to without a division. This was followed by a
motion on the part of the chancellor of the exchequer for a loan of
L200,000 to certain of the West-India colonies. On the 10th of June
Lord John Russell proposed certain remedial measures for the West-India
colonies, which gave rise to long and intensely bitter discussions; but
the government succeeded in carrying substantially through parliament
its proposals. During these discussions Mr. Hume made himself very
conspicuous as a champion of the West-India planters, and showed an
indifference to the rights, liberties, and interests of the labourers,
irreconcilable with correct views of civil and religious liberty, and
with the honourable member's own professed liberalism where popular
claims were concerned. The part taken by Mr. Bright gave great offence
to the anti-slavery party, who considered it more consistent with his
interests as a Lancashire cottonspinner, than with his profession as
a quaker and an antislavery man. In the course of these debates, Lord
George Bentinck, in indignant terms, denounced Lord Grey, as the head of
the Colonial-office, for returning to parliament garbled extracts from
the reports and despatches of colonial governors. In the lords, Earl
Grey defended his conduct from this imputation; but Lord Stanley, with
uncommon eloquence, reiterated the charge. No public man ever came out
of a personal discussion less favourable than the noble minister for
the colonies on this occasion. The simple truth evoked was, that while
a committee of the house supposed that they were possessed of full and
complete reports, they were supplied with only curt and crude extracts,
calculated to place matters in the ministerial light, but not really
affording the committee the opinions of those whose views they purported
to be. This practice was, unfortunately, common with great officers of
state; but it seemed to be so much beneath the high reputation of Earl
Grey, that the public were astonished and scandalised. Few modern events
tended more to destroy the popular confidence in eminent public men, and
with the people Lord Grey never recovered his popularity. He had been
guilty of a trick which ought to have been punishable by parliament, for
it was incompatible with all just views of ministerial responsibility.

_Financial Measures of the Government_.--The Whigs had for some time
proved themselves to be indifferent financiers. In this respect Sir R.
Peel had for years ma