turning out ministers until they had completed the great
measure of reform. A great deal remained to be done, and he wanted to
see a new election take place; he was determined, therefore, to support
ministers. The conduct of Mr. Hume was followed generally by the
liberal party, and this policy of the extreme sections of liberals alone
preserved ministers in office. Another interesting subject was brought
before the house by Mr. Lytton Bulwer, relating to the Germanic states.
He moved for "an address to the king, requesting his majesty to exert
his influence with the diet in opposition to the course which that body
was then pursuing." In making this motion, Mr. Bulwer traced an outline
of the political history of the Germanic confederacy, from its free
government to its termination with the victories of Austerlitz and Jena,
when the principle of aggrandizing the larger states at the expense of
the smaller was first avowed and practised. He said that the defeat
of Napoleon in his Russian campaign gave to Germany the opportunity of
casting off a yoke which had been reluctantly borne. Russia and Prussia
then appealed to her former free constitutions, the restoration of which
was distinctly promised, when the Germanic states rose _en masse_; and
the battle of Leipsic, with the downfall of the French power, speedily
followed. By the second article of the congress of Vienna, he continued,
the promises of Russia and Prussia were respected, and the rights of
every class in the nation were solemnly guaranteed, the only state
disagreeing being Wurtemburg. The late protocol of the diet, however,
had for its object the rendering of the representative bodies of the
several states useless, by relieving their despotic princes from every
embarrassment which an efficient control by such assemblies might
create, and to protect Austria and Prussia against the influential
example of popular institutions. The sovereigns of these two states, he
said, are willing to give just so much constitutional liberty to Germany
as will not allow its writers to write, its professors to teach, its
chambers to vote taxes, make speeches, or propose resolutions; whilst
every state should be so inviolate, so independent, that, with or
without the invitation of its sovereign, a deputation of Austrian or
Prussian hussars may be sent to keep it in order! The question was,
therefore, was it politic for England, under such circumstances, to
interfere? Our situation,