7th
of March; and the resolutions were carried, after a division on an
amendment moved by Mr. Hume. A bill founded on them was brought in; and
on the second reading the opposition to it on the part of the landed
interest was renewed with undiminished hostility. Sir Thomas Lethbridge
described the bill as one which ought to be entitled, "An act for the
more effectual encouragement of speculation in the corn-trade, the more
rapid diminution of the growth of grain in Great Britain, and the better
encouragement of the growth of grain in other countries for the supply
of the British market." He moved as an amendment, that the bill should
be read a second time on that day six months; and its supporters gave
ministers to understand that the success of the bill would deprive them,
in regard to certain other questions connected with expenditure, of the
customary support of their most valued friends. If the price of corn was
reduced, they said, everything else ought equally to be reduced. Were
ministers then ready, they asked, to reduce the taxes? The defence of
the bill was chiefly undertaken by Mr. Grant, the vice-president of
the board of trade, who entered into an elaborate view of the whole
question. Possessing, as the landowners did, the law of 1815, it was
necessary, he said, to show some good reason for the change proposed;
and he found a most satisfactory reason in the fact that the law had
failed in every one of the objects which had been contemplated in its
enactment. The intention of that law had been to effect three objects;
namely, uniformity of price, protection to the farmer, and independence
of foreign supplies; but it was notorious that the law had not answered
any one of these purposes. The amendment was pressed to a division; and
the second reading of the bill was carried by a majority of two hundred
and forty-three to seventy-eight. It subsequently passed a committee
with no other alteration than a clause, authorizing the king to
prohibit, by an order in council, the importation of grain from any
country where British vessels should be subject to a higher duty than
was imposed on the vessels of such country coming to British ports. The
bill was finally read a third time, and passed on the 12th of April, on
which day the house adjourned for the Easter holidays.

DISSOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY.

About the middle of February the Earl of Liverpool was suddenly attacked
by a paralytic stroke. By the end of Mar