care neither
for your cheers nor for your taunts,' It is very well for the right
honorable gentleman to take this high-flying course, but I can but say
that my conception of a great statesman is one who represents a great
idea,--I do not care whether he is a manufacturer or a manufacturer's
son. I care not what may be the position of a man who never originates
an idea,--a watcher of the atmosphere,--a man who, as he says, 'takes
his observations,' and when he finds the wind in a certain quarter trims
his sails to suit it. Such a man may be a powerful minister, but he is
no more a great statesman than a man who gets up behind a carriage is a
great whip."

All this tirade was very unjust,--though it pleased the
protectionists,--for Sir Robert Peel was great enough to listen to
arguments and reason, and give up his old sentiments when he found them
untenable, even if he broke up his party. His country was greater in
his eyes than any party.

As prime minister, Peel then unfolded his plans. He announced his
intention to abandon the sliding scale entirely, and gradually reduce
the duty on corn and other articles of necessity so that at the end of
three or four years the duty would be taken off altogether. This plan
did not fully satisfy the League, who argued for immediate repeal.
Indeed, there was a necessity. The poor harvests in England and the
potato-rot in Ireland were producing the most fearful and painful
results. A large part of the laboring population was starving. Never
before had there been greater distress. On the 2d of March, 1846, the
ministerial plan had to go through the ordeal of a free-trade attack.
Mr. Villiers proposed an amendment that would result in the immediate
and total repeal of the corn laws. Nevertheless, the original bill
passed the Commons by a majority of ninety-eight.

It was at once carried to the House of Lords, where it encountered, as
was expected, the fiercest opposition, no less than fifty-three lords
taking part in the discussion. The Duke of Wellington, seeing that the
corn laws were doomed, and that further opposition would only aggravate
the public distress, supported the bill, as did Lord Aberdeen and other
strong conservatives, and it was finally carried by a majority of
forty-seven.

Before the bill for the virtual repeal of the corn laws was passed by
the House of Lords, the administration of Sir Robert Peel abruptly
closed. An Irish coercion bill had been introduced by th