the dismissal of the preceding
ministry is generally considered to have been, even in the interest of
the Conservatives themselves. But inexpedient the dissolution can hardly
be pronounced to have been, since, though the new election failed to
give them a majority in the House of Commons, it beyond all doubt
greatly strengthened their minority. On the other hand, though it cannot
be denied that the House of Commons has a perfect right to express its
disapproval of any or every act of the minister, it is not so clear that
Lord Morpeth's invitation to it to express its dissatisfaction with this
particular act of dissolution was, on general principles, expedient or
safe; since such a vote is making a perilous approach to claiming for
the House the right of being asked for its consent to its own
dissolution, a claim the admission of which had been one of the most
fatal, if not the most fatal, of all the concessions of Charles I.

As to the Duke of Wellington's assumption of a variety of offices, it is
probable that when he first proposed to the King to confer them on him,
he anticipated no objection whatever from any quarter, since he had so
little idea of there being any impropriety in holding two offices, were
they ever so apparently incongruous, if his Majesty should have directed
him to do so, that seven years before, when he became Prime-minister, he
had at first designed permanently to retain the command of the army in
conjunction with the Treasury, and had only been induced to abandon the
intention by the urgent remonstrance of Sir Robert Peel; and,
constitutionally, there does not seem to be any limitation of the
sovereign's power to confer offices, to unite or to divide them. Indeed,
the different Secretary-ships of State seem to owe their existence
entirely to his will, and not to any act of Parliament. He can diminish
the number, if he should think fit, as he did in 1782, when, on the
termination of the American war, he forbore to appoint a successor to
Lord George Germaine, in Lord Rockingham's administration; or he can
increase the numbers, as he did in 1794, when he revived the third
Secretaryship, which he had suppressed twelve years before, without any
act of Parliament being passed to direct either the suspension or the
revival. He can even leave the most important offices vacant, and
intrust the performance of their duties to a commission, as was done in
this very year 1835, when the Great Seal was put in