indifference which has often made the public
opinion of Great Britain a hindrance rather than a support to the best
interests of her dependencies.

[Sidenote: In the House of Lords.]

It was only very rarely that he took any part in the business of
legislation; and of the two occasions on which he was induced to break
silence, one was when the interests of Canada appeared to him to be
imperilled by the rumoured intention of Government to send thither large
bodies of troops that had just returned from the Crimea. He thought it his
duty to protest earnestly against any such proceeding, as likely, in the
first place, to complicate the relations of Canada with the United States,
and, in the second place, to arrest her progress in self-dependence.

[Sidenote: Crimean War.]

The other occasion of his speaking was in May 1855, when Lord Ellenborough
had moved an Address to the Crown, condemnatory of the manner in which the
Crimean War had been and was being conducted. Having been out of England
when hostilities were begun, he had not to consider the question whether it
was a glorious, or even a necessary, war in which we were engaged; and his
one feeling on the subject was that which he had previously expressed to
the citizens of Glasgow.

My opinion (he then said) [on the question of the war] I can easily
state, and I have no hesitation in avowing it. I say that now we are
in the war, we must fight it out like men. I don't say, throw away the
scabbard; in the first place, because I dislike all violent metaphors;
and, in the second place, because the scabbard is a very useful
instrument, and the sooner we can use it the better. But I do say,
having drawn the sword, don't sheathe it until the purpose for which
it was drawn is accomplished.

In the same spirit he now defended the Ministry against Lord Ellenborough's
attack; not on party grounds, which he took pains to repudiate, but on what
he conceived to be the true patriotic principle--viz. to strengthen, at
such a time, the hands of the existing Government, unless there be a
distinct prospect of replacing it by a stronger.

After mentioning that he had not long before informed Lord Palmerston, that
'while he was resolved to maintain an independent position in Parliament,
it was nevertheless his desire and intention, subject to that qualification
and reserve, to support the Government,' he proceeded:

I formed this resolution not on