John Russell, and Brougham recorded earnest protests
against any disparagement of Admiral Codrington's action. The
infatuation of the Porte, and the consequent war with Russia, checked
further agitation on the subject, and Wellington's government was able
to fall back on the policy of non-intervention proposed, though not
always practised, by Canning. But the reactionary tendency of
Wellington's foreign policy betrayed in the king's speech had its effect
in alienating the more liberal of his colleagues. Nor was his position
strengthened by his irresolute home policy. During the session of 1828
issues were raised which inevitably divided and ultimately broke up the
cabinet.

[Pageheading: _TEST ACTS REPEALED._]

The first of these difficulties was caused by the success of Lord John
Russell's motion for the repeal of the test and corporation acts, under
which dissenters were precluded from holding municipal and other
offices. It was, indeed, a grave blot on the consistency of reformers
that, while the claims of Roman catholics, and especially of Irish Roman
catholics, had been vehemently urged for nearly thirty years, those of
protestant nonconformists had been coldly neglected. Their legal
disabilities, it is true, had gradually become almost nominal, and an
indemnity act was passed yearly to cover the constant breaches of the
obnoxious law. Still, the law was maintained, and was stoutly defended
by such tories as Eldon on the principle that it was an important
outwork of the union between Church and State. Even the Canningite
members of the government supported it against Russell's attack, but on
the very opposite ground--that it had become a dead letter. However, the
measure for its repeal was carried in the house of commons by a majority
of forty-four, including some well-known Churchmen. This measure would
assuredly have been rejected in the house of lords had not Peel
judiciously procured the insertion of a clause substituting for the
sacramental test a declaration binding the office-holder to do nothing
hostile to the Church. Thus modified, it passed the house of lords, with
the assent of several bishops, in spite of the implacable opposition of
Lords Eldon and Redesdale, and the Duke of Cumberland. But the
declaration was amended by the addition of the words "upon the true
faith of a Christian," which incidentally continued the statutable
exclusion of Jews.

The enforced acceptance of this enactment was equival