cry of a fixed duty on corn, as
against a sliding scale, and they attacked, as monopolists, at
once the landowner, who enjoyed protection for his wheat,
and the West Indian proprietor, who profited by the duty on
foreign sugar. The Conservatives impugned the general
policy of the Whig Administration. The result, a majority of
seventy-six, was an even greater Conservative triumph than the
most san