servants to continue to conduct
the affairs of the country, or whether his Majesty deemed it advisable
to adopt any other course," and that "Lord Melbourne earnestly entreated
that no personal consideration for him might prevent his Majesty from
taking any measures or seeking any other advice which he might think
more likely to conduce to his service and to the advantage of the
country," did not only contemplate, but to a certain degree even
suggested, the possibility of his Majesty's preferring to have recourse
to fresh advisers.

The King's subsequent acts and their result, however, certainly took the
kingdom by surprise. He applied to the Duke of Wellington to undertake
the formation of a new ministry; and the Duke, explaining to the King
that "the difficulty of the task consisted in the state of the House of
Commons, earnestly recommended him to choose a minister in the House of
Commons," and named Sir Robert Peel as the fittest object for his
Majesty's choice. Sir Robert was in Italy at the time; but, on receiving
the royal summons, he at once hastened to England, the Duke of
Wellington in the mean time accepting the offices of First Lord of the
Treasury and Secretary of State, as a provisional arrangement, till he
should arrive in London.

Sir Robert reached England early in December; and though, if "he had
been consulted beforehand, he would have been inclined to dissuade the
dismissal of the last ministry as premature and impolitic," he did not
consider it compatible "with his sense of duty" to decline the charge
which the King laid upon him, and at once accepted the office of
Prime-minister, being fully aware that by so doing he "became
technically, if not morally, responsible for the dissolution of the
preceding government, though he had not had the remotest concern in
it."[235] In the formation of his ministry he so far endeavored to carry
out the views which the King had suggested to Lord Melbourne in the
summer as to invite the co-operation of Mr. Stanley (who, by the death
of his grandfather, had recently become Lord Stanley) and Sir J. Graham,
who, as has been mentioned before, had retired from Lord Grey's cabinet.
A new name, that of "Conservative," had recently been invented for the
more moderate section of the old Tory party; and it was one which,
though Lord Grey had taunted them with it, as betraying a sense of shame
at adhering to their old colors, Peel was inclined to adopt for himself,
as chara