er-in-chief; he cannot
make up his budget, or introduce any reform into the organization of
the army without seeking his opinion. No political sentiments, however,
would have prevented him from retaining this office under ordinary
circumstances, but from the tone and tenor of the communications he had
received from his majesty, from the nature of the invitation given to
him by the right; honourable gentleman in his first letter, and from
the contents of the last, which he had received from Mr. Canning by
his majesty's commands, he saw that he could not remain with credit to
himself or advantage to the country: his line of conduct had not been
hastily adopted, though he had been wantonly and unjustly abused. The
other seceding peers justified their retirement generally on the same
ground of political principles which had been taken by the Duke of
Wellington, except that Lord Melville and Lord Bathurst expressed an
opinion, that without such men as his grace, Lord Eldon, and Mr. Peel,
no administration could be formed possessing sufficient stability and
capacity for the government of the country. The task of defending the
new administration fell to the lot of Lord Goderich, who declared that,
so far from casting any imputation of conspiracy among, and cabal on his
former colleagues, he believed that if there had been more communication
among them, much of the mischief and disorder which had occurred
might have been prevented. If the government was not constituted in
a satisfactory manner, it was not the fault of either himself or
his honourable and noble friends. Mr. Canning had sought to keep the
elements of the late ministry together; but they had fallen away: and
was he to say to his majesty, "I will run away, and leave you in such a
predicament as no sovereign was ever placed in before?" The Marquis of
Lansdowne finally explained the principles, and defended the propriety
of the coalition of parties; and he justified it on the grounds which
had been made in the lower house--the identity between the principles of
his party and the spirit of the measures which government had for some
time been pursuing, in regard both to foreign and domestic policy. From
his statement it appeared that the overtures of alliance had come under
the sanction of the king from the ministry; for, he said, when the
individuals with whom the formation of a government rested brought
to him his majesty's commands, he felt it no less his duty than hi