the Whigs--End of the Crisis--The Truth
of the Story.

London: February 24th, 1839 {p.170}

Hitherto the proceedings in Parliament have been sufficiently
languid and uninteresting. The debate on the Corn Laws, which was
expected to occupy two or three nights, went off in one, and a
great majority against hearing evidence, followed by no sort of
sensation, has set the question at rest for the present. Lord
Winchilsea brought on the Turton case in the House of Lords, when
Durham made a blustering, and Melbourne a prudent, moderate, and
satisfactory explanation. He had remonstrated against the
appointment, when Durham had replied that his honour was
concerned in it and he could not cancel it; and Melbourne said,
he did not think he should be justified in hazarding the great
objects of Durham's mission for such an object as Turton's
removal. Durham threatened, if anything more was said on the
subject, to bring forward the cases of all those who had been
guilty of a similar offence, and had afterwards held office. He
did not say what he had to say well, for he might have exposed
the cant of all this hubbub, and have asked Winchilsea, who
talked of sense of duty and so forth, and that he should have
done the same by his dearest friend, whether he had thought it
necessary to make a similar stir when Sir George Murray was
appointed Secretary of State; and, besides this _argumentum ad
hominem_, he might have asked, whether in point of fact it was an
admitted principle that those who had committed heavy offences
against the laws of morality should be therefore disqualified
from serving in a civil capacity. However the question is at an
end, and has gone off smoothly enough all things considered.[1]

[1] [Sir George Murray had run away with Lady Louisa
Erskine, whom he afterwards married. But Turton's
breach of morality was of a more serious character.
Mr., or as he afterwards became Sir Thomas, Turton had
been guilty of an intrigue with his sister-in-law,
which led to the dissolution of his marriage. On this
ground Lord Melbourne had objected to his going out to
Canada with Lord Durham in a public capacity; but Lord
Durham, with very bad taste, took him out in what he
was pleased to call a private capacity. The public, as
this was a question of morals, were slow to accept this
distinction.]

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