inclination to trust men whom they considered as
their betrayers, and they resisted them as statesmen who had abused
their power, and coalesced with their political antagonists, to force
upon the country a measure contrary to its opinions, interests, and
institutions. They resisted them, also, as politicians who, to effect
their purpose had abandoned their tenets, betrayed and surprised their
own confiding adherents, and introduced as a principle into the conduct
of government, that everything was to be granted which was demanded by
clamorous agitation. Between the Tories and the Whigs, the distance was
not greater than between the Tories and the ministry; and perhaps it was
not even so great, as the Whigs had not betrayed their opponents. The
Duke of Wellington, indeed, seems to have had some fear that the two
parties might coalesce, in order to effect his expulsion from power.
Nor was this fear without foundation. Neither party was in heart his
friends; and his own conduct had at once furnished the motives to such
an union, and removed one irreconcileable point of difference between
the parties whose union he feared. Moreover, in itself the ministry
was without the means of making any commanding figure in the house of
commons. With the exception of Mr. Peel, who filled the post of leader
in that house, there was no man who could fight their battles of debate
with any degree of talent and vigour, no one that held any high place in
public opinion, either for oratory or information. Finally, the ministry
increased their unpopularity by prosecutions for libel arising out of
the Catholic relief bill. While that bill was pending, the press had
given birth to much vehement and angry discussion, and some of the
papers having gone beyond the bounds of allowable invective, the
attorney-general resolved to crush them by ex-officio informations.
But these prosecutions were received with an universal dislike by
all parties in the country; and the temper in which the Whig
attorney-general conducted them, gave a severe blow to his public
character, and increased the unpopularity of the government.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

Parliament was opened by commission on the 4th of February. The royal
speech expressed satisfaction at the conclusion of war between Russia
and the Ottoman Porte, and alluded to the embarrassing affairs of
Portugal. Concerning the prevailing distress, it remarked:--"His majesty
laments that, notwithstanding