tion) are
resolved not to consent to alter the law, and that the Bill for
protecting the apprentices is gone out, they are resolved to
agitate as violently as they can, and, if possible, to stir up
the negroes to insurrection. These men of peace would prefer a
violent commotion in the West Indies, attended with every sort of
mischief to the slaves as well as to the planters, rather than
abandon their own schemes and notions, in which there is much
more of vanity and the love of meddling than of benevolence and
charity. The whole conduct of Sir Eardley Wilmot, who is only the
organ of a party, proves this; for, though well aware he could
take no advantage of his resolution, and that if nothing was done
to correct the effect of it, a great deal of excitement would be
produced in the colony, he nevertheless tried to shirk the
question when asked by John Russell to say distinctly what he
meant to do, and showed that his only object was to create a
difficulty, whatever might be the consequences, and to exhibit
himself to the country as the successful asserter of a principle.

[6] [The Right Hon. Edward John Stanley, afterwards second
Lord Stanley of Alderley, then Secretary of the
Treasury. He was familiarly called 'Ben' Stanley by his
friends.]

[Page Head: LORD BROUGHAM AND MR. HANDLEY.]

On Friday, at Exeter Hall, while engaged in the same cause,
Brougham got a severe rap on the knuckles from Mr. Handley--one
of those rebuffs to which, with all his talents, he exposes
himself, from his tricks and his violence, and, above all, his
want of truth. Brougham made a speech, in which he belaboured the
Ministry generally, and many of them by name, with his usual
acrimony. Handley, who had a resolution to move, said he
regretted to see the chairman prostitute the cause for which they
were assembled by making it the vehicle of abuse of the
Government, and thus venting his spite, disappointed ambition,
and mortified vanity; on which Brougham rose in a great rage, and
said he did not know who the gentleman was who, coming at the
eleventh hour, attacked him, who had been a labourer in the cause
for thirty years; to which the other retorted that he did not
know what he meant by his coming at the eleventh hour, that he
had been for many years in Parliament, and had voted against the
grant of twenty millions, and for immediate emancipation, in
opposition to the apprenticeship system, both of whic