heir popularity may be said to have
continued on the decline. One of the principal grounds in this change is
to be found in the connection of government with the agitator O'Connell.
Although that gentleman had rendered many services to the cause of
reform, yet his delinquencies were so many, that he never enjoyed the
sympathy of any considerable mass of the English people. Moreover,
popery, of which he was one of the leaders, is still unpopular in
this country, and the Conservatives sedulously took advantage of the
connection of the ministers with him to raise apprehensions of Romanist
intrigue and encroachment. This was, therefore, a great source of
embarrassment to the ministry; and yet they could not offend this man
of the people of Ireland by standing aloof from him. Another cause
of embarrassment was the movement of the people calling themselves
Chartists.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

Parliament was opened by the queen in person on the 6th of February.
The speech referred to the discontents in England and Ireland and the
insurrection in Canada, and recommended improvements in the law, and
reforms as the remedy for this state of things, while it expressed a
determination to maintain the authority of the crown.

The addresses in the lords and commons were, as usual, the occasion of
long party debates, in which all the irritating topics of the day were
made the most of by the opposition. The affairs of Ireland and the
East occupied the greatest prominence; next to these, Chartism and
the general distress; while Canada and the Iberian peninsula afforded
fertile subjects for the opposition speakers, with which to annoy the
government. Free-trade, and the duties on the importation of corn,
became a subject of important debate at this juncture. In the commons
Sir Robert Peel threw himself, acrimoniously, and with all his energy,
into this controversy, and used all the exploded arguments of the
protectionists with the air of one who for the first time urged them
upon the house. Mr. Villiers severely chastised the protectionist
champion, showing how unscrupulously he played the part of a plagiarist
even in the sophisms he employed. Mr. Duncombe had the bad taste to move
an amendment, which he knew there was no hope of carrying, or of finding
a tolerable minority to support, thus impeding the public business
without any counterpoising benefit.

When the address was brought up, Mr. O'Connell animadverted in strong
lang