of a Ministry. It would have been quite
reasonable for any Government to express a willingness to meet the
wishes of the House on such a subject, to agree to the appointment of a
committee, and then go on as if nothing particular had occurred. But
it sometimes happens that a Government is willing, or even anxious, to
accept defeat on a side issue, although of minor importance, in order
to escape from, or at all events to postpone, a decision on some
question of vital import. Sometimes, too, there are reasons, well
known to all members of a Government but not yet in the knowledge of
the public, which incline a Ministry to find a reason for resigning
office in the result of some casual division which cannot be said to
amount to a vote of want of confidence. Not many years have passed
since a Liberal Government, which might have seemed to ordinary
observers to be secure in its position, thought it well to accept a
vote on the supply of cordite in the army stores as a vote of want of
confidence, and accordingly went out of office. The Duke of Wellington
and Sir Robert Peel appear to have come to the conclusion that the
success of Sir Henry Parnell's motion would furnish them with a
plausible excuse for withdrawing at a convenient moment from an
unpromising position. Henry Brougham, as we have already said, had
given formal notice in the House of Commons that he would bring forward
a motion for leave to introduce a definite scheme of Parliamentary
reform. Now everybody knew that Brougham was at that time thoroughly
earnest on the subject of reform, and that he had, during the recent
general election, the best possible reasons for knowing that the great
majority in the North of England, at all events, was behind him. On
the other hand, ministers themselves had had ample opportunities of
finding out, during the elections, that a large number of those whom at
other times they might have regarded as their own supporters were
estranged from them or had actually turned {112} against them. The
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel probably thought that their
wisest course would be to let Lord Grey and Brougham and their friends
try what they could do with the monstrous spectre of reform which they
had conjured up, and wait till the country had recovered its senses
before again undertaking to act as ministers of the Crown.

[Sidenote: 1830--Wellington and Peel resign]

An odd and rather absurd incident, which created much