ies of the wealthy." The
Governor dissolved the Assembly, but that which succeeded re-adopted the
resolutions of its predecessor, and the ministers, in consequence,
brought in a bill "to suspend the existing constitution of the island
for a limited number of years, and to provide that during that interval
its legislative functions should not be exercised by a Governor, a
Council, and a House of Assembly, but should reside in the Governor and
Council alone." The emergency was too great and undeniable, the remedy
proposed was also too unprecedented in its stringency, to be dealt with
without the gravest deliberation; and the House of Commons accordingly
gave the matter the patient consideration which became both it and
themselves. They allowed the island to appear by counsel against the
bill, and listened for many hours to an elaborate defence of the conduct
of the Assembly, which if it failed to change the intention of the
ministers, convinced Sir Robert Peel and his party that their measure
was doubtful in its justification and impolitic in its severity. He
pointed out that "the bill was neither more nor less than one for the
establishment of a complete despotism--one which would establish the
most unqualified, unchecked, unmitigated power that was ever yet applied
to the government of any community, in place of that liberal system
which had prevailed for upward of one hundred and fifty years." And,
though he did not for a moment question the power of Parliament to pass
such a measure, he greatly doubted the policy of such an exertion of it.
A somewhat similar measure affecting Canada they had been compelled to
enact in the preceding year, and he feared lest "it might seem to be
coming to be a practice of Parliament to suspend a constitution every
session." And he quoted a speech of Canning, delivered fifteen years
before, in which that eloquent statesman, a man by no means inclined to
a timorous policy, had declared that "no feeling of wounded pride, no
motive of questionable expediency, nothing short of real and
demonstrable necessity, should ever induce him to moot the awful
question of the transcendental power of Parliament over every dependency
of the British crown. That transcendental power was an ordinance of
empire, which ought to be kept back within the penetralia of the
constitution. It exists, but it should be veiled. It should not be
produced on trifling occasions, or in cases of petty refractoriness or
tempo